Just wondering about printing your book?

Three decisions and one PDF. Choose your binding (your page count decides), your size and your paper, then send us a print-ready PDF. We check it for free, and you can start with a single copy.

Most picture books are 32 pages and square (210 × 210mm), in paperback or hardback. As a guide, 100 square paperbacks cost £338 and 100 square hardbacks £618, with UK delivery included.

Your page count decides: stapled for 8–72 pages, perfect bound from 32 pages, and hardback from 28 inside pages.

Print-speak for stapling, also called saddle stitching. We fold printed sheets in half and staple them through the spine. It's quick, affordable, and the pages open completely flat.

Your pages are glued into a wrap-around card cover, giving a flat, square spine you can print a title on, like most paperbacks and bigger magazines. It works from 32 pages in total.

It's how we make hardbacks. Your pages are bound into a rigid board case, wrapped in a printed cover or book cloth, with endpapers joining the two.

32 pages in total: a 4-page cover plus 28 inside pages. Any fewer, and a stapled booklet is the way to go.

Each folded sheet makes four pages, so your total, cover included, has to divide by four: 8, 12, 16, 20 and so on, up to 72.

Up to 72 pages in total, always a multiple of four. Past about 40 pages, a stapled booklet starts to bounce open, so it's worth considering perfect binding.

28 inside pages. The boards and endpapers build that into a proper 9mm spine.

In print-speak, stapled projects are booklets, and perfect bound or hardback projects are books. Zines, photobooks and children's books can be either.

Section sewn hardbacks have their pages stitched in with thread before binding. They're tougher and open flatter than glued books, and cost more. Glued is perfect for most books.

Not true lay-flat binding, sorry. The closest we get is a section sewn hardback, which opens flatter than a glued one, or a stapled booklet, which opens completely flat.

Sorry, we don't. Board books are still made almost exclusively in China. A hardback picture book is the sturdiest alternative we print.

Silk is the safe all-rounder, gloss gives photos maximum punch, and uncoated is natural, matt and lovely to write on.

Most inside pages sit between 115gsm and 170gsm: 130gsm silk or 115–120gsm uncoated is standard. Covers are usually 300gsm. 170gsm is the heaviest we use for inside pages, and 350gsm for a softback cover.

Yes. In a perfect bound book you can mix silk, gloss and uncoated papers in the pages, up to 170gsm.

Yes. Lessebo Vanilla is a warm cream with a classic novel feel, and Evolution Uncoated is a grainy, 100% recycled off-white. Both soften images a little, so they suit text best.

We'd steer you away from it. Coloured and kraft stock washes out your artwork and at least doubles the cost. Instead, drop one of our free paper textures into your cover background and we'll print it crisp on bright white.

Yes. All our house papers are FSC certified, and Evolution Uncoated is 100% recycled. Our litho press runs on vegetable inks.

Yes. The sample pack is free in the UK and usually goes out the same day.

Stapled booklets go up to A3 portrait (420 × 297mm). Perfect bound books and hardbacks go up to A4, or square up to 294 × 294mm. Landscape books max out at A4 landscape (210mm high × 297mm wide), so A3 landscape books are too big to bind.

A5, A4 portrait and 210 × 210mm square are the most cost-effective. Custom sizes are welcome; bigger formats move onto larger presses and cost more.

Yes, any size within our maximums. Tell us the finished size, height first, and we'll quote it.

On a printed cover, yes. It stops the ink cracking where the cover folds. Choose matt (our go-to), gloss for high shine, or soft-touch for a velvety feel, though soft-touch does show fingerprints.

350gsm on a softback, which is a very rigid card. Any thicker and the book won't open properly. For more rigidity, go hardback.

Yes. We can split a run between cover designs while the inside pages stay the same, for example 300 copies as five covers of 60.

Not in one binding, sorry. A neat alternative is to band or shrink-wrap two separate books together, which we've done for clients before.

Uncoated. It takes crayons, felt tips and pencils beautifully, where silk and gloss resist them.

Yes, perfect bound or hardback, with lined, dotted, grid or blank pages on uncoated paper that's lovely to write on. Notebooks carry 20% VAT, unlike books.

Sorry, no. We've tried it, and it goes wrong every time. We're brilliant at printing and binding the whole thing for you, though.

One side of content. A sheet has two pages, front and back, so 40 inside pages means a 40-page PDF printed on 20 leaves.

A softback cover has four printed sides: front, inside front, inside back and back. That's why a 32-page book is a 4-page cover plus 28 inside pages.

'Text pages' is simply print-speak for the inside pages. They can hold photos, illustrations, full-colour artwork, or just words.

Digital printing, on our HP Indigo presses, is ideal for short runs, from one copy to a few hundred. Litho is more cost-effective on longer runs. We'll recommend whichever suits your quantity.

Colchester, Essex, England's oldest recorded town. Everything is printed and bound here in the UK, and we've been at it since 2006.

