There’s a reason we say, “Books are magic.” We enjoy stories, but we experience books. Even avowed non-readers have touchstones in their lives. The very first book they can remember puzzling over as a child (mine was Scuffy the Tugboat). A book their parent read aloud, every single night, desperate for them to finally all asleep. The summer they hated everyone and everything except the fantasy series they devoured from the high crook of an oak tree. The heartbreak that was only numbed by picking up paperback thrillers from a late-night grocery store. We can recall the colors of covers, if not the title of the book. The feel of rough paper and bent corners, a newly cracked spine, scrawled love letters and recipes slipping free from musty pages.
Books themselves, then, are synergetic relics. They are more than the words they contain, more than the stories they tell, more than the chipboard and glue holding them together, the grease and fingerprints, cat hair and spilled baby formula, boot prints and wine rings they acquire. For avid readers, books can be friends. For collectors, works of art. As authors, we know all this—obviously—but between the claustrophobic nature of writing and the crushing realities of publishing, it’s easy to lose sight of the sacred nature of books as things. Weighted, tangible, existing fully in the real world of our very busy lives.
Last summer, reeling from a barrage of disappointing publishing news, I whined to a friend that I should just “make my own books,” instead of relying on the follies of the industry. Her reply set a year-long project in motion: “well, why don’t you learn bookbinding and do that?”
Despite stamping out ’zines in college and being a printmaker for years, the idea of actually creating books had never before crossed my mind. Books are magic, remember? How could I possibly step into the role of a magician? I could write novels, yes—I’d traditionally published five by this point—but making them, actually forming them with my hands, seemed about as far-fetched as conjuring electricity straight from my fingertips.
And yet, the idea wouldn’t leave me alone. I bought myself a bookbinding kit for my birthday, complete with a 235-(yes, seriously)-step starter guide. I was exacting about following the instructions—I still didn’t quite believe that an actual book was going to rise from a cluttered pile of paper, glue and thread—and it paid off. When all was finished, I stood gaping at my first handmade notebook. It was beautiful. It looked professional. It looked like something you could buy in a fancy stationary shop. I was stunned. And hooked.
I started making journals and sketchbooks to sell in my Etsy shop, alongside my staples of original prints and cards. I loved learning new techniques and experimenting with new materials—I loved making people happy as they bought my books for gifts. Still, in the back of my mind, lurked a potential that I was dreaming of, but couldn’t quite grasp. And then I discovered the world of “rebinding.”
The process of repairing damaged books is both a skill and an artform, and one that I’d much rather leave up to those artisans who have devoted themselves to the trade. No, I’m talking about the current trend—sparked by social media and the craze for #booktok worthy limited editions of fan-favorite hardbacks—of rebinding ordinary paperback books and turning them into extraordinary works of art. The hype of subscription book boxes and the appeal of showing off coveted versions of Fourth Wing with sprayed edges has only fueled the imagination of bookbinders who now create everything from classics with hand-embroidered covers and watercolor edges to typeset fan-fiction collections.
It was then that it all clicked for me and the project of Terra Incognita was born. I’d finished the novel itself two years prior, but one close-call-but-not-quite after another had wrecked my confidence and left the book with an uncertain future. I knew how much work the project would take, I knew that it wasn’t going to bring me fame or fortune, I knew that it ws going to be met with criticism and skepticism. I knew that it was going to require a tremendous amount of trust in myself and an unshakeable belief in my abilities and my work. It was this necessity, as much as anything, that spurred me forward.
