How to Choose a Print Partner for Your Book, Planner or Product

Two very different kinds of company describe themselves as print on demand, and the difference between them will shape your product more than any single price comparison.

The first is a self-service platform. Lulu, Amazon KDP, IngramSpark and BookBaby all work this way. You choose from a published menu of trim sizes, papers and bindings, upload your files, and place the order through the system. Nobody is involved unless something goes wrong.

The second is a custom manufacturer. You describe the product you want to make, and a person works out how to build it. The specification is written around your product rather than selected from a list.

Both models are legitimate. They are good at different things, and the wrong one will cost you either money or months. Below are the questions that actually separate them, and how we answer each one at Vervante.

• 1
  What is the real minimum?

  Ask per product, not in general. At Vervante there is no minimum at all on printed softcovers, poly paper covers, metal spiral, plastic coil, wire-o, saddle-stitch, square back saddle-stitch, perfect bound books, card decks, notepads, greeting cards and bookmarks. A minimum of 25 applies to hardcovers, board covers, 10 mil laminated covers, foil stamping, embossing and debossing. Knowing which side of that line your product sits on tells you whether you can launch without buying inventory.

• 2
  Is the binding right for the way the product gets used?

  A planner that has to lie flat on a desk or a work station needs a binding built for that. A cookbook that stays open on a counter has the same requirement. If a printer offers one or two bindings, the product gets designed around the binding. Ask what happens when your page count changes, and whether the binding still works at that thickness.

• 3
  Is there a real person on the other end?

  On a self-service platform you upload, you approve, and the result is yours. Two people review every file that comes to us before it goes to press, and if something is wrong with your bleeds, your spine width or your page count, somebody contacts you rather than printing it. You still supply print-ready files, and our print specifications and templates are published so you know exactly what to build.

  The same is true before you order anything. You can email [email protected] and a member of our team reads it and answers it, or you can schedule a phone call and talk the project through with someone who knows how it will be manufactured. There is no chat bot standing between you and an answer, and no help center that loops you back to an article. For a first product, the questions you do not yet know to ask are usually the expensive ones, and those only surface in a conversation.

• 4
  Can I mix color and black and white pages?

  This one is worth asking everywhere, because most printers force the whole interior to color or charge for a separate color pass. We charge the color rate only on the pages that are in color, and the rest bill as black and white. There is no setup charge and no threshold. Three color pages inside a 372 page black and white book cost you three color pages.

• 5
  What does it actually cost to get started?

  Free file uploading usually means the cost is somewhere else. Ours is $35 per upload, charged again each time you send revised files. A digital proof is $10, and a printed proof is priced by cover type. There is no membership, no monthly fee and no setup charge beyond the upload. Every fee we charge is published on our fee schedule, so you can compare the whole picture rather than the first number.

• 6
  What happens to my shipping cost?

  Shipping is often where the margin quietly goes. We pass postage through at actual cost with no markup, and add a flat $2.50 order fee no matter how many items the order contains. Ask any printer whether they mark up postage, and whether their per order fee is flat or multiplies by item.

• 7
  Can you ship products you did not print?

  If your product includes anything sourced elsewhere, branded merchandise such as apparel or a water bottle, or existing inventory of a printed book or workbook, you need somewhere for it all to come together. We receive and warehouse items we did not produce, assemble the complete package, and ship it to your customer. A platform that only ships what it printed cannot do that.

• 8
  What does my customer actually open?

  On most platforms the answer is a plain box with packing material in it. Your order can go out in a custom printed box, which requires a minimum of 25, or in our standard shipping box carrying a custom printed sticker, which has no minimum at all. Inside the box we can wrap the product in tissue paper, add crinkle paper, and include a printed notecard, so that what arrives feels like something your customer bought from you rather than something a warehouse mailed them.

• 9
  Where do my orders come from?

  Orders can come straight from your own store, so the buyer stays your customer and the email address stays on your list. We accept orders from Shopify, WooCommerce and other carts, and from GoHighLevel. Ask who owns the customer relationship, because on a marketplace the answer is usually not you.

• 10
  Can I start small and add to it later?

  Most first products should start simple. The question is whether you have to change vendors to grow. Tabs, pockets, foil stamping, a hardcover case, custom packaging and a larger trim size can all be added to an existing product here once the sales justify them, using the same files and the same account.

If your product is a straightforward paperback and you are happy with a standard size, a platform will serve you well and there is no reason to overcomplicate it. We are the better answer when the product itself is the thing that has to be right.

Once you have settled on who prints it, the next decision is how. Print on demand or print and fulfill compares printing one copy at a time against printing a batch and letting us store and ship it.

We have been manufacturing products for authors, coaches, speakers, educators and course creators for more than 25 years. Alongside books we produce planners, journals, workbooks, card decks, flip books, calendars, certificates, notepads, posters and inserts, in custom trim sizes and with finishes that include foil stamping, embossing, debossing, die-cut tabs, bound-in pockets, ribbon markers, faux leather and faux linen covers, and printed hardcover cases.

We also produce the packaging around them, including tuck boxes, rigid boxes, drawstring bags, belly bands and printed mailer boxes, and we store, pick, pack and ship from our warehouse in Utah.

One thing we do not do is design your product. You supply print-ready files. What we do is help you work out how the thing you have designed should be built.