Binding books- Part 5: Putting it all together

Welcome to the end of this series telling you how to make a hardcover book.  We are on the home stretch now- by the end of this tutorial you should have a finished book in your hand.

So what you need today is:

• Your finished textblock, decorated with headbands and a bookmark if you choose (see part 2 and 3)
• Your finished cover (see part 4)
• Some newspaper and scrap paper (to absorb glue moisture and to protect your textblock
• Glue (I use acid free PVA)
• Two pieces of nice paper the same size as you printed your book on for the endpapers (A4 in my case)
• Some baking paper or some plastic- this is to form a waterproof barrier to prevent moisture passing into your textblock when gluing the cover on, causing your paper to wrinkle
• Heavy books for weighing things down

The first step is to protect your textblock from glue moisture wrinkling your pages.  What I do is use a piece of baking paper that sits between the last page of the text block and the fabric you backed your text block with.  It will also prevent the paper from sticking to the cover.

Baking paper between the layer you wish to glue and the layer you wish to protect (your text block) will prevent moisture from wrinkling pages.

Your book is to sit with the back of the textblock aligned with the edge of the coverboard.  Place glue where the fabric from the text block sits.  (A variation in binding you could do if you have a spare blank page at the start and end of the book would be to glue the entire page including fabric down.  If you were doing this you would want to place the baking paper between the last and second last page).

Glue on the inside back cover where the fabric of the text block will sit

 Place the text block down, ensuring the baking paper is in place and place weights on the text block.  Leave to dry.

Text block glued down- note the back of the text block is aligned with the edge of the back cover.

Once it is dry, you have a choice- you can glue the spine to the back of the text block or leave it.  If you have headbands on and choose to not glue the spine, you might like to glue a strip of paper to neaten things up a little (have the paper a bit shorter than the spine so it covers the scrap material and the spine but not the coloured threads).  If you choose to glue the spine to the text block, put a thin coat of glue on the spine of the cover at the same time as when you glue the front of the cover down.

The front cover is glued the same way as the back.  Place glue where the fabric will go and close the cover so it makes contact with the text block.  Again, the back of the text block should align with the edge of the cover board.  If gluing the spine, press down along the spine to ensure contact is made.  Place weights on your book and allow everything to dry.

The front cover is glued the same way as the back- this is what the inside of your cover should look like once the fabric is glued down.

 If you used a sewn binding, glue the textblock bands down separately over the fabric.

Once the fabric is glued down, glue your bands down on top of the fabric.

You're nearly done!  All that you have left is to do is to add some endpapers to the inside covers to hide that fabric and make it pretty.  Take your endpaper and fold it in half.  Put glue on the inside of the cover and glue the endpaper in place (it's a good idea to put newspaper ontop of this paper to absorb that moisture).  Place a weight onto your book and leave to dry.

Open up your book and turn to the page where you see the textblock and the endpaper.  You'll probably see a bit of the fabric binding and cover at the seamline.  To hide this, place a thin line of glue on the first page of the book (the textblock's first page).  This should be only 5mm wide or so.  Once the length of the page has the glue carefully close the book, ensuring that the endpaper folds and sits straight with the text of the book.  Put some scrap paper in between the first and second page of the book to absorb any excess moisture.  Again put weights on the book and leave to dry.

Bit hard to see, but this is the page glued, ready to close to stick the endpaper (purple) onto the edge of the textblock (white)

Do the same thing to glue the endpaper in to the other end of the book.  And... you're done!  You've just made your book.  If you choose, you might want to add something on the cover or spine- below is the Discworld Stamp Yearbook I made a few years ago for the first year of Discworld stamps.  For this book I printed out a label for the front and used a gold pen to label the spine.  I plan on doing the same for the volume I've just made once the glue dries.

Here's one I prepared earlier..

That's all there is to it.  I'll post pictures of the other books when the book dries.  And please let me know if you use these instructions!  I'd love to see your results and it would be nice to know if this was helpful for you.  Leave a comment or drop me an email.

Binding books- Part 4b: Making the cover

Welcome to part 4b- preparing the covers.  If you have not already read it, you should really read part 4a where I talk about how to prepare the materials you need for the cover.  And if you're new to the blog then you might want to go further back to see the earlier steps in making your own book.

