Need spiral binding (WireO)

ewhitney · Mar 31, 2009

Hello everyone,
Soon I'll have a 300 page "manual/daily planner" ready for printing but have not found a printing company yet. I considered Lighting House but see they only offer perfect binding/stitching. I like the idea of printing small quantities or on demand at least until I know how well my manual will sell. I plan on doing all the marketing myself. Any ideas?

awatkins · Mar 31, 2009

Office Max does a great job on my husband's book (he sells them to his guitar students). You might check with them.

cpickett · Mar 31, 2009

You might try 360 Digital Books.com They are a digital printing resource, but they do not print one at a time. Minimums are less than 100 though. Downside is they do not have a distribution connection like Lightning Source does. They do offer fulfillment service though.

What is your marketing plan? If you intend to sell via Amazon and go with either of these options, you'd have to use Amazon Advantage which takes a high percentage. If that's not appealing, you might need to reconsider your binding so that you can use LSI or similar.

ewhitney · Mar 31, 2009

Thanks for the reply.
I'm happy to have found this forum--it has been very helpful so far

You're right, I might have to consider my binding style. I still have to do more research but LSI might be the best way to go. I thought spiral binding would be the best for my project since it is a type of daily planner (like those that have a joke/verse for each day of the month). I have gone to different bookstores to look at their daily planners and have seen several binding styles, including perfect binding (which looked pretty good).
If I go with perfect binding I might consider changing the size since it seems like square/landscape shaped books are easier to keep open and write on than standard shapes (5x8, 6x9, etc)..

cpickett · Mar 31, 2009

If you need people to be able to write in the book, you'll also want to pay particular attention to layout and make sure there's enough white space in the gutter (where the binding is). You're right, other binding like wire/coil are often better for this purpose, but as you've seen it can be done with perfect. Some printer also offer what's called "lay flat" within perfect binding which might make sense too, but I don't recall that LSI does.

ewhitney · Mar 31, 2009

Thanks

I don't see LSI does "lay flat" perfect binding. I'll call and find out.
I wonder if other companies similar to LSI do have "lay flat" perfect binding options. Will continue to search.

lswiney · May 1, 2009

I have the answer to your question. Ain't that nice?

Go to www.lulu.com

I have my spiral bound book printed through them and they do a wonderful job. They do offer an option of being published with an ISBN and, therefore, available thru Amazon, et al, but it's a little pricey. For now, until I figure something else out, I'm using Lulu to print my spiral edition.

buttterflywilma · Aug 8, 2009

I'm also looking into binding options. I'm publishing a projectplanner with blank pages. I'd like to have a spine (i know that's also possible with spiralbinding but might be expensive) so i can't really decide between wire-o or glue. With perfect binding the book can stay open but you can't fold it cover to cover...

ResearchGuy · Aug 8, 2009

buttterflywilma said:
I'm also looking into binding options. I'm publishing a projectplanner with blank pages. I'd like to have a spine (i know that's also possible with spiralbinding but might be expensive) so i can't really decide between wire-o or glue. With perfect binding the book can stay open but you can't fold it cover to cover...

Lulu.com has several binding choices, including spiral bound, perfect bound, etc. Might be worth a look.

--Ken

Need spiral binding (WireO)

ewhitney

awatkins

Not harboring illegal parrot

cpickett

ewhitney

cpickett

ewhitney

lswiney

buttterflywilma

ResearchGuy

Resident Curmudgeon