Turning Fanfiction Into the Hardcover Book it Deserves

I now have a Google Doc template for formatting fanfiction available on Patreon!

Big thanks to Bunflower for letting me use their fic!

All art used in the video and thumbnail was made by @WolfyTheWitch
for Bones in the Ocean

Check out @SeaLemonDIY and her text block tutorial here

Download Adobe Acrobat Reader here

In this video, I show you how you can turn any fanfiction into the hardcover book that it deserves. This easy and beginner-friendly method of bookbinding takes an old book and rebinds it into fanfiction. I explain how to take Ao3 fanfic and print it into signatures for bookbinding. This method could also be applied if you wanted to make a book out of your own writing. For this book, I picked the fic "Bones in the Ocean", A Dream SMP SBI Pirate AU that follows the adventures of Captain Technoblade and Philza on their unlikely pirate adventure. Along with their pirate crew including Tommy, Tubbo, Ranboo, Jack, Nikie, Eret, and more.

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Supplies:
• Old/Used Hardcover Book
• Ruler
• Pencil/Pen
• PVA Glue
• Scissors
• Exacto Knife/ Box Cutter
• Thumb Tack
• Waxed Sewing Thread
• Sewing Needle

0:00 Intro
1:00 Really Cool and funny ad that you shouldn't skip
2:43 Book Prep
4:12 Page Design
6:43 Printing
8:55 Prepping Signatures
10:18 Sewing
13:18 Mid Video Rant
14:41 The Cover
17:20 The Final Book

[JessLess]

I now have a Google Doc template for formatting fanfiction available on Patreon!

[maskedwriter]

Imagine someone one day in the future finding this in a thrift store and thinking “wow! This book is so old and interesting!” And they find out it’s a fanfic about minecraft block people but pirates. I love it.

[andrewcastro]

imagine a full library full of nothing but fanfic

[euphoriasings]

i turned a fanfic called 'More Like You' into a hardcover book as a gift for a friend and used a handmade cover with my art for the fanfic, my friend told the fanfic author about it. And the author loved it so much they commissioned me to design the cover for their original book! I wanted to come back and thankyou. It because of this video that i stumbled upon on a random day that these chain of events happened. Thank you so much @Jess Less

[fangurks]

"I mean, I knew this fic was 80 thousand words but-"

Me, slowly closing the tab with the 500K+ word fic I was contemplating to print: oh

[saradebarros]

The thought of physically holding a fan fiction that I love makes my tiny little lizard brain vibrate 😩

[tarabaumgarten]

Imagine getting your friend a hardcover of their favourite fanfic for their birthday.
Imagine your friend getting you a hardcover of your favourite fanfic for your birthday.

[violingineer]

Tips:
Remember to double check that you didn't lose any formatting when copying over: italics, different fonts, page breaks.
If you want to avoid page trimming, measure what paper you have (should be 8 1/2" by 11") and look for books where the pages are around 5 1/2" by 8 1/2" (the big page folded in half).
If you're using Word to add page numbers, check under Headers & Footers for an option called "Different Odd & Even Pages." If you check that box, you can make your odd pages have numbers on the bottom right and your even pages have numbers on the bottom left, so they'll always be in the outside corner (always good to double check with a test page or two).
Addition to the last point: There should be a way to break your book into two sections: One for the title page and table of contents, and one for the rest of the book. If you do it correctly, you can have page numbers -start- at chapter 1, instead of the book plate. I do need to google this step every time though, as it's complicated.
Control+f Is your friend! I use it to double check that the work is consistent (Nick names being capitalized, "six-year-old" being always hyphenated or never, redhead being always one word or always two, etc.)
If you feel up to it, go ahead and do a run of editing over the work. I'm doing minimal changes; basically fixing typos I find and altering sentences that read weird to me.
If you do not fear embarrassment, see if your school has free printing. I try to print only 20 pages at a time, so it doesn't look like I'm pirating a textbook or anything.

[annettehernandez]

Any time a person says fanfic is bad just remember. Ullyses by James Joyce is a fanfic of the odyssey, Song of Achilles is a fanfic of the Illiad, interview with a vampire is a fanfic of Dracula, and the Arthurian legend is just a ridiculously long fanfic of the original story.

[viendoonepieceporprimerave]

The font she used for the title ''Bones in the ocean'' is called Castellar, in case someone needs it!!

[ClaireJamesLadybug]

Alright, who's brave enough to turn "My Immortal" into a book?

[-itserinaye-]

Some of my favourite DSMP (mainly sbi) fics:
- Tommyinnit’s Clinic for Supervillians by bonesandthebees (finished)
- Ours Poetica by Zeeskeit (unfinished)
- This is Not an Act of Spite by Alex_Wants_To_Die and ellabellachicketychella (unfinished)
- Hush Now (You Were Lost but Now You’re Found) by CorpseArt (unfinished)

Also I would recommend basically all of bonesandthebees fics, their writing style is so nice and fluid!

[katsukisshoes]

I desperately need to do this with all of my AO3 bookmarks. I also think it'd be cool to combine a bunch of one-shots from the same fandom into one book - so it's a sort of collection of "short stories."

[darkpaca]

a few years ago I looked into "where can I get a book printed online" but realized having a 900k fic printed at an online store is a a pain in the ass so I gave up, never considered actually binding it myself....now I might give that a try some time HMMM

[CosmicPhoenixVT]

I've been binding fanfic for years now, I have well over 200 different fanfics of varying sizes, and some with multiple volumes too. And I'm so glad to see other fans doing this as well! Thanks Jess for adding more fans to this niche craft! I cant wait to see what you do next :D

[Luzura_]

I watched this and immediately begged my dad to take me to a second hand bookstore. The whole trip I was like “I’m gonna tear this book apart~”
Two days of formatting and one day of folding and I’m almost done!! I’ve got some glueing left but by the end of today I hope to have a hardcover copy of Several Witches Are Typing by azhdarchidaen!

It’s an Owl House fic and it’s reallyreallyreallyreally good!!!

[Charlottiepops]

I've been thinking about doing this with Passerine but I didn't know where to get started, Jess my saviour 🙌

[K.OrmeBooks]

My mother works in a library where she repairs books. Sometimes, the books are so old that they go to be recycled to be made into new books. But this time ahahah she saved me the hardcover shells of four (4) books. It is time for me to print out that PremingerxOC fanfic ahaha.

[Linkskyfyre]

Man, if someone did this for my fanfic, my life would be complete. There is no reward that money can buy that could top this. The dedication it takes to do this project for the love of someone else's story is insane. The real MVPs are the fans that read these works and this is the reason why we write. And I think I can speak on behalf of others who write that If we can just make one person's day better by tapping into their imagination, it makes everything all worthwhile. Congrats to the fellow who had their story enshrined in physical history.

[cupcakegamer]

As soon as “This is Not an Act of Spite” is finished it is becoming a book, thank you for the tutorial!