First step of making the cover is to ensure your spine material will be the right size.  Whether you are using paper for your spine or paper backed fabric, you want to make sure that your spine material is the thickness of your spine and about 5cm on each side (so if your spine was 1cm thick, you would want the material to be about 11cm wide).  The height doesn't matter at this point, as long as it is at least 5cm more than the height of your book- we'll trim it later.  Make sure the two long sides of your spine material are parallel and straight.

Have a nice flat, clean working area.  I also like to have some large, flat heavy weights to weight things down while drying as I work.  My university biology and biochemistry textbooks are ideal due to their size and weight but most science textbooks should be fine.  Failing that, large boards or boxes are good (novels tend to be a bit small- the weight does not end up being distributed evenly plus large piles often fall over when provoked).


Place your spine material right side down onto your working area (so black fabric side down for me).  Cover your cardboard spine with a even coat of glue and stick it in the centre of your spine material, ensuring it is nice parallel to the long edges.  Put a weight on it and allow it to dry.

My spine glued to the spine material.  When I measured this it turned out it wasn't entirely even so I trimmed the left and right sides after taking the photo to neaten things up.

At this point you have a choice.  Option 1: you cover the cover boards with your decorative paper first, then you glue the covered board to the spine.  This relies on you having a nice even edge of your spine material.  Option 2:  You glue the cover boards to the spine material first, then add the decorative paper afterwards.  Which you choose is largely a matter of aesthetics.  I prefer to have the fabric material on the inside when using a fabric spine, but that is only because the fabric could fray over time if not 100% glued down.  If your spine is paper then it doesn't matter either way.  Just do what you think will look best.  If you are going to cover your cover boards first, then skip ahead to see a few tips about covering them then come back here when you're done.  On this book I'm going to glue the boards to the spine material, then add the decorative paper.

When you glue your covers down, you don't want the cover to be right next to the spine- if so you'll never be able to shut your book!  What you need to do, its leave a good gap between the spine and the cover so the paper or fabric has room to bend around (remember, it's going to have to bend 90 degrees).  I leave a gap of 0.8 cm from the spine of the book to the cover.  And to ensure the gap is nice and even, I use a few scrap bits of card cut the width that I like.  If you don't want to do this, just use a ruler to ensure that your book cover is not wonky relative to the spine.  Cover the spine material with glue (but NOT the area where the spine spacer goes) and place the cover in place.  Ensure the cover is in line with the spine and that you've left a 1cm gap between the edge of the cover and the spine.  Place weights onto the covers and leave to dry.

Both covers glued down.  The right side still has the book spine spacer (a bit of card cut to size) still in place.
PS- sorry for the bad quality.  Inside photos in winter are fun...

Once it's dry, fold the top and bottom edges of the spine material over and glue down.  Use something blunt but hard to press the paper or material down next to the cover and spine.  Put weights on and let dry.

Top right you can see my 'bone' folder that I used to press the spine material down into the gap.  Alternatively you could use a ruler instead or something blunt with a hard edge.

 Next step is to put the cover on.  At this point you'll find it handy to have some newspaper around or a lot of scrap paper.  The reason for this is that paper loves to wrinkle when it gets wet, particularly when you are gluing large areas at once.  If you are not careful, it means your cover will wrinkle and leave nasty creases in your book cover.  When gluing your covers, as soon as you have glued down the paper, place newspaper on top along with a large, heavy weight (you may also want to put a clean piece of paper between your cover and the newspaper to prevent newsprint smudging).  The newspaper works great at drawing the moisture away from your book cover.

So to put your cover paper on, carefully cover your cover board with glue (thin even coat, not lots and lots that will ooze and make the paper soggy).  Because you want the paper to be stuck to the very edge, I also paint just the hard edge (the bit that will be nearest the spine).  Place the cover paper down onto the cover board, making sure the edge closest to the spine will be straight.  Place down on paper with weights to dry.

Painting the edge of the cover paper with glue will ensure there will be no unglued bit along the edge

Do the same thing for the other side.  Be careful that you have your cover paper the same distance from the spine as the first side or your book will look off balance.

One side of the cover paper glued down, the other being allowed to dry.  Note the book cover is face down on newspaper (and a clean piece of paper to prevent the newspaper smudging my cover) with heavy books on top (I knew that Biochemistry book would come in useful some day!)

When it is dry you can trim the cover paper if necessary.  It should be 3-4 cm from the edge of the cover paper on each side although the exact distance doesn't matter too much as it will be folded over and hidden later on in the process.

