Still Figuring Out How to Make me Some Books (Pt 2)

I lucked out and found a pretty cheap toner supplier on Amazon so I've been "wasting" a whole toner cartridge on printing out mini copies of some of my books:
          Dyson's Delves II
          Petty Gods (Revised & Expanded Edition)
          HackMaster Player's Handbook
          HackMaster GameMaster Guide
          HackMaster Hacklopedia of Beasts
          Dungeon World

Now the last four I went ahead and printed out, sliced & diced, and sent off to FedEx for coil-binding like I did with my original mini PHB and GMG. Since I'm learning a few things as I go along (hence the Work-In-Progress moniker) I've made mistakes here & there and there are some things I need to figure out.

1st is that when printing the initial PDF (I print my files to a high-quality PDF and then send it to the printer so I can check things 1st...like the amount of shrinkage needed for the printer...6% for the B&W and 4% for the color) I should choose "right binding" when doing the booklet print. When I cut the pages in half I end up with extra material on the binding side of the pages. This is a good thing for those being coiled and not half bad when doing the DIY "perfect-binding".

One "mistake" GMG is in my binding jig now (it wasn't printed with right-side binding) and I've finished up with Dysons Delves II and the Petty Gods book. The smaller book came out a bit better and I think I'm pushing it with the Petty Gods book. I didn't get the cover size done up right which means there is a white band on the front & back and the cuts were a bit off. The book is still quite usable until I get my hardback copy (hopefully later next month).

Dyson's Delves II got a lot of attention on the actual pages, where I edited the PDF heavily to get rid of toner-heavy elements and pages I didn't like. I also made a new cover and I'm really happy with the results overall.

The spines look far worse than they do in person, or at least I think so.

One thing I had to get, in addition to the new toner, was some legal-sized cardstock for the covers. Unless I'm printing a really thin booklet, there just isn't enough room on a regular piece of cardstock.

When I cut down the Petty Gods book I took some time to play a bit with the binding of the cut-off. It was sturdier than I expected, especially since it hadn't fully cured yet. I did get a few pages to rip out, but I had to be a bit abusive when I did that. I think the next time I do this I'm going to set in some bookbinder tape/gauze along the spine before I put on the cover.

When you factor in the toner, the paper, cardstock, plastic stock (covers for the coil-bound books) and the FedEx binding, my total outlay comes down to just under $35, which isn't bad for 7 books...especially when you think that the coil binding is about 2/3 of the cost!