Children’s Book Printing - Story and Colouring Books

Looking to print a beautiful children’s book that young readers will treasure? At Copy Direct, we specialise in high-quality children’s book printing for self-publishers, schools, illustrators, authors, and organisations across New Zealand. Whether you’re printing your first picture book or producing a larger print run for retail sale, we make the process simple, affordable, and professional.

Vibrant Colour That Brings Stories to Life

Children’s books rely on bold, engaging illustrations and clear, easy-to-read text. We use premium full-colour printing to ensure your artwork is reproduced with rich colour, sharp detail, and consistent quality throughout the book. From soft pastel tones to bright, high-impact graphics, your story will look just as you imagined it.

We print on quality paper stocks suited to picture books, early readers, and chapter books. Choose from gloss or matte finishes depending on the look and feel you want to achieve.

Flexible Sizes & Binding Options

Every children’s book is different. We offer a range of popular trim sizes, including square formats and A4 or A5 options. Binding choices include:

• Perfect bound (softcover)
• Saddle stitched (stapled)
• Wire or spiral bound (ideal for activity books)

Not sure what will work best? Our team can guide you based on your page count, audience, and budget.

Short Runs & Large Print Quantities

Printing your first book? We offer short-run digital printing, allowing you to order smaller quantities. If you’re ready for larger volumes, we can also manage bigger print runs with competitive pricing.

Childrens Book Printing Options:

Full-colour interior printing
Premium gloss or matte paper stocks
Softcover (perfect bound)
Custom sizes including square formats
Short-run digital or larger print runs

This flexibility makes us ideal for:

• Self-published authors
• School projects
• Fundraisers
• Gift books
• Retail distribution

Children’s Colouring Books

Colouring books remain incredibly popular with children of all ages. We print colouring books using crisp black-and-white or colour interior pages, depending on your design. Our uncoated paper stocks are perfect for crayons, coloured pencils, and light marker use, helping prevent bleed-through while giving a smooth colouring experience.
 

Children’s Story Books

Story books require vibrant colour reproduction and careful attention to layout. We ensure your illustrations are sharp, colours are rich, and text is clear and easy to read. Whether you’re producing a softcover picture book or a hardcover keepsake edition, we’ll help you choose the right materials and binding style.
 
 

Preparing & Uploading Your Print Files

Binding Options

NZ Printing You Can Trust

As a New Zealand-owned printing company, we understand local publishing needs. We work closely with authors to ensure files are print-ready and provide guidance on bleed, margins, colour setup, and cover design.

From file check to final delivery, our goal is to make children’s book printing straightforward and stress-free.

We recommend Canva to design your Childrens Book Cover.

Designing Your Book Cover with Canva
 

Creating a professional, eye-catching cover is one of the most important steps in producing a successful book. A great cover not only attracts attention but also communicates the tone and quality of your story. For many authors and illustrators, we recommend using Canva as a simple and effective design tool.

Why We Recommend Canva

Canva is a user-friendly, web-based design platform that makes it easy for anyone even without graphic design experience to create high-quality book covers.

Easy to Use

Canva’s drag-and-drop interface allows you to quickly add images, text, colours, and design elements. This makes it ideal for self-publishers or first-time authors who want control over their design without needing advanced software skills.

Professional Templates

Canva offers a wide range of pre-designed templates that can be customised to suit your book. These templates provide a strong starting point and help ensure your layout looks balanced and visually appealing.

Perfect for Books

With access to thousands of fonts, illustrations, icons, and graphics, Canva is especially well-suited to children’s book covers. You can easily create fun, colourful, and engaging designs that appeal to young readers.

Correct Sizing & Custom Dimensions

You can set up your cover using custom dimensions to match your exact book size. This helps ensure your final design aligns correctly with your print specifications, including front cover, back cover, and spine layout.

Easy Collaboration

If you’re working with an illustrator or team, Canva makes it simple to share designs and collaborate in real time. Feedback and edits can be made quickly without complicated file transfers.

Print-Ready Export Options

Canva allows you to export your design as a high-quality PDF, which is ideal for printing. When setting up your file, we recommend:
•    Using CMYK-friendly colours where possible
•    Including bleed in your design
•    Exporting as a PDF Print file
•    Ensuring images are high resolution (300 DPI)

Support When You Need It

While Canva is a powerful and accessible tool, getting your file fully print-ready can still require a few technical adjustments. Our team at Copy Direct can review your artwork, check sizing, bleed, and spine setup, and help ensure your cover is ready for professional printing.

Using Canva is a great way to create a polished, professional children’s book cover without the complexity of advanced design software. 

If you need guidance along the way, we’re here to help bring your vision to life.

To Learn more about Canva Templates Click Here.

 

Copy Direct: Your Go-To Source for High-Quality Printing

At Copy Direct, we specialize in printing booklets, training manuals, catalogues, and more. Our commitment to excellence guarantees that your professionally designed files are produced with precision and care. We offer top-notch printing services at competitive prices, ensuring a seamless and efficient experience that consistently delivers outstanding results. Trust us to elevate your printed materials to the next level!

• 
   
• Custom Design - Design your own

• Popular Packages - Ready to go
•  
• Quantities from small to large runs
• 
  Your Choice 4 Steps to make it easy

• Step 1 - Pick a Size
  Step 2 - Pick a Binding
  Step 3 - Pick a Cover
  Step 4 - Pick a Paper

Key Options for Your Book

1. Size
Selecting the right size for your catalogue is crucial as it impacts readability and presentation. Here are the standard options:

A4
Standard Office Size
Dimensions: 297mm x 210mm
This size is perfect for comprehensive catalogues, providing ample space for images and text.

