The Truth about Hardcover Books

Save Thousands of $$$: Many would-be self-publishers think their book needs to be "hardcover" in order to be taken seriously. This is not so. Go into any bookstore and you'll find that many books, even most books, are paperbacks. There is a good reason for this. Getting your book printed in hardcover (or "casebound") will cost anywhere from two to five times more per copy than the same book printed the same size with a paper cover. Yet, you will won't be able to charge twice as much for your hardcover book, let alone five times as much. The economics don't work. If you expect your book to have a long shelf-life, consider doing a hard-cover edition for libraries and some premium sales (e.g., autographed copies). But don't mortgage your house getting thousands of copies. Instead, do what smart publishers do and order a "split run," in which case you get 2000 (for example) sets of interior pages printed at one time with 1500 sets (for example) bound with paper covers and 500 copies bound with hard covers. You can even overprint interior pages, have the printer store them, and decide later how you want them bound. Let us help you make wise decisions about your printing. Email me. See Graphics West for more info.