>too poor to buy hardcovers

>>24500749 (OP)
Hardcovers suck dick. They make the act of reading harder and are purely for people who want to use books as display pieces.

>only reads pdfs

>>24500769
Truth

>>24500769
>t. has never had a shitty old PB snap in half while reading
Paperbacks are shit, the glue in the binding gets brittle, the covers snap off, and they're unreadable within a few decades. Buy hardcover or cry later

>>24500832
That has never happened to me and I own a lot of old paperbacks

>>24500832
>t. retard strength

>>24500832
>within a few decades

who cares

>>24500832
I read my dad's small paperback copy of the Double (which was printed in 1972) in 2018 and it's sitting on my shelf right now in perfect condition. You just don't know how to look after books

>>24500769
Hard disagree. I'm an avid reader and I go out of my way to get hardcovers when I can. I find them easier to hold and read and that they are generally are better quality. Most of my favorite books I own in hardcover, and I can assure you I do not own them for "display pieces" but rather to read them many times.

>>24500864
>I find them easier to hold and read
How? A paperback bends so as not to put pressure on your fingers as you hold it and therefore make for much more comfortable to grip whereas a hardback has permanent strain on your hand unless you are in the middle of the book and can lay it open flat

>>24500769
Im sorry but you just self exposed as poorjeet

>>24500874
>hardcovers are good because they're more expensive and I can afford them

Whatever retard

>>24500874
I own my own house in my early 20s. I am in an incredible economic minority of my age group. I just don't waste money on masturbatory items to show off how fucking clever I think I am

>>24500870
Hardcovers always lay flat, paperbacks never do. Paperbacks you have to contort and destroy the book to get it opened to a reasonable comfort. You also have to constantly pinch the pages to prevent it from reclosing. Terrible!

>>24500772
>Pdf instead of epub

>>24500944
>Hardcovers always lay flat
Categorically incorrect, especially if it's a smaller hardcover. Typically they only stay open around the middle of the book. I hate hardcovers because they're incredibly uncomfortable to read in bed, though, personally.

>>24500769
Second what this anon said

hardcovers are lame asf

too expensive, not practical, and half the time the covers look worse than the paperbacks

>>24500769
A good hardcover is just as easy to read as a paperback but more sturdy with better quality paper. If you get the fake hardbacks with a cardboard cover and no stitching and coarse paper like what Allen Lane publishes of course they are going to be shit

>too poor to commission them

Bookbinding thread?

>>24500769
fpbp

>>24502947
Cool, reminds me of a book i have from the 1700s.

>>24500832
Modern day hardbacks are way less durable than paperbacks even more so if they have a faux leather cover. They are a shallow imitation of a style of binding that went out of favour around the mid nineteenth century. Unlike paperbacks which only care about functionality, hardbacks prioritise aesthetics while also being as cheap as possible. In doing so, they seriously sacrifice functionality. I would give a modern day hardbacks (that's going to be used) a maximum of 5 years before it starts falling apart from the spine (less if it's glued). An average paperback I would say would last as long as the paper and the ink would, which is about 3 decades at least. It is unlikely for the binding to have serious functional damage if held with care.
t. bookbinder.

>>24502947
A classical sort of leather bound would be around $700. Any less, I would be doubting its quality like I am doubting the one in the picture.

>>24502998
This is a real "hardback."

>>24502947
disgusting feet

>>24500749 (OP)
I bought several cheap hardcovers so it's just a skill issue.

>>24503086
What I mean is that I couldn't afford to spend thousands of dollars to commission a bookbinder to bind my whole library, so instead I learnt how to do it myself. I know they aren't very pretty, but they are rounded and backed, and sewn on tapes and slipped in the boards and blah blah blah with an aim towards longevity. I even printed the pages myself. Did you bind that book yourself? It looks very smooth.

>>24503208
very nice.

>>24500769

>>24503208
It's cool that you are learning but most modern resources I have found online are very bad. DAS is the only good one I know but his stuff is extremely basic. I recommend, Szirmai, Diehl and these two articles:
https://thebookandpapergathering.org/2022/06/09/materials-and-mechanics-for-book-conservation-part-i-engineering-concepts-for-spine-lining-design/
https://thebookandpapergathering.org/2024/01/30/materials-and-mechanics-for-book-conservation-part-ii-the-impact-of-sewing-on-spine-structure/
Also, knowing woodworking goes a long way.

>Did you bind that book yourself? It looks very smooth.
No, I am only interested in codical bindings, which are typically very large, time consuming and meant to be read on some sort of stand. I find it impractical to have a library full of them. This is a mid-eighteenth century book I found in Paris, most likely sewn on recessed cords. This is what you would expect popular books to be bound in at this time period, which is why I feel this is the most appropriate binding for furnishing a library with. It's very strong despite actually representing the first decline in bookbinding.

