Bookazine printing

Print your special interest Bookazine at Ex Why Zed

We Are Here to Help.

Enjoy this page first, then

You have done the hard work, written the content, designed the layout, now let us take over!

Thank you for visiting Ex Why Zed, and a warm welcome to you! We understand that printing for the first time can be overwhelming, with its unique terminology, jargon, and myriad choices. Rest assured, our extensive expertise in Bookazine printing is at your service. Relax and let us navigate you smoothly through the process.

Imagine the thrill when a splendid stack of boxes is delivered to your doorstep, containing the first copies of your self-published bookazine. The moment you’ve diligently worked towards is almost here. Prepare to revel in the tactile sensation and the fresh scent of your own creation.

CREATIVE PRINTING

Our goal is to get your creative idea into print.

Ex Why Zed are specialist creative book printers who will work with you to take your artwork from screen to a wide range of printed outcomes. Our video series will really expand your knowledge on the options available in print, our FAQ section answers all your questions and our file set-up guides will make you a better designer.

Ultimately printing isn’t a daunting experience. You’ve done the hard work and come up with a creative idea for your bookazine printing. Getting it into print is the easy part.

It’s 2024 and it has never been easier to self-publish a bookazine. Brilliantly, you don’t even need a publisher anymore. Jump on Kickstarter and start a crowdfunding campaign, tell the world about your great publication and become fully funded before you go to print.

Start Your Journey today

Styling your publication

Optimise your print to suit your design or budget requirements.

When figuring out your print costs, the main things to think about are the size, number of pages, and how many copies you need. Tweaking these can really make the most of your budget.

There are heaps of choices for size, finishes, and paper types. But to keep it simple, the main paper finishes are silk, gloss, or uncoated, and your inside pages can be anything from 100 to 170gsm. For a chunkier cover, go for 300gsm or 350gsm.

Our tip? Take some time to check out our video guides and browse our case studies. Each book’s print specs are listed, so if you spot something perfect for your project, jot it down and we can give you a similar quote.

A DEEP DIVE

Printing winning Bookazines

We have been doing this a while now and have seen a lot of impressive publications come off our presses. To give you a head start with your bookazine printing, here are three print specifications which work well (and photos of them, see right). Each has its own characteristics which have proven to be winning combinations from a production perspective, cost per unit and most importantly, have reader appeal.

If any of our showcase options would work for your project, take a note of the spec and jump on our quote form to receive your bespoke quotation. Or ping us an email on hello@exwhyzed.com if that is easier.

Showcase 1 – a stereotypical bookazine:

265x200mm Perfect Bound Books
4pp Cover onto 300gsm Silk
Matt Lamination to outer
160pp Text onto 130gsm Silk
Four colour print throughout
As a guide, you could print 200 copies of this spec £10.16 per bookazine.

Showcase 2 – a compact, tactile bookazine:

A5 Perfect Bound Books
4pp Cover onto 300gsm Uncoated
Matt Lamination to outer
80pp Text onto 120gsm Uncoated
Four colour print throughout
As a guide, you could print 100 copies of this for £3.58 per bookazine.

Showcase 3 – a content filled, smooth silk A4 solution:

A4 Perfect Bound Books
4pp Cover onto 300gsm Silk
Matt Lamination to outer
100pp Text onto 130gsm Silk
Four colour print throughout
As a guide, you could print 250 copies of this for £3.26 per copy.

Tweaks you could consider…

• Reducing the cover to 250gsm which also makes it easier to open.
• Switching to gloss lamination for a shiny aesthetic.
• Decrease the size to A5 to save you money and make the publication more ergonomic.
• OR increase to A4 for a larger area of content.
• Increase the weight of the inside pages to 170gsm making it more substantial and impressive for the reader.
• Pick out some content on the cover for Spot UV varnishing which makes it shine (this is an additional £280).

Get your print quote

BENEFITS OF PRINTING WITH EX WHY ZED

Refreshingly responsive, friendly and patient customer service.

We don't like to blow our own trumpets but we enjoy doing what we do and we take absolute pride in helping all of our customers from start to finish on their print journey. We're proud of our impressive 300 reviews on Trustpilot too: https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/exwhyzed.com

Free Sample Packs

While we’ve done our best on our paper choices page to make one sheet of white paper look different to another sheet of white paper, there’s nothing better than seeing them in reality so you can stroke, sniff and examine them in close up. Jump on our form and we will send out a pack out asap.

No minimum order quantity

At Ex Why Zed you can print any quantity from 1 upwards and the exact number you need. If you'd like 71 bookazines then we'll print 71 bookazines!. If your publication is in its infancy then a long print run might be out of reach for Issue One. Our digital presses offer the perfect solution with low unit prices so you can test the market first.

