Print & Bind
Your manuscript, thesis, or family recipes, printed properly and bound by hand into a book that will outlive the file it came from.
For books that don't exist yet
Some books have never been books. A dissertation that only exists as a PDF. A grandmother's recipes typed up from index cards. A novel you finished and want to hold. I print those and bind them by hand, sewn in signatures, in a hardcover made to your specification.
You send the file. I tell you what it needs, what it will cost, and how long it will take — in writing, before any money changes hands.
What's included
✦ Professional printing — clean, properly formatted pages on good paper, not a home-printer job. If your file is print-ready, that's included. If it needs real typesetting, that's quoted separately at $30/hour, and I'll tell you which one yours is before we start.
✦ Sewn binding — signatures sewn on tapes, not glued at the spine. It opens flat, it stays shut, and it doesn't shed pages in ten years.
✦ A cover designed with you — bookcloth or leather, with vinyl, hot foil, embossing or engraving. You choose the colour and the lettering; I'll tell you what works on the material.
✦ Lifetime warranty — if the binding fails in normal use, bring it back and I'll fix it.
Dissertations & Theses
order one right now!
Dissertation binding is the work I do most, so I've made it simple: pick your cloth color and page count, pay, and I'll send you a link to upload your PDF. No estimate, no back-and-forth, no waiting on me to reply.
From $125 — 8.5" × 11", hand-sewn, Library Summit cloth that shrugs off water and mildew, marbled endpapers matched to your color, and your university logo on the back cover at no extra charge.
Need more than one copy, more than 500 pages, or something fully custom? Get in touch and I'll price it properly.
Some books I've made
Sunsets & Ashes
A short story collection, printed and bound in two copies. Gray bookcloth, silver and black HTV cover, silver corner protectors, jacquard ribbon marker.
The Contract
A print and bind in blue bookcloth with HTV cover art. The copy on the left wears its printed dust jacket; the one on the right shows the cover underneath.
Sarah's Recipe Book
A fully typeset family recipe collection in full leather, black HTV border, silver HTV title and spine.
Pricing & Process
Dissertations and theses have their own fixed pricing — from $125, ordered straight from the shop. Everything below is for custom work.
Most custom print & bind projects run $200–350. Something with typesetting, custom endpapers, sprayed edges and a dust jacket lands nearer $350–500.
Labor is $60 an hour with a $150 minimum for the whole job, and materials are quoted separately. I estimate labor as a range and bill the hours your book actually takes. If it's going to run past the top of the range, I'll tell you before I carry on.
Typical turnaround is 6–10 weeks from the day your deposit clears. Send me your file and I'll quote it properly.
| Rate | What it's for | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| $60/hour | Fully custom work | Two-hour minimum. Design time and project management included. |
| $45/hour | Mending & repair | $45 minimum per book — even a quick fix needs a night under weight. |
| $30/hour | Semi-custom templates | Designs from my shop. Known specs, so the time is predictable. |
| $30/hour | Typesetting | Print & bind only, if you'd like me to lay out your file. |
| $15/hour | Machine time | Foiling and engraving — I can't leave the room while it runs. |
Yes, fanfic…with one rule
I bind fanfiction only with the author's permission, and I don't take commissions to bind someone else's work without it. If it's your own writing, send it over. If you want a bound copy of a fic you love, a kit is the way; you get the materials and instructions, and you print and bind it yourself.
Send me your file
Tell me what it is, roughly how long, and what you want it to look like. I'll come back with a written estimate, itemized, with a range for the labor and the real cost of materials.