Custom Editions: 10 Options for Making Beautiful Books at Friesens
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From book-box deluxe hardcovers to anniversary collector’s special editions, beautiful books are back in a big way. For most self-published authors, gold foiled covers and sprayed edges are but a distant dream, requiring elaborate crowdfunding and a bulk print run from overseas. But did you know there’s a printing option in Canada that allows self-published authors to print the book of their dreams at an award-winning printer for reasonable print runs?
FriesenPress is a part of Friesens Corporation — Canada’s largest independent book manufacturer and so many authors’ source of custom edition magic. Those scores of authors even include…me! In addition to being a FriesenPress employee-owner, I’m also an independent fantasy author. I recently commissioned a custom edition print run to coincide with the launch of my latest book, Legend of the Quill, through Friesens. Despite having guided many authors through this process over the years, it was a new and exciting experience being in the driver’s seat for the printing of my book.
Today, let’s dive into ten of the bold and beautiful printing options available through Friesens — with photo examples — to see how they might be able to help you print the book of your dreams.
1. Sprayed Edges
Sprayed edges (sometimes called “spredges”) is the latest trend for collectible books. You may even see instagrammers sharing images of their bookshelves with all the spines facing away to show off the vibrant colours and artwork on the painted edges of their books. This is a modern take on the historical binding technique of gilding the edges of high-quality books. Sprayed edges can be a matte colour or a printed design — since they are created in full CMYK inks, any colour or design is possible.
Since goldenrod is the thematic colour for Legend of the Quill, I opted for a goldenrod sprayed edge with five lifespark stars to represent the five legendary pendants in the story: one on top for the protagonist’s and four down the side for the supporting cast.
2. Foil Covers
Stamping foil onto covers is one of the oldest and most enduring arts of book binding. While traditional hand-crafted books would hand stamp gold foil onto covers with a series of brass stamps, these days, the stamped area can be fully customized to include text and graphics.
Authors can choose from a number of foil colours and finishes (from satin to high shine) to highlight specific details on the cover design and make the cover catch the light and attention.
For the gold foil service, Friesens allowed me to add gold foil to both the dust jacket and the hardcover itself. I chose to place the title in foil on the cover of both, the spine text, and decided to include my quill motif on the back of the hardcover for an added flourish that differentiates it from the dust jacket design.
3. Spot Gloss
Like foil, spot gloss enables you to pick out details on your cover, such as making the text glossy on an otherwise matte cover. With spot gloss, you can choose the level of shine but also the level of texture, making the book a multi-sensory experience. Here are some examples of how spot gloss can make visual elements pop to both the eyes and the fingertips:
As spot gloss is a clear plasticized layer on top of the image, the printed colour underneath is still visible. The level of texture creates light and shadow on the page that adds a 3D aspect to an otherwise flat image.
4. Book Ribbons
Self-contained book ribbons add a luxe feel, enabling readers to hold their place without the need of separate bookmarks or dog-eared pages. Choosing a complementary colour and an appropriate width ensures that your book ribbon lies smoothly between your pages and feels like a thoughtful addition to the book’s design.
Authors can choose from an array of colours and widths to fit every project.
I knew I wanted golden yellow for my ribbon to match my sprayed edges. When the initial width I requested (½”) wasn’t available in this colour, my Friesens liaison offered either another colour in the ½” or the golden yellow in a slightly different width; I went with the latter: golden yellow in ⅜”.
5. Gatefold Images
What if you have a photo, map, or poster that just doesn’t have the sufficient gravitas or resolution to fit in your book’s trim size? Gatefold images fold out of the book to give you more workable area without forcing you into an unrealistic trim size. Gatefolds can fold out to one side (having 3 segments) or both sides (having 4 segments), enabling vast panoramas, elaborate family trees, sprawling world maps, or high definition photographs to dazzle readers.
Here, a gatefold is affixed into the spine and unfolds twice to the right, providing three panels of images. This space could also showcase a single image that is printed to three times the book’s page width!
6. Printed Endsheets
The papers that bind a bookblock (the body of text) to a hardcover are called endsheets (or endpapers). In a default book, they’re white or cream to match the bookblock. But they could be any colour imaginable — including printed with a custom image to match your story’s tone and content.