Yes. For 1–20 copies, the instant calculator prices your book as you click, and our product pages show real price cards. For bigger runs, our 30-second quote form gets a price back to you the same day.

Size, page count, paper and quantity set the price. As a guide, 100 A5 stapled zines (32 pages) cost £188, 100 A5 paperbacks (84 pages) £394, and 100 square hardback picture books (32 pages) £618, with UK delivery included.

Not on most orders. Books, booklets, zines, leaflets and folded posters are all zero-rated.

None. Print a single copy to check it in your hands, then run the full batch.

Usually within an hour or two, and always the same working day. Tell us a target price per copy and we'll work out the quantity that hits it.

90 days. Our prices only change when paper or production costs go up, so there's every chance your price will be the same a year from now.

Yes. Tell us if your inside pages are black ink only (greyscale counts) and it'll bring your price down.

From £280 per run for foil, spot UV or embossing on the cover. Premium finishes add a few days to the turnaround.

Book cloth adds around £250 to a run, and cloth with foiled lettering around £530–580. We'll confirm the exact figure on your quote.

Yes, on hardbacks: 50p a book, in seven colours.

We can, but we'd gently steer you away from one. Dust jackets get tatty quickly, cost a lot more, and hide the cover you've designed.

We don't. Nielsen are the UK ISBN agency, and you can add the barcode to your back cover artwork yourself.

If you're publishing it, meaning selling or giving copies to the public, then yes: UK law asks for one copy within a month of publication, ISBN or not. A private run for family and friends doesn't count.

Sometimes. For a text-only A5 novel under about 50 copies, a print-on-demand service may well be cheaper. We come into our own on illustrated books, photobooks and special finishes, and on runs of 50 upwards, with a person checking every file.

One print-ready PDF at the finished size, with 3mm bleed where colour touches the edge, images around 300dpi, and pages in reading order. Perfect bound books and hardbacks need a second PDF for the cover.

Bleed is 3mm of extra background running past the trim edge, so there's never a thin white line after we cut. Anything that touches the edge needs it.

Send inside pages as single pages in reading order. The one exception is a perfect bound or hardback cover, which comes as one spread: back, spine, front.

On a perfect bound book, it's set by your inside page count and paper. 40 inside pages on 130gsm silk, for example, gives a 3mm spine.

As one spread: back cover, spine and front cover, left to right, plus a second page for the inside covers if they're printed. Add 3mm bleed to the outside edges only, never around the spine.

Yes, for A4, A5 portrait, A5 landscape and 210 × 210mm books, with the most common spine widths. Download them from our cover file guide.

Send a cover wrap (your cover plus extra to fold round the boards), your inside pages as single pages, and two endpaper files if your endpapers are printed. We'll send you the exact cover dimensions for your book.

The cover overhangs the pages by 3mm on each side, so a 210 × 210mm book finishes at 216 × 216mm. Always give us your inside page size.

As one PDF of single pages in reading order, cover first and back cover last, with 3mm bleed. No separate cover file, and no spine to calculate.

Keep text 6–8mm from the spine side of each page, and 10–12mm on the first and last inside pages, where the cover is glued on.

A few millimetres disappear into the spine on perfect bound and hardback books. Nudge each half of a spread image 2–3mm outwards, and never run small text across the fold. Stapled booklets open flat, so spreads work beautifully.

That's creep. In a thick stapled booklet the centre pages sit further out and get trimmed a touch narrower, so keep page numbers and important text well clear of the outer edge.

Around 300dpi at the size they'll print. A small web image stretched to a full page will look soft.

Close, but never identical. Screens glow in RGB and paper reflects in CMYK, so colours calm down a touch. We flag anything that'll shift noticeably.

In Acrobat, run Print Production → Preflight → Sheetfed Offset (CMYK). Anything listed under 'Object uses RGB' needs converting, though we'll flag it at your free file check anyway.

Set black text to 100% black only (0/0/0/100). For big black backgrounds, use a rich black of 30/30/30/100.

Yes. Supply them as greyscale files, not colour files that only look black and white, or they can print with a green or blue tinge.

Not exactly. We print in four-colour CMYK, which can't reproduce fluorescent ink, so neon pink comes out softer. Ask us about Pantone spot colours on longer litho runs.

For images inside your layout, both are fine, and TIFF prints fractionally better. For printing, place everything into one PDF, ideally exported as PDF/X-1a.

Yes. Embed or outline your fonts when you export the PDF, so your type prints exactly as designed.

9 or 10pt is the minimum for body text. Children's books usually use much bigger type, around 16–20pt.

Send a second PDF the same size as your cover, with everything to be finished set in 100% black (0/0/0/100). Vector artwork works best.

InDesign is the industry standard, and Affinity Publisher is a brilliant free alternative. Canva works too; just build the page at its bleed size.