A quick note to those who wanted to cover their cover boards before attaching them to the spine material.  In this case, what you first need to do is glue your cover board to the middle of your cover material.  Follow the instructions above for tips on how to prevent your paper from wrinkling while gluing.  Trim the paper to about 3-4 cm excess on each side then fold and glue down the edges as described below.

The next step is to fold the paper over to make everything neat.  Step one is to sort out the corners.  Trim your paper on a 45 degree angle to the corner, so that at the tip of the cover board there is at least 3 times the thickness of the cover board.

Now fold over the paper on the 45 degree angle and glue down.  Use a bone folder or a ruler to press down the paper along the cover board to ensure it is completely stuck down.

Do this on every corner and let the glue dry.  You can now fold up the edges and glue them down.  Don't worry about the little bit of brown cover board because it will be hidden by the endpapers later.

Once all the sides are stuck down place the whole thing under weights again (ideally on some newspaper in case of any remaining moisture) and allow to dry overnight.

Those who covered their cover boards before adding the spine should now jump back up and follow the instructions to add the cover boards to the spine material.  The only thing you have to be particularly cautious of is ensuring the spine material is well glued along the edge so it won't lift over time.  However, be careful with your glue- too much and it will seep out and mark your cover.

That's your cover sorted.  Hope you have kept up so far.  Next tutorial will describe how to add your text block to the cover you just made to finish your book.

Outside of cover

Inside of cover

Binding books- Part 4a: Preparing the cover materials

Welcome to part 4a of my series on how to make a book.  This part talks about making the covers of your book but was such a long post and needs a lot of glue and wait steps so I decided to make it a two partpost.  Part A is really about preparing your materials and the types of binding.  Part B will be more about what do once you have all your materials prepped and ready to go.  Depending on your ambitions this may be as simple as 'get any old paper, cut boards to size' or could involve gluing fabric to paper or sourcing just the right paper.

Hard covered books are usually covered in one of three different materials.  The most traditional method is using leather, but leather expensive and requires some special techniques and tools that I know little about so I won't be talking about how to use it in this blog (well not unless I suddenly find a great deal of money and preferably a course to learn all the techniques at!).  Other materials are fabric, which is much cheaper and easier to handle than leather although still a medium on the 'pain in the arse' scale in my book, and paper, which is the cheapest and easiest!

Now if you look at hard cover books, there are traditionally three different types of binding: full, half and quarter.  In full binding, the whole book, front and back, is covered by a single piece of material.  The biggest catch in using this method on a small hobby basis is finding a piece of material a suitable size- it needs to be long enough to cover both covers and the spine and have room to be neatly folded over and stuck down.  If binding a A5 book (made from folded A4 pages) this means your cover material must be at least 5cm longer (and wider) than a piece of A4 paper.  Particularly if you have your heart set on leather, that gets expensive fast!

An alternative to full binding is half and quarter binding.  With these methods, traditionally the spine is covered in leather (for the strength, support and appearance), while the bulk of the covers are covered with something else- either paper or fabric.  In half bound books the corners are also covered with leather to give them a little extra support from knocks, wear and tear.

In this tutorial, I'm going to talk about making a quarter (or half) bound book.  I'm using a paper backed fabric for my spine, and coloured paper for the covers.  The advantage of this is that the fabric should be a bit more durable than paper, while the paper I use for the covers doesn't need to be large.  This meant I could get silly crafty with some plain A4 paper and a cardmaking mother's stash of cool supplies.

First your covers.  I use mounting board from my local art supply store.  The card is about 2 mm thick and should be difficult to bend.  Books have also been made using wooden boards and even molded paper mache boards but if this is your first attempt at book binding, I suggest sticking with something simple.  I don't recommend using corrugated card for something like this.  While it tends to be strong in one direction, it bends very easily along the lines of the corrugations which means that it won't take long for your book to start picking up creases.

If you place your text block onto the cover with the text block spine flush with the left edge of the cover, it should stick out about 3mm on the top and bottom of the cover and 3mm on the right.  For my A5 text block, I cut my covers to be 21.5 cm by 15.2 cm.  The spine of the book should be the same size as the cover and should be cut to be the width of the text block plus your two covers.  My spine is 1.2mm (which is actually a mm or two too small than these instructions but should be close enough to be fine).  I chose to keep it thicker because I know I'll be sticking quite a few things into the book when it's done which will expand it out a little.

