Book printing
The moment it stops being a file and becomes a book
Paperback and hardcover production for Australian authors: print-ready file preparation, stock and finish selection, proof copies, and help choosing between print-on-demand and a short run.
Choosing a route
Print-on-demand or a short run
The right answer depends almost entirely on how many copies you genuinely expect to sell, and how many you are prepared to store.
| Print-on-demand | Short-run printing | |
|---|---|---|
| How it works | One copy printed when someone orders | A batch printed and delivered to you |
| Upfront cost | None beyond setup | Paid for the whole run in advance |
| Unit cost | Higher per copy | Lower per copy as quantity rises |
| Stock holding | None | You store and ship them |
| Best for | Retail sales, uncertain demand | Events, speaking, direct sales, launches |
| Making corrections | Upload a new file, takes effect immediately | The printed run is fixed |
| Finish options | Limited to the supplier's standard range | Wide: foils, embossing, specialty stocks |
Many authors sensibly use both: print-on-demand for retail listings, and a small run of author copies for events, review copies and direct sales.
Specifications
The decisions that make a book feel like one
Readers cannot articulate why one paperback feels substantial and another feels cheap. It is almost always these.
Binding and format
- Perfect bound paperback: the standard, and right for most books
- Case bound hardcover: for gift, reference and collector editions
- Dust jacket: optional on hardcover, adds cost and presence
- Saddle stitch: only for very short books and children's titles
Paper and finish
- Cream stock: softer, traditional for fiction, slightly bulkier
- White stock: crisper, standard for non-fiction and images
- Matte laminate: understated, holds fingerprints less
- Gloss laminate: brighter colour, common on commercial genres
Available stocks, finishes and trim sizes vary between printers, and print-on-demand services offer a narrower range than a trade printer. We confirm what your chosen supplier actually provides before promising anything: we do not quote specifications we cannot source.
Colour or mono
The decision that drives your unit cost
Interior colour printing costs substantially more per page than black and white, and the difference compounds across a whole book. For a novel it is irrelevant. For a cookbook, a photography title or a children's picture book it determines whether the project is viable at all.
- Black and white interior: fiction, memoir, most non-fiction
- Standard colour: adequate for charts, diagrams and simple images
- Premium colour: for photography and illustration where fidelity matters
Where a book has only a handful of images, grouping them into a single colour section is sometimes cheaper than printing the whole interior in colour. We will run the numbers both ways before you commit.
Proof copies
Never release a book you have not held
A physical proof costs the price of one book and about a week. It is the cheapest insurance in publishing, and the number of problems it catches is remarkable.
- Cover colour against what you approved on screen
- Spine alignment once actually bound
- Inner margin: whether text vanishes into the gutter
- Type size and ink density at true reading distance
- Trim accuracy and how close it cuts to your content
- Paper feel, opacity and whether text shows through
How it works
From final files to books in hand
Specification
Trim size, binding, paper, finish and quantity agreed, and a printer selected to match. Print-on-demand, short run, or both.
File preparation
Interior PDF and cover wrap built to that printer's exact template, with correct bleed, colour profile and spine width for the final page count.
Pre-flight checks
Files checked against the printer's requirements before submission, which is where most rejected uploads get caught.
Proof copy
A physical proof produced and sent to you. Nothing goes on sale until you have approved it.
Production
Print-on-demand goes live for retail ordering, or your short run is printed and delivered to the address you nominate.
Questions
Printing questions, answered
If you are unsure, print none: start with print-on-demand and order author copies as you need them. Committing to a thousand copies before you know your demand is how garages fill up with unsold books. A short run makes sense when you have a specific outlet: a launch, a speaking schedule, a market stall or direct sales.
Yes. Both local trade printers and Australian print-on-demand fulfilment are available, which reduces shipping time and cost for domestic orders. Which is cheaper depends on your quantity and specification, so we compare before recommending.
Perfect binding needs enough pages to have a spine, usually around 24 as an absolute minimum, though it looks better well above that. Maximums vary by printer and paper thickness. Very long books may need thinner stock or splitting into volumes.
Availability depends on the supplier and the trim size. Some print-on-demand services offer case binding on a limited range of sizes; a trade printer offers far more, but requires a minimum run. We will tell you what is genuinely available for your specification rather than promising it in principle.
Print-on-demand copies are typically produced and dispatched within a few business days of an order. A short offset run usually takes two to four weeks from approved files to delivery, plus freight.
With print-on-demand, yes: upload a corrected file and subsequent copies use it. With a printed run, no. That is precisely why the proof copy stage exists.
Continue
Before and after printing
Most authors combine two or three services. Tell us where your manuscript is and we will recommend only what it needs.
Get a quote
Tell us the specification and we will price the print
Send your page count, trim size, binding preference and the quantity you have in mind. We will compare print-on-demand against a short run and show you both.
- Print-on-demand and short run compared
- Files built to your printer's exact template
- Pre-flight checks before submission
- Physical proof before anything goes on sale
Prefer to talk it through? +61 2 8531 1369 · info@harbourbridgepress.com