Super Helpful Set Up Guides

We give you all the tools you need to quickly and easily prepare print ready artwork. When it is time to start artworking your final book take 5 minutes to read through our file set up guides. We have made them as user friendly as possible but if you’re stuck drop us a call or email for a quick answer.

UK & Worldwide delivery

Delivery within the UK is free and the zines will arrive the day after they leave us. We also deliver work around the world too and just charge the shipping at our cost price from the cheapest courier on the day.

Choose a bespoke size

'A' sizes are great and fit neatly into 'C' size envelopes but why not mix it up and rebel against convention by choosing a bespoke and custom size for your zine.

Free print quote

Now you have spent a good chunk of time reading about what we can produce, jump over to our intuitive quote form and let us know what we can print for you. We'll work out a price and get a quote over asap.

Thorough file checking is standard

We understand that you might not be 100% confident in preparing artwork for print. When you send us your files, they are thoroughly checked and we always come back to you with recommendations for improvement if something doesn’t look right.

STILL HAVE QUESTIONS?

Our helpful section of FAQs to guide in the final stages of your print journey

We have done our best to give you a huge wealth of information on this page and in our guides but if here are some frequently asked questions to help you get your work into print.

Here are some short snippet video guides on styling and designing a publication:

Binding Options

Paper Choices

Paper Sizes

Styling a booklet for print

View all our FAQ's

How do I place my order?

Ready to place an order?
Brilliant, you’ll need to upload the files using www.wetransfer.com sending them to hello@exwhyzed.com and in the comments box let us know the number of copies you’re going for and the best address for delivery. We’ll then give your artwork a free preflight check to highlight any potential issues and will email with any advice or recommendations before going to production.

Once we receive your print ready artwork, we’ll aim to deliver in 4/5 working days (we do get busy at degree show time). If you are working to a crucial deadline PLEASE allow more time – there’s no harm in getting the artwork to us early so we can deliver a few days before the show starts 🙂

How do I add bleed to my file?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/9elKD4qeGKU

https://www.exwhyzed.com/resources/setting-3mm-bleed-on-artwork-for-print/

We will need 3mm bleed on all the edges, you’ll notice at the moment that the artwork stops at the crop marks – it needs to extend 3mm beyond this to avoid any chance of a white border.

The following page includes illustrated and video guides on how to set up bleed correctly:

https://www.exwhyzed.com/resources/setting-3mm-bleed-on-artwork-for-print/

You might have set this up correctly in InDesign but when you export to PDF just make sure that in the ‘Marks and Bleeds’ menu you not only tick ‘Crop Marks’ but you also add ‘3mm’ in to the four bleed boxes – top, bottom, inside and outside. This will add the bleed to the exported PDF.

BLEED FIX

It’s one of two things:

Have you dragged the background image out 3mm beyond the black line on your Indesign file into the bleed area? Try that then export again.

OR you have done the above but then when you’re exporting you need to click the Marks and Bleeds menu, then type ‘3mm’ into the four bleed boxes. This will add the bleed to the pdf.

Single pages or spreads?

We will need the cover of your book supplied as two spreads – the outer cover and the inner cover.

When you export to PDF can you set the bleed to 3mm on the right and left and 10mm on the top and bottom – this way the hairlines will show on the PDF and we’ll know where to fold the spine. We have locked the hairlines and white box so drop your artwork in over those.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zRWFYVk_WI

https://www.exwhyzed.com/resources/create-your-cover-file/

The inside pages should be supplied as single pages NOT spreads. Just choose ‘Pages’ rather ‘Spreads’ when you export to PDF and that should sort it!

Will it look like it does on screen?

Unfortunately what is seen on an RGB, backlit screen is never going to be the same as it appears on paper in cmyk. It’s just impossible to achieve that and no printer could. You will have to allow for some difference in the colours between the two mediums but having something tangible in your hands and seeing the images on paper gives the publication a charm that just sending out a pdf wont do.

Why don't you put prices online?

We like to interact with our customers, find out about their projects and have a bit of dialogue rather than hide behind a massive, confusing spreadsheet on a website.

We provide a bespoke quote for each and every job because your project is bespoke and unique.

Don’t get us wrong, our process is quick and efficient but we like to add extra value by starting a conversation with you first. Remember conversations? Yep, they are what happened before your phone was glued to your head! 🙂

For this reason we don’t list all our prices online but get in touch either in email or through our quote form and we will give you a bespoke quote.

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