Important safety tips cutting thick card.  Use a good quality, sharp knife.  The best way to cut yourself is to use a blunt knife- it can skip and slip when cutting, right into your finger.  Use a metal ruler (never plastic or wood) and use lots of thin cuts rather than trying to cut through the card in one pass.  And know where the band-aids are. Getting blood on your work is really annoying and messy.

Now for the spine material.  This material should be the width of your card spine above plus at least 5 cm on each side.  You can use paper if you wish, but on this book I'm going to use fabric backed with paper.  One benefit is that you can print onto the paper to make a labelled spine, although it does mean you have to be very careful in part B when you glue your spine card to the spine paper lest you have wonky writing.

To use fabric, the first step is to back your fabric with some paper.  Cut out a piece of paper the size of the fabric that you are going to back (and precut your fabric as well to save a bit of time).  On a clean, flat surface, place your paper down and then evenly coat it with glue.  I use pva glue thinned down a little with water and painted on with a thick paintbrush (but not too much water or the paper will wrinkle). You also don't want the glue to be too thick or watery because it will bleed through the fabric and leave a mark- pva when dry is permanent.  I have heard that using a flour based glue can be better for task but I've not tried it myself.

When your paper is ready, gently place your fabric on top and smooth down with your hands (making sure you don't have glue on your fingers and you don't press too hard so the glue will bleed through).  When flat and smooth, leave to dry and you then can trim the fabric paper to make the edges neat.

Fabric glued to paper- left is trimmed to make edges even.  White marks are due to *%& glue seeping through

So at this point you should have:

• Two cover boards cut to size (and should be the same size and a bit bigger than your text block)
• A spine cut from the same material as the cover boards.  This should be the same height as your cover boards and the same thickness as your text block
• Your spine material (paper or fabric backed paper) prepared and cut to size
• Your cover paper or material ready (as long as each is large enough to easily cover your cover boards the size is fine at this point- we'll trim it later as we work)

Stay tuned for the next post where I show you how to put all this together.  Now I have to go and see if my glue is dry yet for photos...

How to make your own book- Part 3: Special features

Before I move into describing how to bind your text block into the covers I thought I'd pause to talk about some special feature you may want to incorporate into your book.  Reason being that this is the perfect time to add features like an inbuilt book mark and book headbands.

Let's talk about adding a bookmark first.  These are often found in larger book such as bibles but not exclusively. My hard cover copy of 'The wit and wisdom of Discworld' also has a bookmark built in.  You can use many different types of material for a bookmark.  Traditionally these are made of a woven thread such as rayon.  It can be hard to track down, but I've found it once or twice in Spotlight, a larger sewing supply store in my area where it can be found with the laces and other trims.  Colours tend to be limited even if you can track it down but if you were keen you could try dying them (make sure they are dry and the ink doesn't rub off before you use them if you try this- otherwise you'll end up with dye rubbed into your book pages).

An alternative could be a ribbon in a coordinating colour, or you could braid some embroidery cotton or floss together- as long as your bookmark material is reasonably flat (otherwise over time it might deform your pages when sandwiched in your book for a long time).   Attaching your bookmark is very simple- just glue it to the spine of your text block, ensuring it is long enough to go up, over the top of the spine and then down past the bottom of the page.  If you really want to ensure it will be in place for the long term, you might prefer to sew it onto your text block spine.

Now the headbands.  If you look at a hardcover book, you might notice there is a line of coloured threads at the top and bottom of the spine.  This is called a headband.  Historically, these are added to books to help prevent wear over time.  Think about a book sitting on a bookshelf in a row of other books.  You want to take Volume 2 of your Discworld Stamp Yearbooks off the shelf.  What do you do?  Put one or two fingers at the top of the spine and use downward pressure to pull the book outwards so you can then grip it.  That downward pressure over time is potentially going to damage your spine, pulling the spine of the cover away from the text.  What the headband does is provide reinforcement to the book spine to prevent this happening.

That said, these days most headbands are not added to perform this function, they are instead used simply as decorative elements.  The traditional sort is sewn over a leather band onto the spine of the text block.  This is the method I used on the book I bound below (on the left).  This was made using the excellent tutorial found on the Pied Crow Press blog.  The book on the right is 'The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld' and uses (as far as I can see) a pre-sewn headband that is for decorative purposes only.

