When you create your chapbook, or if you are lucky enough to get published by a reputable chapbook press, be sure to make it an event! No matter how humble, even if it’s just friends and family, take the time to celebrate and mark the occasion.
Aug 1802: Chapbook Created in a Dark Closet.
Maybe you will be famous, infamous, or you will die in some spectacular way that will make the whole world interested in your life. Who knows? Whatever happens, your chapbook should outlive you. Treat it with respect. Mark the creation date. Put it in the hands of chapbook lovers who will keep it and pass it on to other chapbook lovers. Old chapbooks have value. Eventually, yours will too. Your chapbook can live forever.
Don’t forget to donate copies to your college library, local library, and anywhere you think they might index it. Even if you think they might not care, it’s worth trying.
This is pretty easy after to do it a couple times. You will need to format your text editor to divide a page into segments. Here’s one example:
8.5 X 11 Page of paper
After you experiment a little, you will be able to make the appropriate changes to format your pages properly for your project. This is a fairly tiny book, of course, and uses just one sheet of copy paper to make an 8 page chapbook. This is perfect for haiku, or short poems. You will need to learn to fold the book properly. Here’s a video that shows you how (see below), and after just a couple tries, it really goes very quickly:
Folding an 8-page chapbook from one sheet
This is the no-software, no-staples booklet, and it’s a small miracle the first time it works. One sheet of letter paper becomes an eight-page booklet with a single cut and a few folds.
Fold the sheet in half the short way, then in half again, then once more. Unfold it. You now have eight rectangles marked by creases.
Fold the sheet in half the short way again and cut along the center crease from the folded edge to the middle, stopping at the center point. That slit is what lets it fold into pages.
Open the sheet back to a single fold the long way, so it looks like a long tent.
Push the two ends toward each other. The cut opens into a plus shape in the middle.
Press the four panels together so they fold into a stack of pages, then crease the spine.
Because the pages fold from one sheet, they don’t sit in plain order on the flat page. Lay out your text so each panel lands right side up in the finished booklet. Print one blank test fold, number the panels in pencil as you go, then match your layout to those numbers. After a try or two it’s second nature.
This tiny format is perfect for haiku or a handful of short poems. For larger booklets you’ll fold and staple several sheets instead, which the main guide and the format guide cover.
This tutorial is for magazines, but the technique is the same for chapbooks. Using Photoshop is an easy way to move elements around and create spectacular artistic effects in your chapbook. And, if you budget is tight, they have a free trial period for the software. You can probably complete your whole project for free if you get busy.
Using Adobe Photoshop for a chapbook
Photoshop shines when your chapbook leans visual: poems set over images, hand-lettered titles, textured backgrounds. It’s more work than a word processor for plain text, so reach for it when the look matters as much as the words.
Create a new document at your page size and set the resolution to 300 pixels per inch so it prints sharp.
Build one file per page, or use artboards to keep all your pages in a single document.
Keep every important element inside a safe margin, and leave the inside edge clear for the fold.
Use separate layers for the background, the image, and the text, so you can nudge each without disturbing the rest.
Set your poems with the Type tool, and keep the same font and size from page to page for a consistent feel.
Flatten a copy and export each page as a high-quality PDF or a 300 ppi image for printing.
Photoshop won’t arrange the pages for folding, so assemble your finished pages into a booklet order in a PDF, or hand them to a print shop to impose. If money is tight, Adobe offers a free trial, which is often long enough to finish a small project.
The most popular way to bind a chapbook is to use staples. There’s no need to go out and buy fancy equipment. Using this handy technique, you can bind even oddly sized chapbooks using a standard stapler.
Staple-binding a chapbook, step by step
Saddle-stapling is the classic chapbook binding: two or three staples down the center fold. Here is the way I do it.
Your printed pages, in order, plus a cover sheet.
A long-arm stapler, or a regular stapler and a bit of tape.
A bone folder or the back of a spoon for a crisp fold.
Stack the sheets in reading order with the cover on top, all edges lined up. Tap them square on a table.
Fold the whole stack in half together and run a bone folder along the crease so it sits flat.
Open the stack flat at the center. With a long-arm stapler, place two or three staples along the fold, one near the top, one near the bottom, one in the middle for taller booklets.
Press the staple legs down flat on the inside so nothing catches a finger.
No long-arm stapler? Open the flat stack, mark where each staple goes, and staple through from the outside into a soft surface like a stack of cardboard or an eraser, so the legs punch through. Then fold the legs down by hand. It sounds fiddly, but after two or three booklets it’s quick.
Keep your page count on a multiple of four so the fold works, which the format guide explains. For the whole process from manuscript to finished booklet, see how to make a chapbook. Prefer a stitched spine? Try hand-sewing instead.
Adobe InDesign is probably the most powerful tool you can use to make chapbooks. This tutorial is a bit longer, but covers many of the key skills you will need to create your own project. There’s good news for people interested in using this tool, Adobe now allows you to lease the InDesign tool by the month, so it is very inexpensive to have access to this resource.
Laying out a chapbook in Adobe InDesign
InDesign is the tool professional presses reach for, and it handles booklet imposition cleanly. The learning curve is real, but for a booklet you’ll come back to, it’s worth an afternoon.
Start a new document at your page size, for example 5.5 by 8.5 inches, with Facing Pages turned on.
Set your margins, giving the inside edge a slightly wider gutter so text clears the fold.
Build the pages in plain reading order. Don’t try to arrange them for printing yourself; InDesign will do that.
Use a master page for anything that repeats, like page numbers, so it stays consistent.
Flow your poems in, one per page as a rule, and keep your title and body type consistent throughout.
When you’re ready, use File, then Print Booklet. Choose “2-up Saddle Stitch” and InDesign imposes the pages for folding automatically.
For a printer or a print shop, export a print-ready PDF (File, Export, Adobe PDF, the Press Quality preset) instead of printing straight from the program. Adobe leases InDesign by the month, so you don’t have to buy it outright to make one booklet.