When printed in full colour, the reverse of the endsheet will be visible (likely white), while B&W images or solid coloured end sheets may be double-sided to match your book’s aesthetic.
I wanted my world map printed on my endsheets. Thankfully, because my design was in sepia tone, I was able to print it on cream paper to match my interior without it adversely affecting the colour of my image. If you have truer colours (or a lot of blues), you’ll want to print on white, or choose a plain coloured stock for your endsheets.
7. Headbands & Cover Materials
The bound bands at the top and bottom of the spine, where a hardcover attaches to the bookblock are called headbands. In traditional bookbinding, these were where the signatures of bound paper were hand-sewn into the spine cloth. In modern printing, these are pre-woven and affixed to the spine to protect the bookblock and create a traditional look.
Authors can choose from a range of headband colours to match the overall colour scheme of the book’s design.
Consider the cloth covering of your hardcover when choosing these details, as both a smooth or linen texture combined with an array of rich colours can make your book stand out from the crowd.
For my book, I chose burgundy and gold for my headbands, and the linen finish black cloth for my hardcover binding. Since this will be part of a trilogy, the cloth will remain the same across all three books for consistency, but I’ll choose different coloured headbands and foil colours to match the changing colour themes (red for book 2 and blue for book 3).
8. Dust Jackets
Print-on-demand hardcovers most frequently offer casebound, where the cover image is laminated to the book boards that make up the hardcover. However, a removable dust jacket provides greater durability for the book, as well as giving you more real estate for book blurbs, endorsements, or information.
Dust jackets are typically printed one-sided, with folds that wrap around the cover to hold the jacket in place. These can feature foil, spot gloss, embossing, and even die cut designs to make them pop.
My dust jacket mimicked my paperback cover design, but having the extra space meant I could shift my back cover content to the flaps (About the Book on the front flap and About the Author on the back flap) and use the back space for my review blurbs. Note the gold foil to pick out the stars on the reviews, as well as on the spine text and logo, front cover text, and the tag line for the About the Book blurb.
9. Variable Data & Tip-ins
Is your book limited edition, such as a poetry collection, collector’s edition, or intended for an exclusive club? Variable data enables you to have something different printed on each copy of the book, such as “X/250 copies” — where each book in the set will be numbered sequentially.
Or, if you need something special added to your bookblock, such as a gallery of glossy photo pages in an otherwise B&W book, a different type of paper (like onion skin to protect a print or coloured card stock to separate segments), or tip-in signed bookplate pages, Friesens also offers hand-inserted options to truly customize your book.
10. FSC & Printed in Canada
Friesens is proud to uphold certification with the Forest Stewardship Council, ensuring their materials are sustainably sourced and supporting forest stewardship for future generations. By printing a book with Friesens, you access the right to print the FSC logo in your book, alongside the “Printed in Canada” designation. If it’s important that your book is proudly Canadian and ethically produced, Friesens has been printing top-quality, award-winning books since 1907.
These are placed on the copyright page. Friesens provides the graphics so you can work them into your design files.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, with additional options from die cut covers to custom slipcases, but we hope it whets your appetite for all the details you can curate for your ideal book. Friesens offers quotes with each custom feature isolated so you can decide which features you’d like to add onto your book — and what your final choices will cost to manufacture.
Depending on your chosen format, there is a minimum order of 50 copies, but we recommend getting quotes for at least 3 sizes of orders (say 100, 250, and 500 copies) as the cost per book drops significantly for larger book runs. This can enable you to get a deluxe book for competitive pricing so that your retail costs are still attractive to potential readers.
So, if you’re planning on working with a book box, book crate subscription, or book club or if you’re offering pre-orders, running a crowdfunding campaign, attending a convention or conference, or celebrating a milestone — packaging your precious story with the tailored features it deserves can make your book a must-have for beautiful bookshelves everywhere.
Interested in printing a custom edition at Friesens? Send us an email at publishing@friesenpress.com to get started.
Astra Crompton (she/they) is an eclectic writer, editor, and illustrator with over twenty-five years of publishing experience. Her work has been published in anthologies, table-top RPG books, magazines, and in several novels. They have also successfully completed NaNoWriMo six times and counting. Astra is currently the Editing & Illustrations Coordinator at FriesenPress, where they manage, coordinate, and vet FriesenPress’s industry-leading editing and illustrations teams.