Two different types of headband (and an example of a built in bookmark in the book on the right)

If you want to make a pre-sewn band, here's a fairly method I've come up with that requires a minimum of sewing skill.  The great advantage of either method is that you can use whatever colours you can get your hands on- and embroidery silks for example come in a LOT of different shades and types including silk, rayon, metalic threads, glow-in-the-dark and even colour changing threads (very very cool if you can get your hands on them!)

You will need:

• Some fabric- I use evenweave fabric (commonly used in cross stitch).  The even weave will help you keep the spacing of your sewing nice and even.
• Some pretty threads!  I'm planning on the cover of this book to be a purply sort of colour so I've chosen to use a purple rayon embroidery floss and a glow-in-the-dark embroidery floss (just because it's cool :P)
• Needle (enough said!)
• Bit of glue.  You could use a special 'Fray Stop' glue but any glue will work- pva for example.

Cut material, ready to use and and the threads

 Cut your fabric so it will be much longer than you need and about 5cm wide (exact width doesn't matter you just want enough so that if it frays, it won't fray up into your stitching.  Thread two needles with each colour.  I like to use 3 or 4 strands if I'm using typical 6 stranded embroidery floss but this is up to you.  More strands means your colours will be wider spaced, fewer strands means the colours will be closer together.

Fold your material in half, long ways.  The folded edge is what you'll be stitching over.  Using your first thread, make a stitch over the fold, attaching the thread any way you like- the only thing that will be seen at the end is the stitches over the fold so you don't have to be too neat.  Leave your thread hanging and use your other needle and thread to make a stitch right next to it.  Just repeat this pattern of stitching- the only real trick is to be careful not to tangle the threads together as you work.

Continue stitching until your headband is a few mm longer than the spine of the book you intend to use it on (see below).  Once it is the length you wish, tie off the ends. To ensure nothing frays, make sure the knots are not going to be inadvertently trimmed off.

To help ensure things don't fray, use glue on the material well away from the sewn threads (they often discolour and have a bad texture if glued.  You can see where the wet glue is on my headband below (the darker colour material).  You can also see my ultra high tech drying stand!

When it is dry, you can trim the headband much closer to the stitches (but try not to cut the stitches themselves or they will fray).  This can then be glued onto your book's text block.  If you are adding a bookmark, add this first.  Then trim the headband to size (it should just wrap around the spine) and glue the headbands into place, so the headband sticks up no more than a mm (or so just the colours of the thread are showing).

  There's all sorts of things you can play around with- there is no reason you could not add more colours, use different threads, even try adding seed beads for something very different.  Good luck!

Binding book pages together- sewing signatures together

Welcome to part 2b- sewing book signatures together (Part 2a involved a method to bind single or individual folded pages together).  Wait, what's a signature, I hear you say.  Isn't it the messy scrawl you write a hundred times without thinking but then muck up when you need to sign the back of your credit card?

Well, yes.  And no.  A quick run through on some book terms:

book:  a collection of papers joined together in some way.
spine:  the edge of the book where the pages are joined.

Pile of seven unbound signatures

leaf:  A single piece of paper or page that is part of a book
page: Similar to a leaf but generally refers to one side of the paper (eg, a leaf could be of page 57 with 58 on the other side)
folio: A single piece of paper folded in half.  This will become two leafs or four pages of  book.
signature or section:  a group of folios that are bound together as a unit
text block:  the pages between the covers of the book that form the bulk  This could be made of a single section or signature for a small book or of several signatures joined together for a larger book
endpapers:  Special papers on the inside front and back covers.  These are often decorated in some way, such as marbling.

So with that out of the way, let's get on with the show!  This tutorial covers binding sections together to make a text block.  I'm going to assume that you have your pages folded and placed into the correct order, ready to go.  See Part 1 where I go into this in more detail.

You will also need some other things:

• Some strong string- I like to use crochet cotton because it comes in a pure white colour that matches paper well, and is strong.
• Some bands.  The stuff I use is a woven cotton tape about 1cm wide but you could use ribbon.
• A needle with an eye big enough for your string
• A fine drill bit and hand drill (or you could use a pin or sewing needle to punch holes through the paper)
• Paper cut the width of the spine OR some loosely woven thin fabric
• Ruler, pencil, glue and other bits and bobs

Signatures can consist of any number of folios.  I like to use signatures made of four folios when using office paper.  If you are using thicker or thinner paper you may choose to use less or more folios in each section.

