There are several options or choices when it comes to printing a given book. But before giving you a dropdown list of the best book printing services to use, I’ll like to give you a short preface by answering the key question on book printing;
Now, here it is; for the majority of nonfiction self-publishing authors, getting a book printed is a good option, but getting it printed for a bookstore might not be an easy task.
I must also tell you too that self-publishing in any way has never been easier than it is today.
Here are the best print-on-demand book services that’ll help you make and sell your book online without much stress.
The Basics
In the past, when you want to publish your book, it used to require you to submit your work to a publisher and hoping for the very best. These days on-demand book printing—which is a kind of indie publishing or self-publishing is way easier. This is what is called print-on-demand.
With print-on-demand book services, you can format, print, and order copies of your book right from your house. That’s pretty interesting if you ask me, no stress in any way.
You can also send the printed copies of your books directly to all of your readers on-demand, which means you don’t have to print bulky before hand.
These days, numerous, countless print-on-demand services help you take your book right on the marketplace.
Print on Demand vs Offset Printing
When it comes to print on demand, books are only printed when a user orders for a copy. The prices of books here remain static. That is, if a copy of your book goes for $5, that’s what it will be sold. This type of printing service is common in paperback printing. It is not common in hardcover printing because no publishing firm will spend its time designing a single hardcover book. So, if you want high-quality features, you might have to go with offset printing.
In the case of offset printing, the book publisher prints a large number of books. The author is in charge of the storage and order fulfillment ( or finding a third party to handle such). In offset printing, the higher the number of books ordered, the lower the price. For example, when you order 1000 copies of your book, the price can be slashed from $5 to $3 per copy. If you are confident of selling a larger number of copies, you can order many copies and make gains from the book sales.
In summary, when you want to choose any of these print services, always consider the print quality.
List of Popular Book printing Service websites
And here are the top most popular book printing services that you can use to print your ebooks and paperback.
Ingram Spark
We would start with IngramSpark. This book printing site is pretty known around the world. But one thing I’d discovered is that it doesn’t have a stronger reputation and reliability than Amazon Kindle direct publishing, or KDP. However, one thing is for sure; it connects you with a large audience. That is to say, many distributors and outlets, including Amazon.
IngramSpark is known to let users publish print-on-demand physical books and e-books. But to upload and publish your book, you’ll have to pay a meager or startup fee, which you don’t have to do when it comes to Amazon.
This fee generally starts from about 50 dollars per title, including both the free eBook version and the print book. Once the book is uploaded, it will be made available to over a million bookstores and libraries worldwide.
Blurb
Headquartered in San Francisco and founded around 2005. Blurb’s strength is its ability to create nice visual works only by applying the site’s online tools. This makes Blurb good for magazines and photo books.
Blurb is known to let you produce paperback or hardcover copies of your books easily. However, when you’re printing hardcover copies, you’ll need to pay little cash for their book printing services.
You can also publish eBooks on the platform. If you so desire to work offline, perhaps having some workshop activity or activity offline, then you have the option to upload your book as a PDF.
Blurb is known to charge you a set price for the cost of making your book. All you have to do is decide for yourself how much profit you want to add on top of the figure. The resulting figure or number is what people would pay in purchasing your print book.
Amazon KDP
KDP, as it’s fondly called, is one of the best print-on-demand services. It somewhat serves as the basis for most people, especially first-time self-publishers. It’s known as the easiest to use and has its negative sides too.
One thing to note about KDP is that you can publish an ebook, paperback, and hardcover. However, the option to publish a hardcover book is only reserved for selected individuals. So, if you cant see an option to publish a hardcover book in your dashboard, you know that you don’t have such a feature.
Nonetheless, getting started with KDP is pretty easy. The whole process should not take more than minutes to process or complete; all it takes is simply uploading a manuscript and enter your book details—such as the book title, book description, and all other details that would be asked. That’s it, you are done!
You can also apply the cover creator tool to make a simple and beautiful cover for your manuscript. There are various book printing options to select from, and they comprise blank ink vs. color ink, etc. You can also select your book trim sizes.
If you encounter difficulty creating and designing your cover, you need not worry; Amazon kindle has a cover creator tool that you can use or you can check my post on how to create a best seller book cover.
In addition, it is easy to publish a print book on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing or KDP.
Your book would be ready in less than 72 hours, which is pretty quick when compared with traditional publishers. Also, your book print quality will be good.
The great part about Amazon Kindle publishing is that you can earn about 60% royalties on the sale of your book on Amazon marketplaces in the United States, Japan, and Europe, minus all sorts of publishing costs.
The book printing cost can vary. So, it is advisable to use the Book Royalties Calculator to figure out how much money you can make.
And I’ll like to add this, by selling your book on the Amazon kdp site, you have the right to send or distribute your book to bookstores by applying the Expanded Distribution network. This is an entirely free alternative that will surely make your book available in major United States bookstores.
Once your book is available in the market, libraries and bookstores can order copies. Although the Expanded Distribution network only works with United States distributors, libraries, schools, and bookstores from all over the world can place their orders.
Nonetheless, for sales made via the Expanded distribution network, you’ll only earn about forty percent royalties.
The books sold through the expanded distribution method can take weeks or months before it reflects on your KDP sales dashboard. So, you will have to be patient.
Amazon royalties are paid every 60 days from the previous month’s book sales. For example; the royalty of books sold in January is paid by the end of march.
What’s more exciting is that you have the freedom to sell both the ebook and paperback version of your book on Amazon Kindle.
You will surely reach more people worldwide by publishing books on Amazon. That’s because Amazon has several marketplaces in countries such as Canada, United States, Italy, Mexico, Australia, Japan, Spain, France, Germany, India, Brazil, Netherland, and the UK.
You can earn about seventy percent royalties for the amazon ebook sales, and the exciting stuff here is that you can set your prices. Check out my post on How to Create Amazon KDP account Now
Lightning Source
Lightningsource has its headquarters in Tennessee and was founded in the year 1996. Today, this platform offers a print-on-demand service to authors and publishers and gives print and shipping within forty-eight hours. The company claims to make your work available to over 40,000 libraries, retailers, and all other points of sale worldwide.
The website also offers calculators to determine; the cost of book printing and shipping to your doorstep, how much profit you can expect to make, how much your book weighs, etc.
All prices depend on a wide range of factors, but you can get a single copy of a hundred-page paperback novel for at least 10 dollars. Hardcover and all types of color products are also available on the platform.
The lightning source also works with personal authors, larger and small publishing companies for book printing services. For a list of their printing prices, you may need to contact them for a quote. The company is primarily focused on book printing and gives users control over their books. I guess you may have to look elsewhere for the book cover, for they don’t offer such a service.
BookBaby
Bookbaby is known to offer a one-stop-shop for all of your book printing needs. They cover everything from printing to book marketing services which helps you make the most out of your book. BookBaby is said to have the largest distribution network that helps authors to get their books published.
You can print a single proof copy of your book at BookBaby for just 49 dollars. You have the option to select the trim size, bind, or color for your book. Like most self-publishing sites, your single-copy proof is somewhat identical to the copies that you sell.
Nonetheless, apart from the forty-nine dollars’ single copy alternative, you also need to purchase a package if you want to publish books on the platform.
And once you have purchased your beginning package, you can order additional books right on demand. All orders go straight to BookBaby, who is known to print, bind and package the order.
They’ll then organize all shipping basics needed to distribute your books back to the wholesaler or retailer for final fulfillment to their buyers.
