BookTok and BookBinding
By: Victoria Spear
In the past two years, I’ve gone over a lot of hobbies that interested me as an artist as well as an author. Finding them wasn’t hard if you have TikTok on your phone. Bear with me, I know many people despise the app and think it’s over-hyped, but remember your fyp (for-you page depends on the content you absorb, and one of those was ‘Booktok’ for me! Booktok is a community that shares a range of books not broadcast as often, as well as giving recommendations to others after you’ve read said book. Although this community seems straightforward, it does have a number of problems, ranging from problematic authors, bullying, and even going so far as to have unrealistic expectations for toxic men. I know it sounds horrible, but we are not talking about that today. We’re talking about the small corner of ‘booktok’, which is known by the name ‘Bookbinding TikTok’. With this side of the community, were calling into question how fanfiction and copyright come into play with one another when binding said fic for one’s bookshelf and then trying to sell it for monetary gain.
The Rules of Bookbinding
The bookbinding community is often a spectrum that takes weeks to understand. As we’ve gone over in class, bookbinding is an art that’s been seen over many years within cultures. In the community, they keep the traditions and even teach new people within the community how to bind their own books. An example of this would be if a paperback book is damaged but the text block remains perfectly intact Of course instead of throwing the whole book away, they will want to keep the book and rebind it with a hard cover instead. This is a part of the many reasons I’ve joined the community, learning many things: paper marbling, the history of binding, different forms of binding, learning how to make smaller books, how to emboss your pages, etc. The list can honestly go on.
So you’re probably wondering, how did bookbinding become a huge problem in the first place? Well, the answer lies within another section, primarily a section where fandoms come together to make their works based on their favorite media. You guessed it, fanfiction. Now we’re not strangers to the fanfiction community, but if you are, I’ll go ahead and give you a bit of a rundown. Fanfiction is a form of work written by a fan about a book, movie, or even show. Fandoms are a group of fans of books, movies, and shows as well. The two of them go hand in hand with one another in this case. Fanfictions are known to be published in all kinds of places on the internet; Wattpad, Fanfiction.net, Tumblr, and my all-time favorite AO3. It’s important to remember that fanfiction is made by fans, not the actual original creators who made the series in the first place. From a monetary gain perspective, it’s hard to get upset with fans in this case with fan works because in a way they’re bringing in more money to the original creators due to fandom engagement. The more fans there are for the media, the more likely people will absorb it and bring in value.
The article ‘What is fanfiction and what does it matter?’ by Lauren V highlights this, breaking down the works of fanfiction as well as the legality behind it. The section ‘Selling Fanfiction Through LuLu Bookstore’ says the following: “Publishing fanfiction online is considered legal in the United States because it is “noncommercial distribution.” In other words, when you post fanfiction on AO3 or another ad-supported, free-to-use site, nobody is making any money from the actual intellectual property itself.” This is the explanation of how authors can publish fandom works online without trouble because they do not have a monetary gain. However, in the next paragraph, it’s said as follows, “Once a piece of fanfiction has been published for sale on the Lulu bookstore (or any other online retailer, for that matter), it has crossed the line into ‘commercial distribution,” which is a copyright infringement and is illegal. In other words, if you are selling, for-profit, derivative work of copyright-protected material, you are breaking the law. ” So people can publish their works online for free if they’re writing fanfic; however, it becomes a problem once they try to sell it for money. The world and characters have already been published and claimed by the original creator of that media, and if found, it will be taken to court.
The Problem With Fanfiction and Bookbinding
The important thing to remember about fanfiction is that the authors and creators have to make sure to give credit to the original media and that they do not ‘own’ it in any way. This way they are protected and they won’t have any issues thrown their way later. That goes for any form of merch trying to be sold or even possibly fan art (again, a whole other section as well). So, how does Fanfiction affect BookBinding TikTok? Well, with lovers of books and having the need to feel pages run through their fingers of their favorite works, there has come a problem for fanfiction. In the community, there has been discussion of fanfiction being bound for personal use. The fandoms have desires to have the actual works by fanfic authors on their shelves instead of worrying about authors deleting their favorite works online and never finding them again. The fanfic authors started to make rules about this issue, asking fans to do as follows: 1. Make sure to give credit for the text block and story to the fanfic author, 2. DO NOT SELL OR DISTRIBUTE FOR MONETARY GAIN, 3. If the binding is not for yourself, then you are allowed to give it to friends or family.
In late February of 2024, the Bookbinding community was in shambles due to a mass hoard of fanfics being removed from AO3, due to sellers of fanfiction being bookbind. The specific fandom causing the madness? Harry Potter. Now, as a girl who reads a lot of fanfiction, I don’t know if I should be glad I’ve never indulged in the Harry Potter fandom or utterly scared due to the reactions and outrage the fandom truly has at the moment. The fanfics that have sparked this outrage are Dramione fanfics, our enemies-to-lovers (Draco and Hermione). The most popular of these fanfics is the only Manacled made by Senlinyu. The story is basically a dark romance between Draco and Hermione with a heavy Handmaid’s Tale romance. So not only is it infringing upon the Harry Potter series but The Handmaid’s Tale as well, but of course, we can only focus on the crazy fandom that has lost their ever-loving minds by worshiping it as if it’s the best novel ever written. Personally, I haven’t read the fanfic due to how crazy everyone has been reacting towards it, but from a close friend they did say it was really good. However, it’s not good enough to break the law and risk getting the author sued over it.
