Moving a book to a different printer
Nobody plans a printer move. It arrives as a consequence of something else: you added IngramSpark to reach bookstores, a hardcover turned out to exist at one printer and not another, or you need a box of copies for an event and the company that sells you those is not the one that fulfills Amazon.
Then comes the assumption that costs a week. The files worked once, so they will work again.
They will not, or not all of them. The interior usually travels. The cover almost never does.
The interior is the easy half
A print interior PDF is a stack of fixed pages at a fixed trim size with the fonts embedded. Nothing inside it refers to the press. Take the same file to another printer at the same trim and it is frequently accepted as it stands.
Two things still catch people.
- Minimum margins differ. KDP's inside-margin floor is 0.375 in and IngramSpark's is 0.5 in, so a book built to 0.5 is valid at both and a book built down to KDP's floor is not. Outside minimums are per printer too. See Margins and gutters.
- Page count limits differ. KDP takes 24 to 828 pages in paperback and 75 to 550 in hardcover. Other printers set their own ceilings, and a long book that was fine at one can be outside the range at the next — Long books, page limits, and splitting into volumes covers what to do when it is.
Neither of those requires a re-typeset. They require a check.
The cover is not portable, and the spine is why
A print cover is not a picture. It is a set of measurements, and the one that moves is the spine.
Spine width is page count times paper bulk, and paper bulk is a property of the specific stock a specific printer runs. Those stocks are not the same:
- Amazon KDP. White 0.002252 in per page, cream 0.0025 in per page. Straight multiplication.
- Lulu. Page count divided by 444, plus 0.06 in for the glue.
- IngramSpark. Not a formula at all — a curve off their own templates. White runs about 0.00209 in per page between 100 and 338 pages, and about 0.00192 between 338 and 700.
- B&N Press. A measured table rather than an arithmetic rule.
So the same 300-page book has a different spine at every one of them, and the spread between the widest and the narrowest is larger than any printer's trimming tolerance. How to calculate spine width works the numbers through.
The effect is worse than a slightly wrong spine. Everything to the right of it moves by the size of the error, so the front artwork sits off center, the title creeps toward a fold, and the back panel loses or gains width around the barcode. The press does exactly what the file says.
In the Cover Maker. One design re-cuts for each printer and binding it supports — up to eleven wrap files from the same artwork, each with the spine computed from your real page count, paper color and printer, and live trim, bleed and safe-area guides drawn to that printer's own spec. Start your cover → · about the Cover Maker
What else changes with the printer
The spine is the headline. It is not the whole list.
- Trim availability. The sizes that exist everywhere are a shorter list than the sizes that exist somewhere. Re-read Choosing a trim size before you commit, and Square, tall and pocket-sized: leaving the standard trims if yours is off the common list.
- Which bindings exist at which trim. A trim that is available in paperback at a printer may not be available there in case laminate, and dust jackets are the narrowest offering of all. See Paperback, hardcover, dust jacket: what changes.
- Bleed and safe area. Standard bleed is 0.125 in on the outside edges with none at a spine fold, and safe area is about 0.25 in inside the trim — but what each printer expects past that, and how much wrap a hardcover case needs, is a per-printer specification. Bleed and safe area, explained once explains what the zones are for.
- Barcode placement. The block is about 2 × 1.2 in, and where it must sit on the back panel, and whether the printer draws its own symbol there, is not shared between them. Barcodes, and the price code beside them covers the options.
- The minimum page count for spine text. KDP prints text on the spine only above 79 pages. Other printers set that threshold themselves. A thin book that carried its title on the spine at one printer can be refused, or printed blank, at another.
The sequence for moving a book
- Confirm the trim and binding exist at the new printer. Do this before anything else. If they do not, everything downstream changes, and you are re-typesetting rather than re-exporting.
- Re-export the cover to the new printer's geometry. Same design, new measurements. This is a production step, not a redesign, provided your artwork is not baked into a single flattened image at one spine width.
- Re-check the interior against their minimums. Margins, gutter, page count range. Usually nothing changes. Occasionally the gutter does, which re-flows the book and moves the page count — and the spine with it, so check this before step 2 if you have any doubt.
- Order a proof from the new printer. Not a reprint of the old one.
A proof from one printer tells you nothing about another
People skip this, because a copy of the book is already on the shelf and it looked right.
Different paper, different shade, different cover stock and finish, different trimming tolerance, different spine placement: the copy in your hand is evidence about one press only — and, as Why your proof and your production copies differ sets out, not complete evidence even about that one. Order the proof. Then read it in daylight and Measuring your proof with a ruler apply again in full.
Budget the days for it. A move that skips the proof is a move you hear about from a reader.
Make your cover
The Cover Maker is free to use: name your book, bring your artwork, and it draws the full wrap — front, spine and back — to your printer's own measurements. You only pay when you want the files without the preview watermark.
Next: Where to print: KDP, IngramSpark, Lulu and B&N Press · More: How to calculate spine width · Printing in more than one country · Why print files get rejected, and how to not be rejected