Saddle Stitch or Perfect Bound: How a Printer Decides How Your Book Gets Bound
If you are putting together a reading guide, a chapbook, a short story collection or a club anthology, somebody is going to ask how you want it bound. Most people have no idea. Here is how I answer that question in my shop, where we run three booklet makers all day.
Saddle stitch, the short answer
Saddle stitch is two wire staples through the spine. The sheets are folded in half, nested inside each other, and stitched where they fold. It is inexpensive and it looks professional. Magazines, programs, catalogs and most short books are saddle stitched.
The page count has to be divisible by four. Not just even, divisible by four, because every sheet folded in half makes four pages. A 22 page book does not exist. It is 20 or 24.
Saddle stitch goes up to about 64 pages. Past that, the staples have to punch through too many sheets. At 8 sheets they go through fine. At the ninth and tenth sheet they start to buckle, the book does not close flat, and sometimes the stitch does not go through at all. More sheets, harder to stitch, and eventually it fails.
Perfect bound, when the staples give up
Perfect binding is the glued spine you see on a paperback. The pages are stacked, the spine edge is ground rough, glue is applied, and the cover wraps around it. It takes over at about 64 pages and goes up to about 116.
The page count has to be divisible by two. No odd page counts, because every sheet has a front and a back.
Perfect bound looks like a real book, which is why people want it. Two things to know. It is not as tough as saddle stitch. A perfect bound book that gets opened and closed many times a day, or pushed flat on a copier, can come unglued over time. A book that gets opened a few times a year or less than once a month will stay glued for years.
The rule of thumb
Under 64 pages, saddle stitch. Over 64 pages, perfect bound. Right at 64, either works and it comes down to whether you want a spine you can print a title on. Only perfect bound gives you that.
The file mistake that gets everyone
We want one PDF, single pages in order, CMYK, 300 DPI. The mistake almost every first time book file makes is sending reader spreads, which is two facing pages side by side the way you see them when the book is open. We cannot print reader spreads. The press needs single pages, and it imposes them into printer spreads itself, where page 1 sits next to page 24 on the same sheet because that is how the sheet folds.
Send single pages. Let the shop do the imposition.
Creep, the thing nobody warns you about
On a saddle stitched book of 48, 60 or 64 pages, the inside pages stick out past the cover when the book is folded, because all those sheets nested inside each other push the middle ones outward. The shop trims that off to square the book up. That trim takes an eighth of an inch or so off the outside edge of the center pages.
If your page numbers or text sit close to the outside edge, they get closer and closer to the trim as you move toward the middle of the book, and by page 30 they can get chopped. Pull everything on the outside edge in toward the spine by about an eighth of an inch on the center pages. Designers who have been through it once never forget it.
What a first book order looks like
Most first booklet orders through my shop are about 24 pages, 500 to 1,000 copies, self cover. Self cover means the cover is printed on the same paper as the inside. Plus cover means the cover is on heavier stock. As a project grows, people go to more pages and a plus cover.
If you are printing a reading list or a club anthology for the first time, 24 pages self cover saddle stitched is the right starting point, and it is inexpensive.
Paper, in one paragraph
Inside pages are usually a text weight paper, gloss if the book has photos and uncoated if it is mostly words, because uncoated is easier to read and easier to write in. For a chapbook or a poetry collection, uncoated inside pages feel right. For a catalog of images, gloss keeps the color sharp. The cover on a plus cover book is a heavier cover stock, often with a gloss or dull coating to protect it. If you are not sure, ask the shop for a sample. We send them.
Quantity and the price curve
The setup on a booklet is the same whether you print 100 copies or 1,000, so the price per book falls hard as the quantity goes up. A club that prints 100 anthologies pays a lot more per book than one that prints 500. Print what you will hand out in a year. Books that sit in a closet for three years usually get reprinted anyway because something changed.
Questions I get every week
Can I do 30 pages? Not saddle stitched. It is 28 or 32. Can I print a title on the spine? Only on a perfect bound book. A stitched book has no flat spine. Can I mix paper, like a heavy cover and light inside pages? Yes, that is a plus cover. Can I send a Word file? Export it to PDF first, single pages. How long does it take? With a clean file and an approved proof, saddle stitch usually ships in 4 to 6 business days and perfect bound in 7 to 9.
Get a proof
Every order gets a PDF proof before it prints. Check the page order, check the creep, check that nothing sits too close to the edge. Then approve it.
If you are ready to price a perfect bound book or a stitched booklet, Custom Booklet Printing prices both on the site by page count and quantity, and the file guidelines above are the same ones the site asks for.
