Book printing companies

[KatrinaF]

Hello everyone.

I've been wanting to print an Art book of some Illustrations I did for Inktober. Does anyone have a print company they'd recommend? Many artists, I find, don't share their sources so I thought I'd ask here. Min order amount would be 50-100 and I don't want to pay over $3-4 ish per book. I'm willing to hire international.

Thanks in advance
Katrina

[Mewie]

@KatrinaF ohhhh... following this thread.

I'm no where close to publishing a book but would love to learn from those who have made this happen already.

[Kim Rosenlof]

@KatrinaF I have never used a book printing company, but I do know a self-publishing author who used Ingram Spark and Amazon. She thought they did a good job. In a recent 3PP podcast with Travis Hanson, he talks a little bit about publishing his own stuff with Amazon. I am sure there are other book printing places online, but I am not sure which ones are good. Maybe you could tag Lee, Will, Jake, and David Hohn and see if they have any recommendations.

[A Former User]

This post is deleted!

[carlianne]

Maybe Ingram spark? They give you an estimate here:

https://myaccount.ingramspark.com/Portal/Tools/ShippingCalculator

[Melissa_Bailey]

Hi Katrina, are you printing in full color or black and white?

If the interior pages are black & white instead of full color, you may be able to get a unit price of $3-$4 per book even with such a small print run.

Are you looking to print a softcover (paperback) or hardcover book? Hardcover books are much more expensive to print. Expect that a short print run of 50-100 full color hardcovers will be at least $8/book. Paperbacks are more affordable and you should be able to find a printer who will print a short print run for $3-$4/book (full color). Again, b&w interior pages will be more affordable.

What will the page count be? That also affects the price per book. Of course, a shorter page count will be more affordable to print.

IngramSpark and KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing - Amazon) are print-on-demand printers, meaning that books are only printed when they’re ordered. Shipping and fulfillment is all covered for you and you wouldn’t have to store an inventory of books. However, the price per unit is higher than printing in bulk. and the printing quality is lower—less saturated colors and thinner pages.

The cost for IngramSpark paperbacks start around $4/book and go up the higher the page count. Their hardcovers start around $9/book. This is for full color printing. B&W is around $2.50/book for a paperback and $6.50/book for hardcover. They have a minimum page count of 18. They also reserve the last page of the book for their printing purposes, so you may want to figure that into your book layout.

The cost for KDP paperbacks is similar. KDP has a minimum page count of 24. The cost for KDP hardcover books is more expensive, but that’s because they have a minimum page count of 72. It will cost around $10 for b&w and $15 per book for color printing.

One thing to mention about KDP: once you publish a book on KDP, you can’t unpublish it. It will always be up on Amazon, even if you decide you want to stop making it available.

If you want higher quality books and are okay with paying up front and handling the fulfillment yourself, bulk printing is the way to go. Here are a few printers who will handle smaller print runs:

• MCRL Printing (based in Canada/US & coordinates printing with a printer in China).

• Sheridan Printing also offers short print runs and print on demand services.

• Author 2 Market has comparable prices to KDP and IngramSpark for b&w printing but much higher quality. They only print paperback books. They have great service and quick shipping.

You may also want to check and see if there are any local printers who can print the type of book you’re looking for.

Hope this helps. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask!

[danielerossi]

I’ve used 360Digital in the past and plan on using them again. Low prices, great quality and great people to work with.