When having your own book printed, you have to make various choices. Which type of paper will you choose? Which format will you use? But also, which binding method do you want applied? There is often a dilemma between two binding methods: glued or sewn. We will tell you about the differences and the pros and cons of these in this blog!
A glued book:
Glued books use loose leaves or sheets. Loose sheets are milled into the spine as a single book block and glued directly into the spine of the cover. This binding method is also known as perfect binding or glued binding.
Glued books carry the risk that a page may come loose from the book after heavy use. If you have handled a paperback frequently, you will undoubtedly recognize this phenomenon. It is a relatively inexpensive binding method, and a glued book is less durable than a sewn-bound book. This binding method is often used for large print runs or for books that are not used very intensively.
A sewn book:
As you might have guessed, a sewn-bound book is bound using thread. The sheets of paper are folded in the binding machine and sewn together into various signatures. A signature is a collection of several folded sheets slid into one another. These signatures are then sewn together to form a single sturdy book block.
Because you work with folded signatures, pages cannot come loose in a book. Additionally, a sewn-bound book lies flat when open and is considerably more durable than a glued book. Sewn-bound books are generally more expensive than glued books.
Both hardcover and softcover books can be bound with thread. For a softcover, this is officially called “sewn paperback”. When we print a hardcover book, it is called “sewn bound”.
Our choice
At Bookadew, we believe that we are talking about real books when thread is involved. That is why we only produce sewn-bound books. A good price-quality ratio is what we stand for. Curious about the cost of printing a sewn-bound book? You can easily calculate this online using our price calculator: https://staging.bookadew.com/bestellen/
Still interested in a glued book?
Bookadew is part of ARSprintmedia, a printing company that has been in business for over 70 years. However, if you are interested in books in larger print runs or, for example, glued binding, please contact us at marketing@arsprintmedia.nl.