you don't take to. You don't know how many other short stories and novellas there are, so you miss things/buy things twice, etc. The worst is when you need a novella or short story to know what is going on in one of the main books and it's not published in it.
Wait you can make mini books with aida scraps?? That's awesome!!
Yep. You just glue them around some wood or thick card cut to the size you want and trim them when it's dry. Evenweave works better, though because it's finer. I've also used felt cut-offs before. You can use any fabric you want, though most people who make them use leather instead. Some people use old magazines or catalogues so it looks like you have pages in them - you just use the spine, but they have to be thin
enough to cut through. Some companies make little hardbacks of classic books and print some of the text from them, but they can be expensive. Most of mine are just wood with a cover on them and glued into a bookcase. I've done that with the 24th scale ones because they fall out and are quite fiddly.