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Book Printing Services & Custom Book Printing

You can print your own book using our custom book printing services

Book printing can be simple, affordable, and faster than you ever thought possible when you print with 48 Hour Books. Learn the book printing process and how to print your own book.

Can I print and sell my own book?

You absolutely can.

When you print your book with 48 Hour Books, you’re in complete control. Your beautifully printed paperback books will be ready to pick up in just two days – or even as little as a few hours! (Shipping and some upgrades will add time to the order). Sell them online, sell in person, or give them away to friends or prospective customers. With an ISBN, you can distribute your custom printed book to booksellers, bookstores, and libraries, too.

Printing your own book is a great way to tell your story to the world. You can build your authority as an entrepreneur or business owner — or maybe you have a cookbook’s worth of recipes to share. Tell your family’s history in a memoir or genealogical book. Your only limit is your imagination.

And with 48 Hour Books, printing your book is as easy as 1-2-3. Write your book, upload to our easy online ordering system, and wait — as little as one day — for it to ship to your door.

Here’s how it works.

The book printing process:

1

When you’re ready to print a book, start your order. You’ll choose your custom printing options, including cover style and binding selection. Add on some jazzy upgrades to help your book stand out in a crowd.

2

We’ll prepare your document file for the pre-press process, and if you like, send you a printed proof.

3

When everything looks good, your book heads to the press! We use a digital printing press for high-quality images and crisp text, so your book looks sharp and professional.

4

Hot off the presses, we give your book a final once-over. Then we ship it to you from one of our centrally located facilities, so you receive your books fast! You can even upgrade to Rush or Super Rush production or choose expedited shipping if you need it even faster.

If you like, you can order a retail-ready single book proof. Test how good our printing is and see the final product before we complete the full “run,” or entire print order. It’s a simple additional charge to use this service. We offer multiple options for proofing, including printed proofs, so you know exactly what your book will look like before the full run is completed.

With our 100% friendly and responsive customer service, you’ll receive the best book printing services on the market from one of the best book printing companies.

How to prepare your book for printing

You can make the process of book printing and binding go even more smoothly by taking time up front to prepare your book for printing.

You can use our free book templates to make sure your files are set up properly for printing and formatting. Taking extra care to edit and proof your book before you submit your final files will save you reprint costs if you find a mistake.

When your book is ready to be submitted to our online ordering system, be sure to export it to PDF format. We can help you through this process, or you can use your word-processing program’s “Save to PDF” function. (We also recommend the free software called DoPDF, available for download on our website.)

File specifications
  • Make sure resolution is set to 600 dpi
  • Embed fonts
  • Choose “Press Quality” preset (if available)
  • Select Image Quality: Maximum (if available)

A high-quality PDF is the first step in printing a high-quality book!

How much does it cost to print your own book?

Printing your own book can be surprisingly affordable — less than $5 a book. Your costs will vary depending on your customizations, so you control how much you spend.

Binding, paper, page count

When you set up your 48 Hour Books printing order, you’ll specify your binding choice, paper type, and number of pages. Different styles of binding have different costs and increasing the number of pages can increase the price, too.

We also offer discounts on your book printing order. When you buy 100 printed books, you get 25 free — a 25% savings! Of course, if you order more than 100 books, we’ll still give you the 25 free. (Example: order 200 books and get 25 free for a total of 225 books).

If you order 100 copies of a 6”x9” perfect-bound book (180 black-and-white pages each), your effective per-book price is just $4.74 when you take the 25 additional free books into account. That includes a FREE, full-color paperback cover, too.

Types of Bound Books

perfect bound book

Perfect Binding

You’ll also recognize this binding style as “softcover” or “paperback.” Pages are glued at the spine, with a soft, or paper, cover. Perfect-bound books are great for all kinds of books, from romance, to mystery, to non-fiction, to memoirs. Use as many or as few pages as you like.

Learn more about perfect binding
casebound book

Case Binding

You may know case bound books as hardcover books. In a case bound book, a hard durable cover (usually made from stiff cardboard) wraps the book, protecting the pages and the spine. This cover is usually wrapped in a special type of book cloth, for a classy (and classic) look. Case binding is an excellent choice for fiction as well as non-fiction books, as it is an exceptionally protective binding style suitable for a long shelf life. At 48 Hour Books, you can choose from a gloss or silk (matte) laminate finish for your case bound book. Specialty options, such as cloth and leather covers, are also available.

Learn more about case binding
spiral bound book

Spiral Binding

Just like the name indicates, spiral binding uses a spiral, or coil, that threads through perforations in the pages to bind the book together. It’s similar to a spiral-bound notebook, such as the ones you used in school. Spiral binding is a great choice for workbooks, cookbooks, activity books, coloring books, and any kind of book where it’s helpful to have the book lay flat.

Learn more about spiral binding
saddle stitched book

Saddle Stitch

Saddle stitch books make great pamphlets, poetry collections, chapbooks, children’s books, and handouts. With a saddle stitch binding, the pages are stapled in the center, with a maximum of 36 pages per book. It’s an affordable and fun way to create a one-of-a-kind printed book.

Learn more about saddle stitching

Choosing where to print your book

You have a choice in where you print your book. Book printing services should offer you customizable printing options, speedy printing and delivery, and helpful customer support.

Affordable book printing will help you retain your profits when you sell your book, and you should be able to retain full control over your book and copyright when you submit your files for printing.

Why print your book with
48 Hour Books?

At 48 Hour Books, you get the world’s fastest book printing for your book. We pride ourselves on relentlessly delivering on our promise to fulfill your book printing order fast. But that’s not the only thing we do well! Customers love our high-quality products, cheerful and supportive customer service, and wide variety of printing options and customizations. It’s the combo self-publishers can’t get anywhere else!

Professional quality book printing

At 48 Hour Books, we offer professional quality book printing that’s a match for the best-sellers. From high-quality paper stocks to laser-crisp image and text, your printed book will look sharp and represent you well.

Book printing and binding options

We offer a wide variety of book printing and binding options at 48 Hour Books. Choose from four different styles of binding (perfect bound, case bound, spiral bound, and saddle stitch).

Customize your number of pages and choose as many black-and-white or full-color pages as you like. Insert photos, add graphics, and design custom covers: your book will be precisely you.

Best custom book printing services & support

With 48 Hour Books, you get personalized support whenever you need it. Our customer service experts are real people, here in our Twinsburg, Ohio, headquarters. Our secret? We treat you the way we would want to be treated. You can contact us via web chat, by email, or on the phone, and we’ll respond promptly and helpfully.

Whether you have a simple question about your order or you need full support with graphic design or editing, we connect you with the professionals who can help. Your custom book printing experience will be a pleasant one with our friendly and available customer service.

Contact us with questions - we're happy to help!