The top edge of a handmade book that is in progress. The page edges are painted silver with blue speckles.
I've started working on a run of special editions for the Kickstarter of Crown of Sea and Storm by Anthea Sharp
It's a lovely stand alone fantasy romance!
Get in touch if you'd like to have some special editions created for your next campaign!
#authorlife #bookbinding #writingcommunity #writer
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Folks, we are live! Thank you for your patience this year. The team has been working so hard to get this going despite major roadblocks. To see all of the amazing things our community has produced, visit the link in our bio or go to locusmag.com/igg26
youtu.be/ODl5yiDlA_0
The spine of a leather bound book showing an inlay of mica.
Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin.
I used silver foil and mica inlays to create an arch centered on the spine. For the keystone I painted the walls of the inlay area red. It's a small touch but I felt it was a way to highlight the symbolism of the keystone in the story.
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#bookbinding
LAcon graphic "Hugo Award Nominations Now Open" with the url for the website LAcon.org the logo of the convention and the dates August 27-31
Your Hugo Nominating ballot can make a difference.
There are a total of 7718 people with the right to cast a nominating ballot in the 2026 Hugo Awards.
As of this morning, 1293 of those people have cast a nominating ballot in at least one category.
www.lacon.org/hugos/
Thanks! 😁
The page edges reverse as well: a field of red, marked with gold blood, signaling a shift in power and the violent upheaval required to make hope real.
Blues, Pinks, Violets, Obsidians, Browns, and Greens: each bring their own strength, sacrifice, and stake in the future.
I decided to mirror some of what we see in the design for Red Rising. Here the red dots rise to the top and gold drops to the bottom.
The lines sweeping upward across the cover are meant to feel like lift and momentum, representing a rising force that refuses to be pinned down. They're edged with colors to honor the ones that hope forward. A Red may have sparked the revolution, but the fire has spread.
"We're the light, and we're spreading."
🐺 Spoilers below 🐺
For Morning Star, my final guiding concept was hope. For all the darkness in the series, the story ultimately bends toward light. There's a stubborn, hard-won belief that something better can be built, even when the cost is brutal.
A copy of Morning Star by Pierce Brown standing upright. The book is covered in black leather and has both covers open to face the viewer. There is a large red circle in the center.
A book standing upright with the spine facing the viewer. Both covers are open to show the endpages. The page edges are red with splashes of gold paint.
A close up view of the corner of a leather bound book. There are strips of leather running across the cover.
The top of a closed book. The page edges are red and splashed with gold.
Morning Star by Pierce Brown.
Book 3 of the first Red Rising trilogy.
Posting out of order but I've never claimed to be good at this social media thing. 🤷♀️
Design statement in the comments (contains spoilers).
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#bookbinding #scifiandfantasy #custombinding
Thanks 🙂
Haha, yeah that was awful timing. There is a little creak but nothing like that 😂
Thank you! 😁
I try to stuff as much meaning into each part as I can, even the endbands if I think they can represent something from the book.
I try to always keep my mind open to doing last minute adjustments to the design. Those are always the most delightful (and stressful).
Showing off the parts of the Red Rising design! Designing a book requires taking all parts into account and how they play together. Sometimes it takes months, sometimes it takes days to figure it all out.
I have some spots for getting a commission of this binding.
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#scifi #bookbinding
Thank you! I'd recommend gentle hands but yeah, people can touch it 😁
Thank you 🙂
Bound in goat leather with laced on boards. The design has onlays that are a mix of hand dyed goat and calf leather.
The page edges were created by lightly layering gold acrylic paint followed by splashes of red.
I painted endpages to look like a star field but also echo the design on the cover.
A book standing upright with both covers open to the viewer.
A book standing upright with the foreedge facing the viwer. Both covers are open to show the endpages.
A book standing upright in a three-quarter view with the foreedge to the viewer. There is a red and gold design on the page edges.
The bottom corner of a book showing some foil decoration.
Red Rising by Pierce Brown
Published by Del Ray, 2014.
I'm really excited to finally share photos of this bind. I've been working on binding the first 3 books of the series since this past August and now the eponymous Red Rising is complete!
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#books #bookbinding #bookcollecting
A flyer for the book fair "Codex" paired with images of a white leather book standing upright.
Heading to Codex this year but only on the last day. However, the book I bound for last year's Open Set competition will be at the American Academy of Bookbinding table the whole fair.
I know I won't get through half of what's there in a day but I'm really looking forward to trying!
#bookbinding
Bookbinding, 17th century, Leather; tooled, gilded, and painted
Bookbinding, 17th century, Leather; tooled, gilded, and painted
Bookbinding
17th century
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/452677
The book "Red Rising" by Pierce Brown being held up to show the spine. The book has a large red onlay wrapping around the spine and is bound in black leather.
Sneaky peaky. The binding of Red Rising is done. Golden Son and Morning are right on its heels. Full glamour shots coming later in the week.
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#redrising #piercebrown #finebinding #bookbinding
The top edge of a book showing the gold and red edge decoration and the black endband.
I really, really love it when decorative elements from the page edges and the endbands meet. It can be a subtle thing but it's just lovely when you notice it. I went simple on the endbands for this book because there is a LOT going on everywhere else!
#paintededges #bookcollecting #bookbinding
Three brown, wooden bookshelves up against a wall. There are books in stacks on the shelves and on the ground.
Getting a new bookshelf means it's time to reorganize!
From left to right I'm going with non-fiction to TBR, sci-fi to general fiction, fantasy.
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Thank you!
A stack of books sitting on a table with decorated edges. They are all painted with red and gold paint
A collection of edges! From top to bottom: Morning Star, Golden Son, Red Rising by Pierce Brown.
All were done with thin layers of acrylic paint and some very messy splattering!
#scifi #bookbinding #custombooks #finebinding
The binding of the Red Rising trilogy is progressing! The design features a large onlay that's been hand dyed and pared to 0.3 mm. I attached it with paste and now it's in the press so the onlay can sink into the covering leather and be backpared later.
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#scifi #bookbinding
Awesome work!
My favorite binding I completed was Alien Clay (and also one of my top reads) because of the challenge in representing the strangeness of the planet the story takes place on. Foundation was a close second because it's the most tooling-heavy design I've done and that was a lesson in patience.
2025 recap! Happy New Year!
It's been a hell of a year. I attended my first Worldcon, completed several commissions, sold some personal work, and made progress towards my diploma in fine binding.
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