The invention relates to the production of books with wire or spiral bindings or other comparable bindings, wherein sub-layers (2) made of punched sheets are collected one over the other in a successive manner into a book (5) at a collecting station (3), and the book is subsequently bound. According to the invention, a sub-layer (2) is held in a clamped manner by at least one lateral clamping device (12) which moves together with the sub-layer while the sub-layer is transported into the collecting position, while the sub-layers (10) already collected at the collecting station (3) are held in a fixed manner by means of at least one needle (13) which is moved upwards through the punched holes (4) from below. The clamping of the pliers is released only when the needles (13) are also located in the punched holes (4) of the newly conveyed sub-layers (2) as a result of the needles being moved upwards.