Your binding is—what I am going to assume is—what the Thames and Hudson manual calls the "library binding." I am guessing you copied it after DAS. It's a very ugly type of binding especially because of the groove. There also may be some issue with leather paring. The one in my picture has no groove, which is what makes it look so smooth. This was commonplace for books before cloth and synthetic materials became popular, which requires a groove due to the lack of elasticity of these materials.

>>24500749 (OP)
>too rich to buy softcovers
>:-)

>>24500749 (OP)
The version of a book I buy is determined by how much I like the cover, regardless of soft or hardcover.

>>24500749 (OP)
Hardcovers are heavy and take up more space, why would you want any? As interior decoration?

>>24500749 (OP)
You can find some at bargain stores, at least here in the US

>>24500935
Omw to cover your house in accelerant and light a match

>>24500749 (OP)
No. Hardcovers are actually too expensive unless you live in America or uk. They are mostly 4x the cost of paperbacks and honestly the cost of making a hardcover copy is only 1.5 percent of paperback.

>>24500749 (OP)
They're worth it. Read e-books until you can afford hardcovers of books that you really want. Build your collection slowly. And never annotate in your books. That is meme you will regret - trust me. Take notes with e-book instead.

>>24503208
How do you go about printing the pages? Do you do them in signatures? What kind of printer/ paper?

>>24503292
Yeah I think the next books I make I'll try bringing the split boards closer to the shoulder and eliminating the groove, but I don't think I'll ever try that technique with cords, or lacing in. Tapes are too efficient!

>>24507195
It depends on the book. For some books, I can find high quality text-based PDFs, but for others, the only pdfs avaliable on Libgen are too compressed for printing, so I make my own pdfs for those. It's very easy to apply to the internet archive for "disability access", use a program to download those hi-fi scans, and then use "ScanTailor Advanced" to turn those scans into pdfs. I use another program called "booklet creator" to turn the pdf into signatures of varying sizes. You could also try typesetting yourself, but that takes forever, and is mostly pointless if the book you want has already been published.

The printer I use is an Epson ET M1170, since I can refill it with offbrand ink easily, and I doubt the archival qualities of toner, though the downside to this printer is that it is limited to 8.5x11" sized sheets, which I fold in half. If you want books bigger than 5.5x8.5", you'll need a bigger printer. I get my paper from a Co. called "Church Paper", but you can use any paper so long as the grain direction is short. Paper should be between 75-90gsm; Lot's of Rehtards use the ebbin' Mohawk Superfine in too heavy a weight, only to find their book can hardly open since the paper will barely drape.

For my books, I try to keep between 13-23 signatures, signatures varying in size between 5-8 sheets. So for a book of say, 580 pages, I'd split that into 19-7 sheet signatures, and 2-6 sheet signatures. I haven't been able to come up with an elegant formula for this calculation, so I just have ChatGPT brute force it.

>>24500749 (OP)
>Poor enough to steal hardcovers

>>24500749 (OP)
Just buy them off of abebooks or some similar site desu

>>24500769
Fpbp, the only people that prefer hardcovers are the ones who don't know how to read paperbacks without breaking the spine.

>>24500832
I guess it's a problem for new books that all try to sell a trade paperback for $25 but older books all had ten billion mass market paperback copies printed. They're like $4 a piece. Buy it and fuck it up dude. They're not supposed to last decades. I had a mass market copy of the first Game of Thrones book. It was like 2 inches thick and I ripped it in half to make it easier to carry around and read. The fact that they can come apart is a feature.

>>24503095
faggot why are you looking at them? we're talking about books here

>>24500769
/thread. I own a few hardcovers such as my illustrated copy of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy that was gifted to me by my Girlfriend's Dad, but as much as I love the copy I have to sit at a table to read it or sit up in bed with it on my lap and its really cumbersome. I like to read in bed, often aloud to my gf so she can fall asleep to my voice, and I usually then read silently until I fall asleep and the book lays on my chest or face until I awaken or it falls in the night. Can't be doing that with those cumbersome solid hardbacks, I love a paperback and my favourite kind are the really small pocket sized ones that I can carry everywhere with me.

>>24500769
Yes? Once I’ve read a book I’ll put it on my shelf where it will sit for years until I read it again. In that time it is effectively a decoration, so I want it to be a good decoration, so most of my books are some 60+ years old
They do also last better. I have a few paperbacks from the 20’s and 40’s and they’re falling apart despite being otherwise mint, the spines just get bent.
As for reading difficulty for me it’s the opposite, it always feels like I’m bending a paperback permanently out of shape or cracking the glue

>>24500749 (OP)
>goes to a used bookstore
>$1 paperbacks
>$2 hardcovers

>>24500749 (OP)
>never learned how to read

>>24502947
>>24502998
>>24503086
/po/ has a bookbinding thread if it's any interest to you
could any of you have guides/resources for learning the craft? I'd love to be able to bind my stories and keep them for myself