A5
Half the Size of A4
Dimensions: 210mm x 148mm
A5 is ideal for more concise catalogues or brochures, making them portable and easy to handle.

Custom
Tailored to Your Specifications
Dimensions: Your choice!
If you have specific dimensions in mind, we can create a custom size that fits your unique needs.

At Copy Direct our team can produce your booklet and books in a variety of formats using a number of different binding options in whatever quantity you require.

Many binding options to choose from - Perfect Bind to Ring Binders Fast turnaround

Many front cover and back cover options to choose from
Large or small format Short or long runs

Binding Options:

Perfect Binding

Perfect binding, the books are the perfect bind. Perfect bound using Pur refers to polyurethane, the type of glue used, which is much stronger and heat resistant than other paper based EVA glues.
Perfect bound books are made up of stacked pages. These are gathered into a book and the edges of the spine are ground off (or notched). When the book block is glued into a paper cover, the pur glue that attaches the sheets to the spine can flow into the notches or ground-off areas. The covers and book blocks are then trimmed flush.

Perfect bound books are square at the spine and use glue to hold the pages, like a paperback book. It gives your books a more professional feel. It can accommodate a page count up to 640 pages (320 leaves 80gsm).

PUR is strong and eco-friendly. It is a popular glue due to it's superior binding strength and eco friendliness.

Lay-flat - PUR glue is more flexible than EVA glue and provides lay flat qualities when the book is opened. It is ideal for music books and cookbooks, which are read on the desk, and two-page spread such as photo books. This lay-flat quality makes it easy to read books and extends the book life.

High Binding Strength and Durability - The binding strength is about three times stronger than the EVA glue. Coated paper or specialty stocks, which can be be a problem with EVA, are bound securely in PUR bound books. EVA glue binding strength becomes weaker over time. However, the PUR glue retains durability and flexibility in both high and low temperatures for long lasting book quality.

Another big advantage of perfect bind is that you can also have information printed on the spine.

 

What Does A Perfect Bound Book Look Like - click here to view on YouTube.
 

Saddle Stitch Booklet

The saddle stitch booklet catalogue is ideal for publications ranging from 8 pages to 100 pages. Typically, the finished size is A4 or A5 when closed, although we also offer custom sizes to meet your specific needs.

This style of catalogue generally features a heavier weight cover (200-300gsm) and content pages (80-150gsm), although some options maintain the same weight throughout for a uniform appearance.

Saddle stitching involves inserting two staples into the spine and folding the pages in half to create a booklet. This method is not only efficient but also the most economical option for finishing catalogues.

 

Square Fold Saddle Stitched

This is a smart new look for full colour books. The square fold produces creased cover sheets, and face trimming to create crisp, sharp square spine booklets that can be opened flat and are easy to handle, stack and store.

 

Wire Binding

Wire bound catalogue—Wire binding is one of the most popular commercial catalogue binding methods used and is known by a number of different names including twin loop wire, Wire-o, double loop wire, double-o, ring wire and wirebind. With this binding method, the punched pages go onto a "C" shaped spine and then a wire closer is used to squeeze the spine until it is round. Documents that are bound with wire binding will open completely flat on a desk and allow for 360 degree rotation of bound pages.

There are two common hole patterns used in binding documents with double loop wire. Each hole pattern has specific sizes and applications where it is best suited. Here is a quick overview of the different options.

3:1 pitch (3 holes per 25mm) Up to 120 80gsm leaves – 240 pages

The three to one pitch hole pattern is most commonly used for binding small sized documents with double loop wire. Spines for this binding style are available in sizes between 4.8mm and 14mm in diameter. Three to one pitch wires are not available in sizes larger than 14mm. The size of the holes used with this pattern simply does not allow for larger spines to be manufactured.

2:1 pitch (2 holes per 25mm) Up to 240 80gsm leaves – 480 pages

Although a two to one pitch hole pattern is most commonly used for binding larger sized documents it can also be used for binding smaller diameter books. Two to one pitch wire is most commonly used in sizes ranging from 15.9 mm up to 32mm. However, we can use special small sized 2:1 pitch wire for binding documents as small as 6.4mm.
 

 

Plastic Comb Binding

This binding method is good for technical manuals that have a lot of pages and must lie flat. The stack of pages comprising the book is punched with a series of holes along the binding edge through which a plastic comb is inserted.

Plastic comb binding can accommodate a page count for circle ring of 500 pages (250 leaves), oval ring of 900 pages (450 leaves). Pages can be added or removed as needed. Available in a wide range of colours.




 

Plastikoil

Also known as spiral binding, plastikoil is a commonly used book binding style for creating documents, reports, presentations and proposals. Documents bound with coil can open flat on a desk or table and offer 360 degree rotation for easy note taking. The continual spiral binding gives document security and ease of use to the end user. Standard color is black but other colors are available.

 

What Does A Wire Bound Book Look Like - click here to view on YouTube.

 

 

5 Star Google Reviews

"Fantastic value for money and super quick. I've had many booklets printed for work and they have all come out great. So much easier than trying to do it myself and super affordable. Thank you!" Tanya Allen

"I do not have any publishing experience. I wrote a book and sought advice on producing a limited number of copies. CD gave me great advice on paper quality, binding options and other details to make my task effortless. I cannot thank them enough for the friendly service and speedy delivery of the finished article. I would recommend them to everyone." Colin Buckwell

"Super impressed with the service and quality of work. We had a large print job, that needed to be put into booklets. The job was done super quick and delivered to the client without any issues. The staff were friendly and very helpful. Would definitely recommend." Nicky B

 

Call (09) 579 5575 or
email: print@copydirect.co.nz

Get Started Today!

Ready to bring your Childrens story to life? Contact Copy Direct today for a quote and let’s create something special for young readers.