Yes. Canva has no bleed setting, so build each page 6mm bigger than the finished size (A5 becomes 154mm wide × 216mm high) and download it as PDF Print. From Word, save as a PDF. We check every file for free.

It can work for illustrated pages and simple layouts. Ask for the finished size plus 3mm bleed at 300dpi, and use the ready-made prompts on our Artwork Hub.

We can, from £25, but it's quicker and cheaper to set up your artwork at the size you want printed.

Send your PDF by WeTransfer to hello@exwhyzed.com, with your print choices, quantity and delivery address in the message.

Only for university orders. Otherwise an email with your print choices, quantity and delivery address is all we need, though you're welcome to send a PO if your own systems need one.

WeTransfer is simplest: it's free, needs no account and handles big PDFs. Google Drive or Dropbox links work too.

Always. A real person checks every file for free before anything goes near a press: bleed, page order, spine and image quality.

On runs of 21 copies or more, we send you a PDF proof to approve, and hardbacks are always proofed. Short runs of 1–20 stapled or perfect bound copies go straight to print after our file check.

Yes, at cost price: from £25 for a flat sheet, or a fully bound copy from about £44 stapled, £58–82 perfect bound and £120–180 hardback.

Read every page for spelling, check the page order and any blank pages, and confirm the quantity. Once you approve, it goes straight to press.

No. Crop marks and fold guides are there for us, and they're trimmed away or folded in. If anything on your proof looks odd, ask us before you approve.

Email us straight away, but it may already be too late. Once you approve, your job usually goes on press soon after, because printing straight away is how we hit your deadline.

Once your artwork is checked, we send an invoice to pay by bank transfer or card online, whichever suits you. Payment comes with your order, before we start printing.

Just email us. We'll send a fresh link, or refund a double payment promptly.

Phones are open 9am–5pm, Monday to Friday, and Live Chat runs in office hours. Email any time on hello@exwhyzed.com and we'll come back to you promptly. We're happy to jump on Zoom or Teams too.

Stapled booklets are with you in 3 working days, perfect bound books in 5 and hardbacks in 7, with free UK tracked delivery.

Tell us your date before you order and we'll say straight away whether it's doable, then build the whole job around it.

Rarely, and never for bound books. Jobs run in sequence, and rushing is where mistakes creep in. Tell us your date and we'll say straight away what's realistic.

Degree show season (April to June) and the run-up to Christmas. For hardbacks that starts in September; for everything else, it's November and December. Get your files to us early in those months.

Yes, free tracked delivery to one UK address. Someone needs to be in to sign, or tell us a safe place and we'll add it to the delivery details. For deadlines we can book a pre-9am (£12) or pre-noon (£8) slot.

Yes, if you're really pressed for time. Usually, though, we send every parcel by tracked courier on next-day delivery.

Yes, worldwide, at the courier's cost price. Outside the UK, import fees may be charged on arrival.

Yes, regularly. We print in Colchester and ship by tracked courier. Import fees may be charged on arrival, so ask us about them when we quote.

Yes. Tell us the addresses and how many copies go to each when you order, and we'll split the delivery.

Not any more, sorry. We print your run and deliver it to you, free to one UK address, or split it across several addresses if you need copies in different places.

Yes. Let us know your preferred safe place and we'll add it to the delivery details.

In sturdy, double-walled brown boxes, 32 × 26 × 26cm, packed to no more than 10kg each. Smaller books and booklets may come in a 22 × 16 × 22cm box, and single copies or very small runs in an Amazon-style book wrap.

Enjoy opening your boxes and revel in having transformed your idea into print! Then share it: tag @exwhyzedprint on Instagram or X, or tag us on Facebook, and we'll repost it for some extra exposure.

We'd love to. Tag @exwhyzedprint on Instagram or X, or tag us on Facebook, and we'll repost it. Our favourite projects get photographed and filmed, then become a case study on our website, a social post and a showcase video on our YouTube channel.

Photograph the box and the books, and email us the same day. We'll sort it out with you, so you're not left chasing the courier.

DPD have a strange habit of splitting an order between two drivers now and then, with no obvious logic to it. The rest of your printing will very likely arrive within an hour or two.

Yes, and you might get lucky with a few extra copies arriving.

Email us an hour or so after your delivery window has passed. That's still within working hours, so we can chase the courier the same day.

Check with neighbours and your safe place first, then email us your order name. We're the courier's account holder, so we chase them for you.

Tell us straight away, along with a couple of photos. We'll look into it immediately and work out what's happened. We'd far rather hear about it than have you live with it.

It happens to the best of us and we appreciate how frustrating it is. Send us the corrected file and we'll quote a reprint of whatever quantity you need.

Yes. We always keep your artwork, so just tell us how many more copies you'd like and we'll pull it from your previous run.

Not pixel for pixel, and we're upfront about that. We don't colour-match one print run to another.

Thank you! We collect reviews on Reviews.io, and we'll email you a link after delivery.