Your book style may be determined to some extent by the number of pages in your publication and the finished size your book will be.

Our standard sizes include Mass Market (4x7); Half (5x8); Trade (6x9); Monarch (7x10); Full (8x11); and Library (9x12).The most popular size appears to be Half because it is the most economical price-wise and it fits nicely on bookstore shelves.

There are numerous binding methods for books. Following are the seven we use most often.

Perfect Bound — is used to eliminate the expense of sewing and case-binding books. It is a variation of side-stitching and is widely used on paper back books. However, instead of being sewn or stitched, the pages are held together by a flexible adhesive. After the signatures are collated, the backs are ground off, leaving a rough surface. The adhesive is applied, a special lining is put over the backbone, and the cover is glued in place. This adhesive keeps its strength and resiliency for a long period of time.

Otabind (Lay-Flat) — the latest layflat technology used as an alternate choice to Comb or Spiral Wire binding. Often
recommended for cookbooks, technical manuals, industrial manuals, instructional manuals, software manuals travel guides, music collections, and other books that is more convenient to have it lay flat when open.

Casebound Book — The conventional method, which has been in use for many years, starts with the folding of printed sheets into 16 or 32 page signatures. Four-page endleaves are pasted on the outside of the first and last signatures. The signatures are then collated by machine and sewn together by special sewing machine designed for this purpose.
  After they are sewn, the books are trimmed top, front, and bottom, and the sewn edges are coated with glue. Each book is passed through a rounding machine which rolls the backbone. The rounded back is characteristic of this type of binding and gives the book the correct shape to allow the cover to open and close properly.

Comb Bound (Plastic Comb) — a popular lay-flat style for cookbooks, children’s lesson books, or any other type of book that updates and changes are made on a periodic basis. A disadvantage is that over a period of time the pages may begin to bind against one another making turning pages difficult. This method is more expensive than Otabind because the comb must be purchased and imprinted with the title.

Wire-O — another lay-flat style for cookbooks, technical manuals, etc. This style may have pages bind against each other as well, but a bigger disadvantage is that there is no way to show the title on the spine with spiral wire binding.

Spiral Wire — another lay flat spiral design binding.

Saddle-Stitch (Stapled in fold) — this is generally used for very small publications and booklets such as catalogs, directories, handbooks and some manuals. We usually do not recommend using this method of bindery for any publications over 80 pages and in this style, like the spiral wire, there is no spine to show the title of the book.