The questions authors, publishers and brands ask us most often, grouped by topic. Can’t find yours? Write to us in any language — we usually reply within one business day.
Who we are and how a project with us begins.
Books, catalogues, brochures, notebooks and planners, calendars and board games — and almost anything else made of ink and paper. Hardcover and softcover, from short digital runs to offset runs of a million copies. See our services or recent productions.
No — and that is deliberate. We work with a small group of Polish printers, binders and finishing houses we have used for years, and send each job to the one that does that kind of work best: a 50-copy art book and a million-copy catalogue go to different places.
You deal with one team from quote to delivery; we coordinate everything in between. Books and Catalogues is a brand of Eastprint GmbH, Vienna; production takes place in Poland.
Self-publishing authors printing 50 copies, independent publishers, photographers and artists, game designers, and companies printing catalogues by the hundred thousand. Our clients are across Europe — Ireland, Scandinavia, the Benelux, Germany, Switzerland — and many come back every year.
Talk to us before you prepare the final files — ideally before you design anything. We will help you choose format, paper and binding, and tell you what the files need, so nobody has to redesign the publication later.
If you like reading ahead, start with our book specification guide and file preparation guide.
Łukasz speaks English and German, Miłosz English, David German and French. You can write to us in any language — we will understand.
What we need from you, and how our prices work.
The specification — format, page count, binding, paper, colours, finishing and quantity — plus two things that are not about the book: the postcode the books have to reach, because freight is priced from it, and the date you need them.
If something is still open, say so: we will quote the sensible options side by side. Our book specification guide lists everything that changes the price, in the order we need it.
Usually within one business day. Complex projects — board games, boxed sets, unusual materials — can take a little longer, because several suppliers have to price their part.
No. We don’t sell ready-made products from a shelf: every publication is specified differently, materials vary widely, and paper prices change through the year. Send us an enquiry with as much detail as you can and we will reply with a priced offer.
21 days. Paper is the biggest single cost in a book and the mills reprice it during the year. If you change anything in the specification, you get a new quotation — or a short note from us that the price stands.
Colour books from 50 copies, black-and-white books from 100. Notebooks and calendars usually from around 100. Leather-bound books can be made from a single copy.
Smaller runs are sometimes possible on request, at a noticeably higher price per copy — ask us.
Setting up the press, making plates and drying time cost roughly the same whether you print 300 copies or 3,000 — the larger the run, the more copies share that cost. Going from 300 to 1,000 copies usually lowers the unit price more than going from 1,000 to 3,000.
If you expect to reprint, it often pays to print more the first time: a short reprint later usually costs more per copy.
Placing an order, paying, tax and customs.
Confirm the final specification and quantity in writing, and send us:
We then send you the invoice.
By bank transfer, in advance. Production is released once your payment has arrived and you have approved the proof.
If you are a business registered for VAT in the EU, we invoice at 0% and you account for the tax yourself under the reverse charge — send us your VAT number with the order.
If you are not VAT-registered, we charge the VAT rate that applies to books in your own country (in Belgium, for example, 6%), shown on the quotation before you commit. Outside the EU we invoice without VAT.
Yes. Many of our clients are self-publishing authors. We invoice you privately, with the VAT rate for books in your country added.
Not within the EU: books printed in Poland and delivered to another EU country travel as intra-EU goods — no duty and no customs clearance.
Outside the EU we prepare the export clearance ourselves. Any duty or import VAT on arrival is set by your own customs authority and is paid by the recipient.
How long printing takes, and when the clock starts.
A standard black-and-white softcover takes about two weeks; hardcovers and books with special finishes usually three to five weeks; notebooks around 15–20 working days. Delivery within the EU adds a few days.
Your quotation states the time for your exact specification. Our guide to book production times shows where the days go.
When you approve the proof and your payment has arrived — not on the day you order. Every production time we quote counts from that point.
Once the job is booked with the printer you get a planned shipping date. It is the printer’s schedule rather than a guarantee, so leave a buffer for anything time-critical.
Yes, if you tell us early. Give us the date with your enquiry and say whether it is fixed or flexible — we plan backwards from a hard date differently than from a preferred one.
Book fairs and distribution centres have their own delivery windows; tell us about those too.
Earlier than most people think. October to December is the busiest time of the year for printers: files approved at the end of October typically ship in the first half of December.
For delivery before Christmas, aim to have approved files by mid-October. For calendars, send the enquiry by September and the files by early October.
What to send us, and what we do with it.
Print-ready PDFs: PDF/X-1a:2001, CMYK without an embedded ICC profile, fonts embedded, images at 300 ppi, 3 mm bleed on every edge and no printer marks. The interior goes as single pages in reading order, the cover as a separate file. RGB files are fine too: we convert them to CMYK free of charge, with the profile for your paper, and you see the result in the proof.
Every setting, software by software, is in our file preparation guide.
Yes, twice. First the technical side — bleed, resolution, fonts, colour space, whether the spine width matches the paper you chose. Then what software cannot see: a file can pass every automatic check and still look wrong in print.
When we spot that, we tell you what we would change and why. The decision stays yours.
We print from PDF only. Word and Canva work in RGB and cannot create proper bleed, so colours shift in conversion and thin white edges can appear after trimming.
For a book, a layout program such as InDesign or Affinity Publisher is the safer route. If Canva is all you have, our file guide shows a workaround — or we can prepare the files for you.
Yes. Our DTP studio converts spreads into single pages, adds bleed, converts colours to CMYK, rebuilds covers to the exact spine width, and can typeset a book from your text and images.