Step one is to mark out where your pages will be sewn through.  First, pile your pages in a neat pile- it may be easy to rig a way of clamping the pages together to stop them moving.  You will also need to know how wide your tape or ribbon is- mine was 1cm but just vary the measurements as needed.  I'll explain further below.

Use a pencil to mark where your holes will go

I used three bands to help hold my book together- for an A5 book this is plenty.  You could get away with two, I just prefer three due to symetry and ease of stitching.  First off, find the middle of your book.  You want your middle band to be centred on the spine- easiest way is to measure out from the centre each way to half the width of the ribbon.  Use a pencil to mark all the signatures for each point.

Then you want to measure for the other two bands.  The exact distance doesn't matter but to look the best and provide the best support, you want to ensure that the top and bottom bands are the same distance from the ends.  Mine are 5cm in from the top and bottom of the spine.  Finally you want holes at each end- about 1cm in from the top and bottom of the page.

All up, you should have 8 marks for your spine, all at the same spacing for each signature.  The spacing should look similar to the picture below.

 With your marks made you are now ready to either drill or use a needle to make holes through all four layers of paper for each section.  Take the pages out of your clamp.  Take one section and open it partially (but not all the way as the fold helps keep all the pages aligned).  Using the needle or the hand drill, make your holes.  You want the holes to be on the fold for every piece of paper and in the same position for every piece of paper- otherwise you'll have pages that are crooked.  Do this for all the holes you have marked for all the sections.

I use a small hand drill to make my holes (the bit size I use is around 0.7mm)

Now we are ready to start sewing!  Take a long length of your string and thread your needle.  I like to work from the last section forward but it doesn't really matter.  Now take a look at the numbers I gave the holes above.  Starting from the back go in at 1, and out at 2.  Place one of your ribbons or bands in position against the spine.  Bring the thread over the band and go in at 3.  Out at 4, again place the band in position and go in at five, out at 6, band in position.  In at 7 and out at 8.  Tada!  You've sewn your first section together!

At this point you should have something looking like above.  The bands are held in place by the string.  You string should also be firmly taunt.  Don't pull it so hard you start ripping the paper, but you shouldn't be able to stick your finger through the slack either.

Now you are ready for your next section (double check your page numbers to ensure you don't sew a section on in the wrong order or upside down as you work!)  Using the same sewing pattern just the reverse order, go in a 8, out at 7 etc.  Make sure your thread goes around the bands, holding them in place.  It's these bands that will hold all the sections together over time.  When you reach the end, stop and pull the string  to remove any slack in the line.  Once you are sure the sections are as close together as possible and the string is not loose, tie a knot between the end of your string and your working length.  This ensures that both sections are well connected at each end by string as well as by the bands.

Take your third section and sew as before to the other end.  This time, when you get to the end you will need to tie it off to the first two.  Take your needle and thread it through the loop connecting section 1 to 2, from the outside of the book, in. As you pull the string through, take it back through this loop to make a knot.  Pull the string gently until the knot is tightened.  This is a kettle stitch, or a half-hitch knot.  You should do this at the end of each section.

Continue in this manner until all your sections are sewn together.  Make sure your string remains taunt as you go so you sections are not loose or wobbly.  Also, make sure your bands don't bunch up as you go- give both ends a light tug at each section.  If you run out of string part way, stop at one of the ends and tie your current string off.  Take your new string and tie it in at the same point before continuing to sew.

When finished, your text block should look like this.

At this point you have a few options.  First of all, I like to rub a little bit of glue into the knots at each end.  This is just a bit of extra security to ensure the knots won't work their way loose over time.

Next, we want to glue something onto the spine to give it a bit of extra support and to ensure that there is no gap between sections that might look unsightly.  This can either be a strip of paper cut to the width of the spine and running from the top stitches down to the bottom, or a piece of fabric.  I like using fabric for the extra material to attach the spine by (see Part 5) but the choice is yours.  Using your finger, put a thin coat of glue evenly on the spine.  Don't use too much glue or it may seep inwards, gluing your pages together.  Centre your paper or material and glue down.  Let this dry.

At this point you are done- your pages are secure and should stay that way for at least the next hundred years or so.  Put your text block somewhere safe and let the glue dry.  The next section will talk a little about little touches you can add at this point to make your book special while after that our attention moves to the covers.  Hope this was helpful to you all!