The short answer
A real yearbook without the committee or the 200-copy minimum: one contribution link collects the year's photos and messages from everyone (no accounts), Claude organizes, lays out, and writes the year — portraits, superlatives, the season told properly — and each family orders their own full-color 8.5×11 hardcover or paperback, printed per copy.
The physical book
Yearbooks are the 8.5×11 full-color format — hardcover for the keeper copies, paperback where budgets rule. Print-per-copy removes the minimum-order math that priced small schools out.
Every option below is a real, printer-validated product — files are checked against the printer's own rules (trim, bleed, spine width computed from the actual page count) before anything prints, and Lulu prints on demand and ships to your door.
| Option | Trim | Pages | Ink & paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcover · 8.5×11 | 8.5×11 in | 24–800 | Full color case wrap — the yearbook spec |
| Paperback · 8.5×11 | 8.5×11 in | 32–800 | Full color |
| Saddle stitch (small groups) | 8.5×11 in | 4–48 | Premium color — team-season scale |
The yearbook, minus the yearbook committee
Traditional yearbooks require a committee, a September-to-May production calendar, and a minimum order that assumes a school of hundreds. Small schools, homeschool co-ops, club teams, and graduating friend groups got priced out of their own remembering. The rebuilt pipeline: a contribution link goes to the parent/member chat at year's start (or honestly, in April — it works), everyone adds photos and messages all year with no accounts, and Claude does the committee's job — organizing by season and event, laying out pages, drafting the year's narrative from what people submitted, crediting photographers.
What to keep from the classic form, because the clichés are the genre: the portrait pages (phone photos against one wall work — consistency beats professionalism), the superlatives (voted in the group chat), the messages page per member, the team stats, the teacher/coach note. What to add that the big-school books never had room for: actual stories. The tournament as a narrative. The year's running jokes, explained for the 2045 reader.
Per-copy printing changes who gets one: every family orders their own from the storefront (hardcover for the graduate, paperback for grandma), the group fronts nothing, and the late-August transfer student's family can still order in September.
- Assign one person per month to dump photos through the link — twelve small habits beat one May panic
- Get the messages in before the last week; "write something meaningful by Friday" produces "HAGS" every time
How it works
1. Open the year Start the project, add the roster and any photos you hold, and send the contribution link to the group chat.
2. Let everyone contribute Send Bindery's contribution link to the group — anyone can add stories, photos, recipes, or voice notes from the link, no account needed, and Claude weaves contributions in with credit.
3. Shape it with Claude Claude proposes the book's structure and drafts it with you — with everything in context, so nothing gets lost between sessions.
4. Watch the proof assemble A live typeset proof builds as you work: real pages, a designed cover, a spine sized from the true page count. The watermarked proof is always free.
5. Print and share it Pick the format, see the per-copy price and shipping options, and Lulu prints on demand and ships to your door — one copy or a boxful. Publishing to a free storefront is optional, never required.
What it costs
Free to start — no account needed to try, no credit card, and a monthly allowance of AI credits on the free tier. The typeset, watermarked proof is always free, and metered work (like image generation or narration) quotes its price in credits before you confirm. Clean press-ready files are a $49 one-time per book unlock or free with Bindery Pro ($39/month (or $390/year)); printed copies are priced per copy at order time and shipped by Lulu — no minimum run.
Start free, see the proof
Bindery — the book studio inside Infinite Library — designs, writes, and typesets the whole thing with you, then prints it for real. Free to start, no account needed to try, and the watermarked proof of your actual book costs nothing. The fastest way to know is to bring what you have and watch the first pages appear.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does buying work — does the school front the money?
Nobody fronts anything: publish the finished yearbook to its storefront and each family orders their own copies, printed on demand. The group can also order a small batch for an event table. No minimums, no boxes in the gym.
Can it work for a sports season or a graduating friend group, not a whole school?
Perfectly — a 30–48 page saddle-stitch season book in premium color is a lovely object for a team, and a friend-group "senior year" book is just a yearbook with better inside jokes. Same pipeline, smaller cast.
Do I keep the rights?
Yes — authors keep ownership of their work. Print it, sell it from your free Infinite Library storefront (author-set print royalty, about 95% on ebooks, 80% on audiobooks), or keep it entirely private.