Binding
Once all of the pages have been printed, you just have a stack of paper with pretty pictures on it. It has to be bound together in some way. My original plan was use a technique called saddle-stitching. Basically all of the pages are printed starting from the outside of the book and descend into the book. Then, a couple staples are used on the spine to hold the sheets together. This plan was a bust, though. The book turned out to be much thicker than I thought it would be. There were too many pages on paper that was too thick for the staples to sucessfully stick through the book.
Then I came across a different method, called Perfect Binding. Most books, and many of the graphic novels I've seen, use this method of binding. Basically, the book is printed in several signatures (these are groups of several pages in their own saddle stitch - so it's like a bunch of tiny booklets). The signatures are then glued together at the spine - the standard is an adhesive called PVA. A cover with a spine the same size as the spine the signatures created is then wrapped around the group of signatures and glued in place. Once everything is dry, the pages are trimmed all at once for a crisp, clean edge.
And there you go! PERFECT BINDING!