It is charged by the hour; we tell you the time and cost before we start.
No — that is normal. When facing pages are exported as single pages with bleed, the bleed on the spine side picks up whatever sits next to it in the spread. That strip disappears into the binding; we need it to impose the pages on the press sheet.
Keep 3 mm bleed on all four sides of every page.
For saddle-stitched brochures, yes. Perfect-bound books need an even page count; sewn books a multiple of 4, and multiples of 8 or 16 work best, because that is how sheets fold into sections.
Count every page, including blanks. If the count does not fit, we add blank pages — tell us where you want them.
Ask us once the page count and paper are fixed — the spine width depends on both, so nobody can give it to you earlier. We send the exact dimensions and, on request, a template with the spine, bleed and, for hardcovers, the board wrap already drawn in. Design into it and the cover will fit.
A separate vector file — curves, not pixels — in 100% black, in the exact position. Lines and details must be at least 0.4 mm thick; finer ones fill in or break up.
Foils come in set colours (golds, silvers, rose gold, coloured foils), so an exact custom shade cannot be matched — we send you the available colours to choose from.
Not to print. You need one only if the book will be sold through bookshops, libraries or distributors. ISBNs are issued by the ISBN agency in the publisher’s country.
Send us the number and we will create the barcode and place it on the back cover.
Yes, until you approve the proof. Every new version means a new file check and usually a new proof, which can move the shipping date. Please number your versions and tell us which file replaces which.
Proof approval is binding: after it, a change is possible only if the job has not gone to press, and it usually costs extra and moves the shipping date.
Seeing and feeling your book before the full run.
Yes. Every order includes a softproof: a PDF generated from your files exactly as they will be printed, with any technical remarks. Nothing goes to press until you approve it.
Our guide to checking a proof explains what to look for — and why a screen is never a colour approval.
Yes. For offset print we make certified colour proofs of selected pages, because test pages on the press itself would mean making plates and stopping the machine, which costs far more. We recommend them for photography and art books, and for anything with a brand colour to match. For digital print we can print a plano proof: flat, unbound sheets from the press that will print your book, on the production paper. Both are charged separately.
A single complete copy made before the run is rarely sensible. In offset, printing anything means making plates and stopping the press, which costs far too much for one copy or a few test pages. Instead we offer:
Proofs are charged separately, and anything we send goes by courier, which costs €35. Board games are different: there we recommend a full prototype before production.
If you are choosing between papers for a book we have quoted, we can send blank sheets of the one or two papers on your shortlist, so you can compare colour, opacity and, for journals and planners, how the paper takes a pen. Courier delivery costs €35, charged to you.
To see your own pages on the paper, there are two paid options, depending on how the book is printed:
Specifying the book itself.
Count pages. One sheet printed on both sides is two pages, so a planner with 200 sheets has 400 pages. Give us the total including blanks, without the cover — unless the cover is printed on the same paper as the interior.
Coated paper (gloss, silk or matt) holds the ink on its surface and gives vivid colour and sharp photos. Uncoated paper is warmer, easier on the eye for long reading, and the right choice if readers will write in the book — but colour images look softer on it.
For a mostly-text book with colour illustrations either can work; we can send you blank sheets of both papers.
In a hardcover book, endpapers are folded sheets — usually 4 pages at the front and 4 at the back — glued between the cover board and the book block. They are not part of your PDF: page 1 of your file is the first right-hand page after the front endpaper.
Plain endpapers are standard; printed or coloured ones cost a little extra.
Sewn bindings open better than glued ones. For books that must lie completely flat — cookbooks, planners, photo books — consider open spine, Swiss binding or lay-flat; Wire-O opens flat too. Tell us how the book will be used and we will suggest one. More on thread-sewn binding.
Once paper and page count are fixed we give you the exact spine width and the weight per copy — useful for choosing mailers, calculating postage and planning storage.
Where and how your books arrive.
Across Europe, and worldwide on request — we handle the export clearance ourselves. Tell us where the books have to land: your office, a warehouse, a distributor or a fulfilment centre.
For a distribution centre, send us its delivery terms before we quote — booking window, pallet and labelling rules. They decide whether a lorry is unloaded or turned away at the gate.
Our quotation says so explicitly, one way or the other, along with everything else it does and does not cover. Freight should be a line you approved, not a number that appears at the end.
Yes — to branches, distributors or multiple warehouses. Each extra address adds cost per copy, and the quotation shows it. Send the addresses and quantities with your enquiry.
No, we don’t organise shipping of single copies. We deliver the run in cartons or on pallets to you, your distributor or a fulfilment centre, which can then send out individual orders.
No, we don’t offer storage. The whole run is delivered once it is ready, so plan where it will go: your own premises, a distributor or a fulfilment centre that stores stock and ships orders.
In cartons, delivered as parcels or on pallets depending on the quantity. Individual shrink-wrapping is available and recommended for books that will be stored or shipped on — it protects them against humidity and scuffing.
Each product page has its own short FAQ — minimum runs, finishes and what to send.
Book printing
Run lengths, bindings, hardcover and softcover
Photo & art books
Colour proofs, papers for black-and-white, lay-flat bindings
Children’s books
Picture books, board books, illustrated editions
Catalogues
Brand colours, large runs, language versions
Notebooks & planners
Personalisation, brand colours, cover materials
Calendars
Order deadlines, country holidays, split deliveries
Board games
Kickstarter timing, prototypes, assembly
Send your specification — or just describe the idea. Or e-mail info@booksandcatalogues.com.
