Lost Art Press

Add a Book Ribbon to Hardbound Books

Posted on by Lost Art Press
Book ribbons coming to fertilize your books.

We get asked (a lot) if we could please add a “book ribbon” to all our titles (a shiny ribbon that helps you mark your place in a book). We would love to, but we cannot add one without dumb price increases and unacceptable delays.

Here’s the truth: Neither of our printing plants can add a ribbon while our book is being manufactured. They don’t have the equipment. To add a book ribbon, we have to make the book, then ship it to another plant. There it waits its turn for a ribbon. Then the books are shipped back to the plant for QC and final wrapping and tagging. Then shipped to us.

This adds considerable expense and time to a book – one that we do (begrudgingly) for “The Anarchist’s Design Book.”

The full five-ribbon treatment.

But I would rather light a candle than curse your darkness. So here’s a quick tutorial on how to add ribbons to a bunch of books for about $12. 

  1. Order these Bible ribbon bookmarks. You get six for $12. (Yes you can make your own ribbon thingies, but you don’t have to.)
  2. Use scissors to cut the ribbons apart if you don’t want five placeholders. The ribbons separate easily into pairs or threes.
  3. Jam the leatherette section between the book back and and the cover. No glue necessary. If you are a “Glue is Necessary” person, add some rubber cement to the leatherette before pushing it into the book.
  4. Done. Enjoy your bookmarking abilities.

These ribbons are ideal for books that are about 9” tall or so. The ribbons will stick out of both the top and bottom of the book. But you can use them with bigger books, too.

I sliced two ribbons from a bunch of five and inserted it into this POS.

You could also staple/glue/otherwise affix a piece of ribbon to a piece of cardboard and insert the cardboard into the gap between the book block and cover. There are lots of tutorials on how to do this with a piece of string, a paperclip and a sturgeon’s swim bladder.

— Christopher Schwarz

23 thoughts on “Add a Book Ribbon to Hardbound Books”

  3. Thanks for the tip!
    Do you have a good source for sturgeon swim bladders? I’d like to DIY a few as gifts.

      2. “With isinglass curtains you can roll right down,
        In case there’s a change in the weather.”
        —from lyrics for “Surrey With the Fringe On Top” from “Oklahoma!”—Oscar Hammerstein, Jr.

      3. Oh, sure, it’s the Schwarz Effect. The isinglass is out of stock! I suppose you are going to make a new glue from it? Next it will be the sturgeon gonad skin care products. Maybe Katherine can cook those up for her Etsy shop?

  4. I just use the age old bookmark of my people: a squares of toilet paper, since it is usually quite plentiful in the readin’ room (except during covid lockdowns etc)

  7. Just great! Makes a neat product and then tells us how to make them…I’ve got some left over walleye skins 😏

  8. Or….just use an old receipt from the store, bend a corner (and hope the book never holds financial value 100 yrs later), or better yet, remember the page number with our soggy jello meat parts between our ears!
    Haha

  9. I absolutely didn’t care about a book ribbon until I see this post. Gonna fix all my LAP books up now. Thanks for going the extra mile Chris.

  10. Are the sturgeon swim bladders acid free? No, wait, I mean the ribbon things (which I didn’t realize existed and are very cool).

  11. I’m having a hard time finding sturgeon’s bladders in quantities smaller than 500–and it’s a Russian company, so I’m further conflicted. I DO have a brother-in-law who’s done some nice ribbons using pig bladders, but his backlog is larger than Blackburn Tools, and his communication skills are even worse. Oh, and he’s a mean drunk (my poor sister).
    Perhaps I can find 40-50 other woodworkers who’d want to split a minimum order of the sturgeon bladders (or “S.B.s” as they’re known in the field)?

  12. You can also shove them into the holes in your handlebars for some added excitement to your daily ride. Fun!

  13. I see the first entry into the Anarchist’s Gift Guide here….the ribbons, not the sturgeon bladder.

    One of the many reasons I read this blog daily is for the new knowledge gleaned. Bible bookmarks, brilliant. I’ve been making my own bookmarks for years. Be it card stock, run thru the laminator, then trimmed. To the actual receipt, as mentioned earlier. To a simple as a 3×5 or 4×6 index card for writing notes ( I stilll have a hard time practicing marginalia in my books).

    Then there is sturgeon bladder. Wow, never knew the commonality of and the market for these. Hell, I never knew they are a “thing”. I really need to get out….

  15. Ribbons are so simple and just make sense to anyone that can build a chair. Thank you.

  17. I’ve been using Post-It Flags (3M) for a decade. $5 for 100 and they mark your line, not just the page. I was worried at first that the adhesive would react with paper, but no problems.

  18. Duct tape will hold a ribbon or three. Alene’s Tacky Glue is my go-to whenever I need a flexible adhesive for paper and cloth.

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