This project, kind of, has over a thousand books. Let me show you how I made them and give you some tips on doing this, and in particular painting it all.

I started the books by cutting a bunch of these series of books. This is a whole shelf. See how I have varied the heights of the books?

Then I painted the books with a variety of colors. An important thing to note here is to keep the paint on the dry side. If it is too watery or you apply too much of it the cardboard will be prone to shrinkage and warpage.

Then I used a sharpie to add various bookish details and to strengthen the vertical lines between books.

And there you go. Glue those rows of books into the bookshelf. All told there are over 1,000 books. It took me a bit of time to make and paint these books but it was worth it.