Hardcover Book Printing
Nothing speaks more clearly to your status as an author—and your values and personal style—than a beautifully designed, custom-printed hardcover edition of your book.
A professionally bound hardcover book adds lasting value, elegance, and durability to your work. Whether you’re publishing a memoir, novel, short story collection, poetry, self-help, travelogue, or graphic novel, a premium hardcover edition gives your words the high-quality presentation they deserve.
At QinPrinting, we specialise in producing exquisite, high-end hardcover books for self-published authors, entrepreneurs, public speakers, and businesses. With over 25 years of experience, a skilled team, cutting-edge technology, and a commitment to exceptional service, we’re proud to support independent creatives around the world with hardcover books that leave a lasting impression.
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QinPrinting Rated Excellent
They produced an excellent product that was printed, shipped and arrived within the expected timescales.
Emails were responded to quickly by Susan.
The whole process was smooth and straightforward.
What a delight!
Whenever I have a creative idea, their team goes above and beyond to help bring it to life. I’ve printed four comic books with them, and each time, they’ve exceeded my expectations. If you’re considering a printer, take a chance on these friendly, reliable folks—they truly value your business. - Chad Townsend, Creator of The Black Phantom.
But working with Nelson was an absolute pleasure. He patiently addressed all my concerns, and my final printed book was just as I would hope it would be.
Binding for Hardcover Books
At QinPrinting, we recommend sewn hardcover binding as the default option—rather than simple glue-only binding offered by many other printers. Sewn hardcovers deliver a significantly higher-quality finish, both in appearance and durability, with only a minimal difference in cost.
Of course, your choice will depend on your budget, the style and length of your book, and its intended purpose. But for a high-end, lasting impression, sewn hardcover binding is hard to beat. It allows the book to open flat without damaging the spine, making it ideal for leisurely reading, display, or reference use.
How Sewn Hardcover Binding Works
With sewn binding, the interior pages are arranged into sections (called “signatures”), which are then printed, folded, sewn together, and securely glued into a rigid casing. This casing is typically wrapped in cloth or paper, and then finished with a printed outer sheet that becomes the cover.
Sewn hardcover binding is not only the most durable option—it also gives your book a timeless, professional look that readers will love.
Jackets, Wraps, and Covers for Hardcover Books
Your choice of cover style adds a defining touch to your hardcover book’s appearance and overall appeal. At QinPrinting, we offer a variety of elegant options to suit your creative vision, your budget, and your target audience.
Dust Jacket Covers
The so-called “dust jacket” is the most common and practical way to finish a hardcover book. Used alone or combined with image-wrapping, it gives your book a polished, professional look while adding five printable surfaces—front, back, spine, and two inside flaps. We can print it in full colour, apply a gloss or matte coating, and add extra touches such as embossing, debossing, lamination, and foil stamping for added effect.
Image Wrapping Covers
An image-wrapped cover is an economical and innovative option in which the text and images are printed directly onto the cover material, then laminated with a protective coating. It gives the impression that the book is “wrapped” in print. This option provides a striking shelf presence while keeping costs down. We can add extras such as embossing, debossing, foil stamping, spot UV coating and more. You’ll have seen this style used in many popular “annuals” released around the holiday season.
Cloth Covers
Besides printed paper and image-wrapped covers, we also offer traditional cloth-bound covers in a wide range of colours. We source only premium fabric for our covers and provide a broad choice of textures—from ruggedly rustic to elegantly smooth. We’re happy to send you samples on request—just ask! In the meantime, here’s a helpful chart showing a selection of the fabrics available:
Vinyl and Padded Vinyl Covers
We can cover your hardcover book with coloured vinyl. It’s a less common option, but we like to accommodate all our clients’ needs wherever possible. Vinyl is a synthetic, flexible, and waterproof material. For hardcovers, we apply the vinyl sheets directly to the casing. We can also add padding to the covers for a cushioned effect. Please get in touch by phone, email, or Skype if you’re interested in vinyl covers, and we’ll be happy to guide you through your options.
Imitation Leather and Padded Imitation Leather Covers
Slipcases
Slipcases are a fantastic way to add class, style, and extra protection to your hardcover books. They are made from stiff card stock, like a box tailored precisely to your book’s size, with one side open so that when the book is inserted, only the spine is visible. Slipcases can be designed to house one or multiple books. We can cover the card stock with printed paper, cloth, vinyl, or leatherette according to your preference. The slipcase can also be printed, embossed, debossed, gilded, and foil stamped.
