Before I go on with this little guide, here's the lowdown on Books Kinokuniya's book jacketing. Initially, they started this service free for customers who bought books. It doesn't matter what type of books, as long as it is books. So, you have it, manga, comics, textbooks, recipe books, etc. Until a few months after working there, I and probably the company realized that customers are starting to find "loopholes" in the system and demanded that their magazines be jacketed as well. And the reason being that their magazine costs more than S$45, so they should be allowed to have their expensive magazines jacketed for free.

But the problem is that, it's not a book. But nonetheless, a really dumb but cunning and sly customer complained and QQ a lot about this free sytem, which she claimed that some of the magazines have really thick covers that is similar to a book. Which effectively make the magazine relegated into the Bookazine category, and since "Bookazine" has the word "Book" in it, it somehow qualifies as a book and hence it should be allowed to redeem free pvc jacketing services. (I'm positively sure it's a she as guys simply don't give a hoot about it. If it's free, they'll go for it. If it's not, then so be it. They won't drop dead from not having their books jacketed, which means they will treasure their stuffs more. Hence you see comic collectors with almost mint collection of certain out-of-print 1st edition items that other people do not have.)

And so, Books Kinokuniya decided to come up with the S$1 charge. Therefore, it doesn't matter whether it's a book, magazine or a bookazine anymore. As long as you are willing to pay that S$1, you are entitled to it. So essentially, if you have 10 items to be pvc jacketed, you have to pay S$10. If you have 100 books, then you have to pay S$100. You can get the drift there. It's not S$1 for any amount of items that you want to get pvc jacketed, it's S$1 per item to be pvc jacketed. And since because someone decidedly abused the system and made a free and complimentary service became a 1 for 1 paid service, here's the lowdown on how to do your own book/pvc jacketing Books Kinokuniya style.

Start with a book, you need a book to do book/pvc jacketing. Without the book in question, you cannot gauge how much plastic/pvc you need for it.

Use the book you have to measure out the amount of plastic/pvc you need, just don't be stingy. If you are too stingy with the flaps area, your book will just pop out of the plastic/pvc when you are trying to read it. But don't go overboard either, you need to be able to close and store the book away after reading it, instead of leaving weird marks inside the book itself.

Now that you've cut out the appropriate amount for your book, fold the flaps inside the cover of the book. If you need to, just unfold it and press it down with a ruler so the crease/line stays in shape and doesn't pop out of the book unnecessarily.

Now that you're done with the folding part, you need to cut off some excess plastic/pvc so that when you fold it, it looks "professional". Notice the red arrows in the image above, that's where you cut it off slantly. Just don't go overboard at all or your scotch-tape or adhesive/double-sided tape won't have enough space to stick on and it might tear the book.

If you refer to the image right above, you can see how I cut it. It doesn't matter whether it's paperback or hardcover with it's very own dust-cover attached, the method is the same. The only difference with the hardcover book that comes with it's own dust-cover is that, you need to cut it accordingly to the dust-cover itself, not the book.

Now that you have turned a whole flap into 3 separate flaps, fold the bottom flap up inside the book itself, as seen in the image above. Again, you can peel off the plastic/pvc and use a ruler or something to firmly press the crease down.

Now, go grab your double-sided tape. If you accidentially measure out the plastic/pvc too little, get the smaller one. If not, go ahead and get the fattest double-sided tape you have. The bigger means that the plastic/pvc will be even more secured and will not drop off without warning.

As seen in the image above, stick your double-sided tape on the innermost flap. Remove the white plastic backing and press down the outer-flaps onto the double-sided tape that you have applied on the innermost flap. Do the same on the front and cover, don't just do the front only lol

Now that you are done with the flaps on the front and cover, you would notice this 2 spine-wings on the top and bottom as seen in the image above. If you are jacketing a hardcover, fold it inside the dust-cover but outside the book. If it's a paperback, you need to cut it off. If you are someone who likes extreme precision, use a penknife or cutter. If not, just hold up the book and use a scissors instead.

Now that you've cut off the spine-wings, here's how the end product looks like. It's akin to a DIY book jacketing, but Books Kinokuniya style. This is the original Books Kinokuniya jacketing style, not sure if the current Store Manager changed it or not, although his preferred method is actually just as good too. But I'm a traditionalist, so I go with the original style.

And here's another look at the inner cover of the paperback, this is how the end result should look inside as well.

If you find this interesting, comment about it. But if you think it's still not clear enough, comment and let me know so I can decide whether to do a video tutorial for this as well :)