Book Printing & Binding

At AlphaGraphics, our self-publishing and book printing and binding services give you the most binding options or methods including spiral/coil, wire-o, comb, hardcover and more!

Book Printing Tips

Bring in your ready-to-print project or MS Word document and we’ll help you create your dream publication. We are your book printing and binding source.
Enhance your final product with handouts, online tests, and quizzes or CD/DVD study guides.
Pick them up, or have your books shipped directly to their destination.
If your book is print ready, a high resolution file with crop marks and bleeds is best. Ask us for details.
If our design team is going to format your book, a MS Word doc is fine. Don't worry about formatting, but do triple check your spelling and grammar
If you need an ISBN number for your back cover (and barcode) not to worry, we can help with that too!

Book binding service options

Book finishing options

Silk Soft Touch Lamination
High Gloss or Matte Protective Lamination
Clear or High Gloss UV Coating
Die Cut Shapes and Windows
Foil Stamping, Gold, Silver and Colors!
Embossing and Blind Embossing

From book ideas to binding solutions, hardback to comic, we make it all.

Getting a book from idea to finished printed can be confusing, to say the least. Sure, there is lots of information on the internet, and it often just confuses first-time self publishers and authors. Come talk face-to-face with book printing experts. Our team, led by Larry Furlong has many years of experience in getting books past the finish line. Authors often have questions on how to format the book, how to get an ISBN number, copyright issues, and more. We can break it down into simple steps that make sense. Again, no magic or internet jargon to interpret, we are there to make the process simple, understandable, and easy. You concentrate on the content, and we will help you make all the production steps happen in order and make sure your book is best-in-class. We are your book printing service. AlphaGraphics on Camelback is one of only a few AlphaGraphics locations nationwide that specializes in helping self publishers get printed. We can even help you convert your book to an e-book or e-Pub file that you can sell on Amazon or read on your Kindle. We are you best option for local book printing and binding.

Book Fulfillment & Publishing

After successfully publishing and marketing your book, custom online order fulfillment will be necessary to get your book shipped to customers.

Binding Options

Select from our wide variety of book binding options to fit your needs. Some options include; rivet, side sewn, hardcover, three-ring binding, comb binding, wire, coil, and more!

eBooks

AlphaGraphics will help you create a digital eBook version of your printed work for devices like Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Apple iPad, and more.

Yearbooks

AlphaGraphics can help build the perfect yearbook. You can expect expert graphics design, professional-grade covers, durable material, custom finishes, and a variety of binding options.

Book binding services, from a local Phoenix, Arizona company!

As you can see by this web page, book binding can be a complicated process with many options to choose from. Let us simplify the process by finding out your vision and making expert recommendations.

Stop by our convenient Camelback Road location and look at actual bound book samples. We love to show off our work. Often, a few minutes with one of our competent staff makes fast work of what can be technical and confusing terminology. Some people call it softback, others call it perfect binding. But at the end of the day, talking in person to someone who knows the difference really cuts through the clutter.

Unlike large chain office product stores or copy centers, AlphaGraphics on Camelback is Phoenix-owned and caters to local businesses. We work with Arizona's largest companies making them look good in print. With most of our book printing and binding services able to be performed either same day or next day, give us a call, or stop in, we'll make you look good too. We have extended business hours at our Biltmore location, just north of Arcadia. Give us a call today, 602-263-0122.

Specialized Book Printing SERVICES

We can help with your book’s branding and packaging with specialized binding and printing options to make you stand out among a sea of competitors. These include:

Foil Stamping - metallic or colored foil is bonded by heat to the spine or book cover. Because foil stamping does not use ink, the foil color is not impacted by the color of the paper upon which the foil is applied. Foils in light and metallic colors can be easily used on darker colored surfaces.
Custom matching fly sheets, folders, or brochures that match your book’s branding.
Index pages that make searching your book easier.
Full-color inserts - Add custom photos, tables, or graphs to the center of your book.
Dust jacket or book jacket - Add a detachable outer cover to your book with added text and illustrations. The back panel or flap can be printed with biographical information about the author, a summary of the book, or reviews from authorities in your field. Besides helping to promote the book, a dust cover also helps keep the book cover from being damaged.

