Perfect Bound Books

Perfect binding is the most popular choice for creative writing, nonfiction, memoirs, novels and family histories. There are many benefits to printing perfect bound books. They look incredibly professional yet cost a fraction of hardcover binding. If you want to sell your books retail, this is usually the best option since you can print on the spine (if it's wide enough), which makes it easy to index and display your perfect bound books on shelves.

Perfect binding creates a professional softcover/paperback book, which is ideal for books which are read for pleasure. Hobby readers don't need to worry about books laying flat on a surface or being resistant to water and grease.

But if you're publishing technical training books, cookbooks, or any project that requires flat-surface reading or additional protection (such as laminated covers or vinyl backings), you should consider one of our other book binding options:
Printing and Binding Services

Perfect bound book printing requires special setup for the covers, since the front and back cover are all part of the same sheet. Click the File Setup tab for more info on preparing your print files for perfect binding.

Please refer to this page to get more information about calculating your spine width and setting up perfect bound booklet covers: Perfect Binding Cover Setup

In our experience, very thin books may not look or feel as professional with perfect binding as thicker books do. This is because there is not enough of a surface area to glue the pages into the spine. Our order form will allow perfect bound booklets as small as 10 sheets, but we recommend you consider other binding options first if you're in that range.

On the other end, 446 is the maximum number of 20/50# Bond sheets we can fit into a perfect book. As you increase the paper weight, that threshold will go down in tandem. The cost calculator will let you know if your book is too thick for perfect binding.

For 100% opacity and virtually no show-through, we recommend the 32/80# Text Smooth/Gloss or higher.

For books where most of the content is text, most people are happy with 28/70# Text Smooth. This is a mid-weight paper and has minimal show-through, which is much less noticeable with text-oriented pages where the text is more or less aligned back-to-back.

Yes, custom perfect bound book sizes are available. Simply choose the next size up, click Need a Custom Size? and enter your dimensions. The custom book price will be shown in the calculator.

In most cases, we do not automatically send a digital proof, so make sure to request this in the notes if you want one.

But there are some cases in which we must send a proof and receive approval before we can print:

• Files which are not JPG, PNG or PDF
• Any time you request file edits
• If we happen to notice something that doesn't look right

To add mailing to your perfect binding job, click Bulk Mailing and choose "Mail in Padded Envelopes." Upload your mailing list (Excel or CSV) with your print files at checkout. We will print and bind each book, insert them individually in protective envelopes and mail them out typically in 3-5 business days. The exact USPS service used will depend on each book's weight. Please note that this service may not include tracking information.