On February 4th, 2024, SenLinYu revealed that they would be publishing her own professional dark fantasy romance of her own inspired by the fanfic she originally wrote called “Alchemised”. She addresses the fandom about staying silent with her publishing journey and not worrying them about her feelings in regards to her famous fanfic Manacled. She sympathized with them but got straight to the issue saying, “During the last several years, there has been a growing issue with illegal sales of Manacled, putting both me and the incredible community that shares fanfiction freely in legal jeopardy.” Here she’s addressing the fact that the bookbinders of her story and the mass out of control of the fandom has led her to take a step back and consider her options. Although the fandom ruined (in my opinion) her enjoyment of her best-written work, she decided to write an ‘original’ story that still holds the ‘spirit’ of Manacled. “Then I suddenly had this idea of alchemy, which was peculiarly appropriate; an academic world filled with unique transmutational abilities, and a necromantic war against people who had discovered the secrets of immortality, and I could see a path to reimagining the story while still holding on to as much of the original spirit of Manacled as possible.”
How to Enjoy Bookbinding While Remianing Respectful
So again, you might be wondering: What went wrong here? Everything seems pretty solid. she’s writing an original story with the same elements of her fanfic that everyone loved so much, but what’s the issue? The issue is her following lines, “Manacled is not going anywhere at present. It will remain online throughout 2024, at which point it will, if you’ll pardon the pun, Alchemise for 2025 and be removed from AO3.” This. This is what sparked outrage out of crazy Harry Potter fans who loved the original story. Because one, they couldn’t read it for free anymore, and two, she was going to publish a completely different work without their favorite characters Draco and Hermione. For me, I love this author’s integrity and understanding what was going wrong with the fandom in the first place. People were binding and selling the work without her permission when she told them not to, and she got a lawyer because her work was ironically growing more popular than the actual Harry Potter series published by J.K. Rowling. K Rowling. It’s honestly really sad it has to get to the point where the author grew scared but still wanted the fandom to be happy and she wanted to do it by giving them something original. Unfortunately, you can’t keep everyone satisfied.
Back to the bookbinding community, as of that post you can understand that there’s grown to be an influx in the community growing angry. One tiktoker that stood out to me the most was NeatFreakGreek stitching another Dramione fanfic writer by the name of Emerald_Slytherin author of Secrets and Masks. The fanfic writer talked about how many times she saw her fanfic being bought or sold online even after she told the fandom not to do so and was on the cusp of deleting the whole fanfiction off of AO3. NeatFreakGeek is another well-known bookbinder) begs the Harry Potter community to stop buying fanfiction and that there is bookbinders on the app that are willing to teach them how to bookbind all the way down from the start of the text block to finishing off with the hardcover design. It is insane how bookbinders have tons of tutorials online for people to use for free but they would rather buy from an Etsy owner even though they know it’s illegal. The community knows once the authors are done with the disrespect the fanfic writer could be sued or even get in trouble but it’s a give or take process; as long as people are buying illegal fanfiction, there will be illegal binds being sold.
Do you know who I blame for this process? Booktok. Oh my gosh! Crazy right we’ve reached full circle! The problem with Booktok is that when fanfiction came into the mix, they all started to invade the community asking for recommendations and even went so far afterward to illegally start purchasing fanfiction. Booktok is a consumer side of the book-loving community, and I hate to say it but they honestly are too busy trying to absorb the book that’s popular of the month, rather than to take their time and enjoy the books they currently have before moving to the next. Another thing would be the aesthetic book lovers have with bookshelves buying books, and trying to look the part. It’s so sad because I was made fun of for reading so much, including fanfiction, when I was younger, and now the community is just filled with just horny individuals obsessed with dark romance and smut scenes. If not done right I will hurl over my bed.
Here we are two months later and the discussion is still going on. The one thing I’m scared of is losing the bookbinding community on the app due to the drama fanfiction as well as Booktok has brought upon them. In a way, bookbinding was teaching a part of history and something we needed to learn to maintain the books we know and love in tack with something happening to them and they ruin it over fanfiction that isn’t even canon. However, this may be a good thing. Perhaps with the largest fanfiction being gone in that community others will finally learn that doing this will get them nowhere but trouble, and to respect the art and love behind bookbinding one stitch at a time.
Citations
V, Lauren. “What Is Fanfiction and Why Does It Matter?” The Lulu Blog | Take Control of Your Creative Journey with Advice from the Team at Lulu., 12 Dec. 2023, blog.lulu.com/what-is-fanfiction-and-why-does-it-matter/.
SenLinYu. “Announcing Alchemised.” Announcing Alchemised, SenLinYu’s Substack, 5 Feb. 2024, senlinyu.substack.com/p/announcing-alchemised.
NeatFreekGeek. “Make Your Day.” TikTok, 20 Feb. 2024, www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRwMRh2K/.
(I tried to site tiktok as best as possible here, when you click on the link you should be able to see the video. Let me know if you can’t and I’ll fix it!)
