It has never been easier to get a book printed
Until fairly recently, getting a book printed required you to order hundreds of copies, or pay exorbitant amounts per copy. Thanks to advancements in digital printing it’s now possible to print smaller quantities without breaking the bank. In fact, you can print as little as one copy at a time, if you’d like. Here’s how you can do just that using 24bookprint.
How to get a book printed at 24bookprint?
1. Create account
The first step barely qualifies as a step at all, but it’s worth mentioning. Create a 24bookprint account (it’s free, no strings attached, and you can always have it deleted if you’re not happy). Within a couple of minutes, you’ll get a confirmation email containing an activation link. Once your account is activated, you’re good to go!
Remember that we’ll need an address to ship to if you’re planning on ordering books; you can fill in all the necessary info in your account settings once you’re logged in.
2. New book
To start creating the book you want to print, click on ‘New book’ in the upper right corner’. This is where you decide whether you want your book to be a paperback or a hardback. You’ll also be selecting the format, paper type, and the cover finish. You’ll also be deciding whether you want to print in colour or black and white. If you choose the former, our platform will scan your manuscript (which you’ll upload in the next step) and determine the number of colour pages. You will only be charged the colour printing rates for those pages. Your cover will always be printed in colour (unless it was originally B&W of course). Lastly, you’ll need to fill in the title of your book, in addition to the name of the author.
3. Manuscript
Next, it’s time to upload the manuscript, i.e. the actual contents of your book. We expect these files to be complete, formatted, and ready to print; what you upload is what we’ll print. We strongly recommend uploading your manuscript as a PDF without crop marks. Once you’ve uploaded your manuscript file, it’ll be processed and a print-ready PDF will be displayed. Check this file thoroughly, what you see here is what’ll be printed. You can upload a new file as many times as you like.
Still not finished writing or formatting? In this step, you’ll also find some helpful tips on how to create a great manuscript.
4. Cover
We recommend taking some time to make a really nice cover for your book. Even if you’re not planning on sharing your book with the rest of the world, you’ve likely put a lot of time and effort into writing it, so why not give it the cover it deserves? And, if you are planning on having other people read your book, then a good cover is even more important. The cover is kind of like your book’s headshot and will determine whether or not people decide to take a closer look. As such, a cookbook cover ought to make people feel hungry, a thriller cover should convey suspense, a magazine cover should tease the primary article, and a textbook or other nonfiction book should radiate authority. This may sound like a no-brainer, but we’ve seen a lot of books fail due to lacklustre covers, so we feel it’s worth pointing out.
There are two ways to make your book cover. You can either upload a cover in PDF, JPG or PNG format, or you can use our Cover Designer to make a cover directly on the platform. In the ‘Cover’ step we’ll provide you with tips on how to make a good cover, along with the specifications needed for the cover of your book in particular.
5. Proof copy
Your book should be ready to print by now, but before doing anything crazy, we strongly recommend checking your files one last time and then ordering a proof copy or two. While we are of course thrilled when people order 100 copies right off the bat, we also want you to be thrilled about your book, and the best way to make sure of that is to order a proof copy before committing to a larger order. In our experience, there are always a few stray typos that fly under the radar, and colours may look slightly different on your screen than they do in real life. A proof copy is a low-risk method of ensuring your book is perfect.
Once your payment comes through, we start printing. The process is entirely automated, and the printing process starts almost immediately after an order is placed, meaning that making changes to, or cancelling your order generally isn’t possible. We’ll hand your order over to the delivery services after about 2-5 days, after which you’ll receive it at your chosen address with another day or two.
6. Orders and shipping
You can any number of books you like, as often as you want. Just need the one copy? No problem. Need several thousand copies? We’ll make it happen. Paperbacks will be delivered within 3-5 working days, with hardbacks needing a couple of days more. In the ‘My orders’ screen in your account you’ll find you order history along with your invoices, which you can download for administrative purposes.
You can choose where you want your books to be delivered, be it in the UK or abroad. We also print books in Germany, France, Spain/Portugal, and the Netherlands/Belgium. We also ship worldwide.