We make it easy for you to design your hardcover book. You can use one of our ready-made design templates for the interiors and covers if you wish. Feel free to ask us for paper, linen, and finishing samples — we’ll post them to you free of charge, with only postage costs to cover.
Custom Hardcover Paper Options
If your hardcover book features colourful illustrations, cartoons, coloured diagrams, graphs, photographs, and other graphic elements, we recommend printing on gloss or matte art paper for the best results. Both gloss and matte offer excellent surfaces for vibrant colour and black-and-white printing that will make your artwork, graphics, photos, and illustrations really ‘pop’. Gloss paper is often best suited to books with full-colour spreads, plenty of photography or illustrations, and less text, whereas books with more text and fewer illustrations may benefit from matte paper. Matte paper still delivers superb image reproduction while making the text easier to read.
If your hardcover edition is text-only or includes only a few black-and-white tables, simple greyscale illustrations, and line diagrams, we suggest an uncoated offset paper stock. Offset paper — also known as uncoated woodfree paper or UWF — has the lignin removed during the pulping process. The result is a natural-looking, absorbent white paper with a good balance of strength, opacity, and brightness, making it ideal for interior text.
You’ll need to specify at least two types of paper for your custom hardcover book: one for the interior pages and one for the cover. You may also want to include endpapers, which can be the same as the interior paper, or something different — such as a heavier, coloured, or textured paper. Endpapers not only elevate the quality of your book at minimal extra cost but also provide an ideal space for autographs and personal dedications.
End Paper Recommendations
- For books smaller than 216 × 279 mm (approx. 8.5″ × 11″) and under 200 pages, you can use the same paper as your interior pages (e.g. 140 gsm uncoated offset).
- For larger books with more than 200 pages, a heavier stock such as 170 gsm or 190 gsm uncoated paper is a better choice to support the binding and visual weight.
Paper Stock for Hardcover Books
Whether you choose sewn hardcover binding — a premium style that allows the book to lay flat when open without damaging the spine — or a standard hardcover, we recommend the following papers and coatings for clear text, excellent reproduction, and durability.
Interior Pages
- 128 gsm gloss art paper
- 157 gsm gloss art paper
- 200 gsm gloss art paper
- 128 gsm matte art paper
- 157 gsm matte art paper
- 200 gsm matte art paper
End Sheets
- 120 gsm textured paper
- 140 gsm coloured paper
- 140 gsm uncoated text paper
- 157 gsm matte text paper
- 157 gsm gloss text paper
- 180 gsm uncoated text paper
- Other speciality textured papers
Hardcover Casing
- 157 gsm coated cover paper mounted on:
- 2 mm grey board
- 2.5 mm grey board
- 3 mm grey board
- Other options: cloth, vinyl, or leatherette mounted on grey board
Dust Jackets
- 128 gsm coated cover paper
- 157 gsm coated cover paper
- 200 gsm coated cover paper
- Other textured papers
Slipcases
- 157 gsm coated paper on 3 mm grey board
- Other options: cloth, vinyl, or leatherette
Special Finish Options
Here are some popular surface finishes that can enhance both the appearance and durability of your hardcover book.
Shiny and reflective, perfect for vibrant graphics and photos.
Glossy highlights on specific areas for a striking contrast.
Smooth and non-reflective for a simple yet professional design.
Similar to matte lamination, but the resulting surface has a delightful, almost velvet feel.
A glossy finish applied to specific areas for a bold and distinct look.
Metallic or pigmented foil for a shiny, eye-catching effect.
Raised designs for added texture and elegance.
A recessed design that creates a tactile impression on the cover, adding texture and sophistication.
Cut a shape out of the paper material
Thin metallic foil—usually gold, silver, or bronze—is applied to the trimmed edges of your book's pages.
Custom patterns and images are sprayed on the edges for a truly unique appearance.
Print your design on a special paper that reflects light in a rainbow-like pattern.
Wrap your book in a durable synthetic leather material.
Cover your book with woven linen or cotton fabric.
Custom Hardcover Book Design and Artwork Tips
Artwork and photography often play a key role in high-end hardcover books, alongside beautifully formatted typography, decorative dividers, and other flourishes. Whether you’re preparing your own text, artwork, and layouts or commissioning a professional designer to handle the technical work, it’s important to understand how to prepare your finished digital files for printing. You’ll need to allow for bleed zones, safety margins, trim lines, and borders, and ensure the resolution and colour space are correct. Plus, account for specific requirements depending on whether your cover is image wrapped, dust jacketed, or another style.
