Paperback

Home > Info > Books > Paperback

The most popular books in book shops - perfect for any printing need.

What Is A Paperback Book?

Paperback books need no introduction. They are the most popular book type and the ones we are asked to print most often. Sometimes referred to as perfect bound or softback books they are perfect for any printing need. Books such as novels, poetry collections, travel guides, children’s books, and autobiographies are all usually printed as paperback books.

Why Print Your Book As A Paperback?

Available in all book sizes A6 to large square
Suitable for full colour and black and white printing
Paperback books are more cost effective than hardback books
They are more portable
Suitable for all product types
Turnaround time is quicker than hardback books

Sizes

We can print paperback books in a range of sizes; A6, A5, A4, Royal or a custom size of your choice.

The size you choose will depend largely on what your book is. Most novels are printed A5, but workbooks, reference guides and training manuals are often better in A4.

Our instant price calculator is able to work out the cost of printing your softback book in any of the regular sizes. If you would like a quote for a custom size, get in touch with a member of the team on (01733) 898 102 or email info@bookprintinguk.com.

Colour

One of the most frequent questions we are asked is 'should I print my book in colour or in black and white?'

There are a number of factors that would contribute to the decision. If your book is plain text, then the decision is simple. Black and white all the way. But if your book features images you have a decision to make.

Black and white printing is less expensive than colour; our online calculator can demonstrate the cost difference for you. But sometimes the look of the book is more important than saving a few pounds. If your book relies on images or colourful illustrations, or if you've written a children's book, they often look much better in colour. It is worth remembering that there is a third option: colour inserts. If you want to print primarily in black and white with a few colour pages, you could save quite a bit of money.

Pages

Perfect bound books need to have a minimum of 26 pages and a maximum of 600 in order for the binding process to be effective. If the book has too few pages the glue might not take properly, and if it has too many the insides might become too heavy and break up the glue. If you stick to the 26-600 page rule, you can't go far wrong.

If you do need to print fewer than 26 pages, we recommend our booklet printing service. This uses stitch binding and as such there are no minimum page quantity restrictions.

You will also need to decide what paper type you are going to use for your book. There are two common mistakes you need to avoid here. Many people either go for the thinnest paper to save money, or the most expensive assuming it will result in a better quality book. Whilst that can sometimes be true, it's often not the case. Our webpage on paper types can help you understand the differences between each type, but if you want advice on which to use for your book you are best off getting in touch.

Design

For text books (where the printing doesn’t cover the complete page) we suggest you leave a minimum of 18mm on the inside margin (white space) and 15mm on the outer margines. If your book has pages that are printed across the whole page (no margins) we suggest that you add a 5mm bleed. We have pre formatted book templates to help you create your hardback book ready for printing. If you would prefer us to design your book for you please give us a call and we can give you a design quote, or read our design service page.

Paperback Vs Hardback

Suitable for full colour and black and white Printing
Available in all book sizes A6 to large square
Paperback books are more cost effective than hardback books
They are more portable
Suitable for all product types
Turnaround time is quicker than hardback books

Need Help Supplying Your Files?

Our Design Team are on hand to help you send your files to us, use one of our pre-designed template pages when laying out your book, or view our Supplying Files Guide for further help.

Why Print Your Paperback Book with BookPrintingUK?

1. We’ve been printing books for over 20 years

Book Printing UK is a proud member of the Bonacia family, who have been printing paperback books for more than 20 years. In that time we have become pretty good at it.

We have a team of knowledgeable account managers, talented designers, and experienced production staff. Add to that our state-of-the-art printers and you find yourself in pretty good company.

2. We guarantee outstanding quality

One of the benefits of amassing the experience that we have is that you don’t just learn how to design and print books, you learn how to do it brilliantly. Every time.

We have a stringent quality control process at every stage of the journey. Every single person that works on your book in any capacity, be it a designer, a print manager or a binder, is constantly assessing and reviewing your book to ensure that it’s perfect.

If anyone sees any mistake in the printing and binding of your book they will highlight it and fix it. Even if that means we have to start all over again.

3. We keep our costs down

Two of our main priorities are to simplify the process of printing a book and to ensure that we are providing our service at a fair price.

We do everything we can to make our processes more efficient, as doing so saves you time and money. For example, we offer our free file assessment service. This ensures that your files will print without issue, reduces design time and minimises print errors, making you happy, and saving us time and therefore money. Processes like this mean that we can keep the cost of printing low.

Use our online calculator to get an instant quote. We usually find that we are a similar price or cheaper than most print companies, but if you get a cheaper quote elsewhere let us know and we will see if there is anything we can do.

4. You don’t have to feel guilty about printing on our paper

We believe that it is everyone’s responsibility to look after our planet. As a printer who uses a lot of paper, we take our environmental responsibility very seriously.

All of the paper we use is FSC credited, which means that it has been sourced responsibly by organisations who ensure that they are re-planting trees to replace those that they use.

If you’re interested, you can find out more about FSC accredited paper here.

5. People who use our service tend to love us

We don’t want to seem arrogant, but we think we are pretty good at what we do. And our customers seem to agree.

Putting our innate British modesty aside for a moment, we work very hard to ensure that the entire process of printing with us is an enjoyable one, and that we provide amazing quality printed books at an exceptional price. So when we are told that we’re doing a good job we like to shout about it.

You can see all of our independent reviews on Trust Pilot.

It would be difficult for anybody to find a better small run printer than BookPrintingUK!

Joe Bloggs

Bangor

Paperback Book Buyer