#david reinking

Part 1 covers the introduction of Chapter 4, The Bookbinders

Part 2 covers the methodology of this chapter and the bookbinders’ motivations

Part 3 covers how ficbinding completes the fanfiction circuit via reciprocation

Part 5 covers how ficbinding reveals the tensions of material preservation

Complication: Bookbinding Fic v. Traditional Publishing

While producing these books is resource-heavy, bookbinders challenge the notion that only the worthiest information merits the cost of book production and that only traditional publishing methods can establish a work’s worth [1]. One binder has stated on their Tumblr and in interviews that they seek to bind works that would never be published by traditional publishing houses [2]. Bookbinders undertake this expensive hobby because they enjoy it and it is meaningful to them, attending to the ‘felt life’ of reading over commercial motivation. Their not-for-profit, private practice inverses the public circulation, for-profit model of book production that dominates the narrative of book publishing.

There are a few stages to a bookbinding project, and the range of time spent on any stage differs per binder. In general, formatting a fic in a desktop publishing program (Word, InDesign, or Affinity Publisher, the three most popular programs) takes anywhere between 2-12 hours, or 4 hours for a 150- to 200-page work. Folding, sewing, gluing, and casing takes 3-5 hours; producing one book can take anywhere from 8 to 20 hours. Some binders group tasks, such as cutting down papers or bookcloths. The amount of time spent per day also varies; as this is a hobby, some dedicate a few days per week and most work in 3- or 4-hour bursts. Besides one binder who prints using Lulu, an on-demand self-publishing service, and one who prints at Staples, all the binders print the works at home. The lack of outsourcing aspects of production emphasizes the binders’ dedication to the autodidactic craft.

Bookbinding is an expensive hobby. In response to the question ‘what would you guess is the unit cost of a volume?’, the binders lamented their expenses (‘That’s such a painful question. If I figure it out, I might cry’). One binder wrote that the material costs of a small, 100-page book printed using inexpensive papers are about $12.50. In contrast, ‘For a large 500-page book I make two copies of, use premium text paper for the block and hand-marbled papers on the case, then ship one to Europe, the cost of materials and shipping is $104.00’. Another binder calculated his labor costs, writing ‘if I'm also investing at least US$96 of my own time for each individual volume (considering myself a novice and assuming my office's starting salary of $16/h), then each volume still can be called about $112. Holy shit!’ One binder wrote that she is ‘very focused on the cost of supplies’ and often recycles materials, like thrifting a leather skirt for covers, waxing her own cotton thread, and using package cardboard for boards, making her biggest cost printing at Staples. The combined cost with no monetary return signals that these binders bind fic because the works have value as art and objects, not simply as profitable entities.

In the literary marketplace, this kind of self-publishing is often devalued because it is for pleasure, without a known locale of production, and is separate from the institutions of publishing [3]. The value of a book is not only tied to its circulation and profit, but who is circulating and profiting from that work [4]. Bookbinding fic challenges this marginalization by suggesting that the value of a work is tied to the personal relationship with that work, the effort expended putting it into a new form, and sharing it with the author.

Despite these costs, the majority of binders are disinterested in or uncomfortable with commissions, a hesitance partially related to fandom’s gift-giving ethic. Six binders noted that they have known the history of gift-giving in fandom or understood it implicitly and five binders absorbed this knowledge through fandom spaces or ArmoredSuperHeavy’s Tumblr. Two binders specifically noted that they want to preserve ‘rare and precious phenomenon’ of the fandom gift economy, especially as younger fans seek to capitalize off their work—older fans are indeed more committed to fic as not-for-profit and fandom as an amateur enterprise [5]. For four of the binders, bookbinding is the first or an additional way they have participated in fandom gift culture, alongside fic exchanges and fanart.

To argue that the binders avoid for-profit production exclusively because of fandom’s gift-giving ethos would be disingenuous. Rather, accepting and pricing commissions is tricky for a fleet of reasons: one binder found that taking commissions ‘chang(ed) the dynamic between me and the author and the commissioner—they were customers now, I had a deadline’. Setting a fair wage pushes the volume price to $275-$350, or even higher. All of the bookbinders are aware of the value of their labor; they noted that a fair wage would price one of their books well out of reach for an average buyer. Regardless, none of them actively bind fic for the financial incentive, rather for artistic and altruistic reasons. Three binders noted that they are still beginners and would not feel comfortable selling a project without more experience. Four binders wrote that they would accept binding commissions that covered the cost of materials, but did not want to bind fic to avoid profiting off of other’s work. Only one binder wrote that they would do commissions and noted that the price tag is high: ‘a full leather hand-bound [book] would retail for about $600. Most artist books retail around $200-$300. I’d probably ask for similar amounts to the artist books, around $150-$200’. As such, the hesitation around commissions is not necessarily an adherence to fandom’s gift-giving ethos (although that is present), rather it is a confluence of hesitations of working-for-pay, fair wages, and not exploiting other’s work. The attitudes towards commissions, persistence in this costly hobby, and valuation of work alter the meaning of book production.

Citations

David Reinking, Valuing Reading, Writing, and Books in a Post-Typographic World’, in A History of the Book in America: Volume 5: Enduring the Book, p.491.

Conjoined, ‘Episode 15: I’m a bloodhound for the gay stuff’, Interview with ArmoredSuperHeavy, 1 Feb 2020 [Accessed 29 September 2020].

Coker, ‘The margins of print?’, 2.6. Fanfiction is a women-dominant space, and many of women’s acceptable leisure activities are tied to utility rather than leisure. Fic writers are thus doubly marginalized for not capitalizing on their hobby when that opportunity exists and because their time is socially constrained by expectations of productivity.

Cupidsbow, ‘Women/Writing 1: How Fanfiction Makes Us Poor’, livejournal, 26 April, 2007, [Accessed 29 September 2020]; Coker, 2.6.