How to Get Your Book Printed

If you’re wondering how to get a book printed then you have come to the right place. At Imprint Digital we use sheet-fed digital printing machines for both our text and cover printing jobs. This means we can offer our customers a wide selection of paper types for text and cover printing with consistently high quality. It also lets us offer rapid turnaround times for customers as there is little set-up time for new paper stocks. You can find out more about what book printing options we can offer by heading over to our book printing services.

Analyse books, what do you like, what do you dislike?

Want to know how to get your book printed? Well, the first step in your book printing adventure is to get a feel of what you think you would like your book printed on. It is a good idea to have a look at what books you have on your shelf, what do you like the look and feel of and if you don’t have many books on your shelf or you want to see a lot of variety then head over to your local bookshop. Spend some time looking at the books that are in the same or similar genre to your book. You may see something a bit unusual that you like or you may find that there is a set standard for your genre.

Decide on the size

There are certain set sizes for certain genres of books. You can find out more on book sizes by going to our blog post – Choosing the Right Book Size.

Decide on any colour

Now is the time to make certain if your book will have any colour images or text in your book. Depending on the genre of your book colour and/or images may not be necessary. Any colour you have in your book will raise the price per copy. If you have a lot of colour pages in your book then the price may rise significantly. Any colour pages in your book are charged at a flat rate, for example, whether you have one colour word or a full-colour picture the price will be the same.

Decide on the paper type

You should now have your text file finalised so you can decide on the paper type to use. Some genres of books will have a set style which you may have identified when you examined some books to find out what you like. For example, novels are usually printed on an offwhite bulky paper (our bookwove papers) with a matt or gloss laminated cover and non-fiction books tend to be printed on a plain white paper with a matt or gloss laminated cover.

If your book has a lot of basic colour images or text then an 80gsm or 100gsm opaque paper may be your preferred option. However, if your book has multiple high-quality colour photographs or even black and white photographs it may be better to have them printed on a coated paper. We do offer the option to have plate sections inserted into your book. This means that your book can be printed on one type of paper and then we can print certain pages on different paper stock and insert those pages into your book.

Decide on the cover type – Paperback or Hardback

We can offer various different cover styles for the paperback books we print from a standard gloss laminated cover to a cover printed duplex (both sides) on unique cover stock with wrap around flaps. Or maybe you are thinking of having your book printed as a hardback book? Again we can offer various different cover options for these; PPC (printed paper case) hardbacks or wibalin hardback books with a dust jacket.

Deciding on cover options for a hardback book can be a bit difficult as there are so many options, feel free to contact us if you want any advice. If you are undecided on a paperback or hardback you should visit our blog post – Pros & Cons of Paperbacks and Hardbacks.

Amend spine for selected paper type and cover type

Now your paper-type has been selected and you have decided between a paperback and a hardback book it is time to amend the spine of the cover. The measurement for the spine is calculated by the thickness of the paper and the thickness of the cover stock. If you are having a hardback book then the spine will be thicker as the hardback boards are a lot thicker than your standard cover stock. You can find out how wide you need to make your spine by using our online price calculator.

Ensure cover matches book printing requirements

You will need to ensure the cover matches the full printing requirements before it is submitted to us for printing. For more information on the cover design requirements and to see our cover templates have a look at our help page – Templates. Please note that as well as the cover having 3mm of bleed if you have any images or text that bleed off the edge of the page then they will also need 3mm of bleed added.

Decide on cover lamination

The two different laminations we offer for all our books is matt and gloss lamination. You can have your book uncoated but we don’t recommend this. The cover will not have any protection and will be easily marked and damaged. Matt laminated books, at this point in time, tend to be a more popular option. Gloss lamination works well with vibrant colours and can enhance the quality of the cover. For more information on cover lamination please see our page – Laminated Books.

Submit an order form

The next step will be to submit an order for through our online price calculator. Our online price calculator is designed to be a simple process in order for you to get a cost for your book printing needs. After you have received a quote and you are happy with the price you can convert the quote to an order and send files to us via hightail.

Check the proof copy

When we receive the files we will check over your order form and make sure the files match what has been put on the order. We will check both files to make sure they match the requirements we need for printing. We do not check for any mistakes which should have been caught in the proofreading or editing stage.

After our checks have been completed we will send the book to proof. The cover and the text will get printed and we will bind up a single copy of the book to send to you. This copy may not be a laminated proof copy as our laminators can take some time to set up and prepare. It is now over to you to do your last checks and to make sure you are happy with the paper stock, cover design and cover stock. If you notice any errors with the text or cover then you can submit new files to us for printing. If you are sending new files we can do another proof copy to make sure you are 100% happy with the final product.

Time for printing

After you have approved the proof for printing it is over to us. We aim to get most books printed and bound up for dispatch within 5 working days. Hardback books can take slightly longer. We use DPD for all our UK and Europe deliveries which are tracked and usually delivered on the next working day. Worldwide deliveries are made by the courier which we deem suitable at the time of dispatch.

If you have any questions about our book printing services please get in contact with us.

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