A kit for manufacturing a stitch-bound printed book comprises a book cover (10), a collection of pre-perforated sheets (15) that can be printed to make up a printed bookblock (18), and endpapers (20a,20b) for assembling the printed bookblock in the cover. The pre-perforated loose sheets (15) have along one edge that corresponds to the book's spine a series of binding perforations (16). The pre-perforated loose sheets (15) are printable on one or both sides in an A4 printer to constitute printed pages of the book. A bookblock (18) is formed by reconstituting the printed pre-perforated pages as a collection with their perforations (16) aligned and by sewing through the perforations (16). This involves stitch-binding of individual sheets (15) instead of the usual stitch-binding of folded sheets, which makes it feasible to print the prepared collection of pre-perforated sheets using desktop publishing equipment. The kit lends itself to using adhesive contact paper for the endpapers (20a,20b) in place of the application of glue, making binding practical and convenient.