Self-publishing has never been easier, and when we make your book perfect bound, you look perfect too. We also can coil bind your book with your choice of a variety of coil colors. Your coil options are standard plastic coil (also known as continuous coil), or metal wire-"O" binding. The advantage to these coil bindings is that they lay flat and are great for cookbooks, workbooks, and music books. And the best part, we can do many of the binding methods with print runs as few as one! Yes, get a sample book printed and bound from your print-ready PDF file! Need help getting your Microsoft Word doc converted into a print ready PDF file? We can help you do that too!

We also have the ability to register your books with all the online registrars (and ISBN) so your book can be officially found on the internet. If you need copywriting help or editing, we would be happy to assist as well. We work with a group of editors that we have vetted and can get the job done, on schedule, and on budget. In short, no more going out of state or working with web book printers who don't even know where Phoenix is!

Your Book Printing Specialists

All our work is done onsite, right here in our Camelback Road facility including ALL printing and binding! We are your best source for 100% local book printing and binding.

SOME COMMON BOOKS WE PRINT INCLUDE:

Cookbooks
Family Memoirs and Biographies
Technical and Training Manuals
Workbooks
Novels
Short Stories
Poems
Children's Books
Books from independent writers.

Lastly, don't underestimate the cover. People DO judge a book by its cover. We have top-notch graphic designers onsite that will make a book cover that will delight you. Ask us to see some samples. We would be happy to show you some previously printed books we have done for a variety of clients, at all price ranges.

Five Book Cover Design Tips

Hire an Experienced Designer (Like ours!) - a professional book cover designer like the ones at AlphaGraphics Camelback understands the nuances of colors, fonts, and images and has the right tools and resources to implement your vision. We listen to you, and your cover will be unique and professional!
Avoid Clutter - Many visual elements are competing for the viewer’s attention. So avoid too many colors, images, and fonts. Again, let one of our graphic designers make your vision come to life.
Consider the Cover Thumbnail Size - If your book is going to be sold online, the cover photo will appear in a thumbnail size. This is another reason to choose a simple design that is still impressive when reduced in size.
Emphasize a Single Element - Pick one important element of your book to illustrate on the cover so the buyer can instantly know something about the contents.
Get Feedback - Consider taking your proposed cover designs to associates or followers on your special media page for their opinion

Book Printing and Binding FAQs

Which book binding service should I choose?

The different book binding options are often a personal choice, but commonly perfect back binding (softcover binding) is most common for novels, poetry, short stories, biographies, and the like. Whereas wire "O" binding (think college lined notebooks) is best for workbooks and books where the information is best when left wide open for full spread view. Hardback binding is great, but can be expensive in short runs or odd sizes and generally takes a longer production time. Tape binding on the edge is a popular choice for draft and edits copies.

Are there other AlphaGraphics services that can help me with my book?

Yes. We can explain the copyright laws (no, we are not lawyers, but we know stuff!) We can help with the purchase and registration of ISBN numbers and bar codes (those funny little lines on the back lower right corner of most books). Our professional graphic designers can take your great cover idea and make it come to life. We can also organize your pages, center your text, add proper headers and footers, detail all the proper formatting, and even fix that pesty table of contents.

How long does it take to get my book printed?

If your book is already set up for print and you have properly prepared PDF files with crop marks and bleeds, then soft cover perfect bound books can usually be printed in two weeks or less. If we need to help with the page formatting, borders, table of contents, etc., then allow our design team a few more weeks to get the book print ready. And all this is done under our roof, not sent out of state or country. Your AlphaGraphics on Camelback team makes it happen, right here in AZ!

Can you customize the books you print in terms of size and shape?

Books come in lots of sizes, including the most popular 6" x 9" paper back size, but lots of custom sizes are not a problem, depending on what binding method you choose. Smaller books, 4" x 5", 5" x 7" or 5.5" x 8.5" are great for poetry and some short stories. Square books like 8" x 8" or 10" x 10" are also very popular in the photography world. We can even make die cut windows or shaped books in many cases.

If you found a sample book you just love, bring it in. Often we can either do a similar style or get you something very close.

Which variables factor in the book printing price?

A book that prints in all black and white will be less expensive than a book that prints in full color. Standard-sized books (think 6" x 9" paper backs) are generally faster and cheaper to produce than custom-sized or square books. The number of copies you print at each printing also plays a large part in your final book price. The number of pages in your book also affects the final print prices. As a general rule, the more books you print in one printing, the cheaper the per book price is. Lastly, as you may guess, hardback binding is more expensive than soft cover perfect binding.