Now, I have no dog in the endless fight between traditional and indie/self-publishing. I think every author needs to do what they believe is right for each one of their books and this can absolutely be a varied picture. For Terra Incognita, I wanted the individual stakes of self-publishing and the gravity of traditional. Most of all, though, I wanted to create something unique, lasting and beautiful from a story that I loved with my whole heart. Here’s how I did it:
First, of course, came the endless edits. And I mean, endless. As I was doing this on my own, I had to get it right. As you can imagine, there were a few months of mind-numbing monotony—I’ll spare you the details. Then came typesetting. More fun, but more frustrating. Terra Incognita is set in 1889 and follows the adventures of six companions on a quest to find the last lost city. One thing that was important to me was to create a book that felt like it could have been published in the late 19th century. I studied books from this era and used them as models for formatting and as guides for cutting extraneous material. In addition to being told from multiple points of view and on varied timeframes, Terra Incognita includes fairytales, journal entries, letters, telegrams and other epistolary matter. I did my best to make these inclusions feel as authentic to the reader as possible.
One dilemma I hit upon, once I had the text of the novel perfected, was how to create the “text block.” This is the actual block of bound pages that is then sandwiched between two covers. Initially, I had thought to follow-through with traditional binding—sewing “signatures” of folded pages together—but even though I’d already decided to cap my production at 100 copies, I knew the needlework alone would add indeterminable hours to a project that would already be daunting. I opted, instead, to go the route of rebinding and had Terra Incognita professionally printed as paperback copies. As a concession, I decided to hand-sew the Visible Ephemera booklets that are part of the book box package. (I’d also still love to create from-scratch novel copies containing handwritten letters, secret pockets, pull-out maps and the like, but that’s a project for another day.)
Once I received the printed paperbacks, actual construction could begin. This isn’t meant to be a bookbinding tutorial—there are so many excellent resources if you’re interested!—but the first step was to rip those covers off. Left with a “perfect bound” text block, I then glued headbands and mull to the spine to reinforce it and attached folded endpapers to the blank front and back pages. I cut everything down to size and then started on the “case.”
To create the casing, I cut chipboard into two covers and a spine and then spaced out and glued these onto a single a sheet of “bookcloth” I’d already printed with the exterior layout. From here, it was a lot of folding, more gluing, and checking and re-checking measurements until the text block could be placed between the covers and “cased in.” Finally, I applied vinyl cut with a Cricut machine to the exterior of the book and numbered the edition. If it sound simple, you should see the state of my studio floor after creating just one book. I never claimed that this endeavor wouldn’t be a labor of love, after all.
But this project was about more than just creating a beautiful book. It was about going back to that idea that books are not just stories, but personal experiences. To this end, then, every copy of Terra Incognita is singular, from unique endpapers to individual back cover designs (ten different quotes from the novel underlay a variety of images so that no two covers are alike). Each is signed and dedicated and then sold in a book box with a selection of accoutrements, including the Visual Ephemera booklet—containing reading, research and inspiration lists—art postcards based on each main character and influenced by Tarot, an original linocut print based on one of the novel’s fairytales, and other book-related goodies. I wanted to not only augment the story of Terra Incognita with visual art, but be sure that every reader who opened up one of these 100 book boxes understood that they were receiving a gift directly from me.
Crazy? Maybe. Has it all been worthwhile? Absolutely. As I type this, I’m still deep in the trenches. I have a month until I start shipping out preordered book boxes on October 1st and 92 books still to make. As I’m binding, carving, printing and assembling, I’m also posting videos highlighting different aspects of the novel while chronicling the entire process. I am Living Terra Incognita on this homestretch, exactly as I wanted to. I hope that readers will find the magic I’m trying to send them and I hope that my fellow creatives are inspired to continue to create such magic to share. At the very least, though, once the glue has dried and the last paper scrap fluttered to the floor, once the last box has been sealed and shipped—I will know that I did right by myself and my vision. I can be certain that I finally gave “the book of my heart” all my heart and I can’t imagine a greater accomplishment to be proud of.
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Information on Terra Incognita: https://www.stephpost.com/terra-incognita
Direct preorder link for Terra Incognita: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1769143865
Link to my Etsy shop, The Imaginary Bird: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheImaginaryBird
My first bookbinding kit: https://www.learnbookbinding.co.uk/
One of my favorite bookbinding resources/tutorials: https://blog.papercraftpanda.com
Some of my favorite bookbinders popular on social media:
https://www.instagram.com/thebinarybookbinder/