Here are a few useful tips to help you prepare your files for the printer:
Export your files as vector PDFs for the best results. We recommend using Adobe Illustrator or Adobe InDesign for hardcover book design. These programs also let you convert colour space from RGB to CMYK, which is essential for offset printing.
If vectors aren't possible—say you're exporting bitmaps from Photoshop—make sure your images have a resolution of at least 300 dpi. Vectors don't lose quality on resizing, but bitmap images must be high definition to avoid fuzziness or pixelation.
Add a 3 mm bleed zone around all image pages. Bleed is extra image area beyond the final trim size to ensure your design fills the page fully after trimming. Mark bleed zones clearly, usually in red.
Inside the bleed, mark trim lines to indicate the final page size. Keep all critical content—text, titles, images, pagination—at least 10 mm inside these trim lines.
If artwork or photos spread across two pages, avoid placing key elements (like faces or important details) along the centre fold, as this area can distort or be obscured.
Review your document carefully for consistent formatting: fonts, font sizes, drop caps, dividers, page numbers, borders, margins, chapter headings, and page breaks.
Remember hardcover covers are larger than the pages to allow for wrapping the board, so a minimum 23 mm bleed is required on the cover design.
When designing a dust jacket, allow for the spine width—which we calculate based on page count and paper weight—and include two 90 mm inner flaps.
If you’re working with a professional designer, they should be familiar with these print-ready requirements. If you’re new to design software, these tips will help you prepare correctly. Ultimately, the responsibility to submit print-ready files rests with you. But don’t worry—we’re here to guide you through every step, liaise with your designer if needed, and manually check files to ensure your custom hardcover book prints perfectly.
For more detailed advice on preparing your text, photos, and layout, please see our Pre-press Artwork information page. And feel free to call us anytime—you’ll be speaking with an experienced print expert, not a robot or untrained call centre operator!
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Custom Hardcover Book Printing Costs
At QinPrinting, we assist self-published authors, thought leaders, entrepreneurs, artists, and photographers to produce custom hardcover books of outstanding quality every day. But we believe you shouldn’t need to max out your credit card or re-mortgage your home to afford a premium hardcover edition of your book. That’s why we continually review our processes to ensure we always deliver exceptional quality books at the most competitive prices in the industry. That’s our firm promise.
But don’t just take our word for it. You can get an instant estimate of how much it will cost to print your custom hardcover book using our easy-to-read pricing chart. Unlike most premium offset book printers — which require minimum print runs of 500 or even 1,000 copies — we offer a minimum order quantity (MOQ) of just 100 copies, still with a competitive price advantage. And as you’ll notice from the charts, the more copies you order in a single run, the lower your cost per book.
How much does it cost to print a hardcover book?
Hardcover Book Printing Prices Chart (210 mm x 297 mm)
| Quantity | 100 copies | 500 copies | 1,000 copies | 2,000 copies | 5,000 copies |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 32pp | Unit: A$11.12 Total: A$1,112 |
Unit: A$3.14 Total: A$1,570 |
Unit: A$2.41 Total: A$2,410 |
Unit: A$2.16 Total: A$4,311 |
Unit: A$1.94 Total: A$9,688 |
| 64pp | Unit: A$15.49 Total: A$1,549 |
Unit: A$4.32 Total: A$2,162 |
Unit: A$3.18 Total: A$3,181 |
Unit: A$2.72 Total: A$5,434 |
Unit: A$2.36 Total: A$11,782 |
| 256pp | Unit: A$41.74 Total: A$4,174 |
Unit: A$11.67 Total: A$5,837 |
Unit: A$7.85 Total: A$7,846 |
Unit: A$6.13 Total: A$12,257 |
Unit: A$4.85 Total: A$24,260 |
- Please note all prices are EXW from our facility and do not include shipping costs.
- Cover: 157 gsm coated cover paper with matte lamination, wrapped on 2.5 mm greyboard
- End sheets: 140 gsm uncoated text paper, blank
- Inner pages: 128 gsm coated text paper
- Cover and inner pages: full colour printing
For a more detailed estimate, try our simple and convenient online Printing Cost Calculator. Just follow the link, enter your details, and get an instant quote! If you have any questions, please get in touch — one of our friendly, knowledgeable in-house experts will be happy to assist.
Let's Talk!
Designing and printing an exclusive, high-end hardcover book—whether as a premium addition to your self-publishing journey or as a standalone business proposition—is always a rewarding creative project that adds significant value to your portfolio of published work. Get in touch today to discuss your needs or to request a no-obligation quote. We can’t wait to help you create your most beautiful custom hardcover book yet!
