Week 3 of my 2026 vlog is all about printing decisions for fully illustrated, full-color children’s books. I’ve tested print-on-demand, domestic/local printing, and overseas printing, and I’m sharing what I’ve learned about cost, quality, reliability, and margins—especially if your goal includes wholesale. I’m also felting away on an illustration for my next book and talking about what makes printing fiber-based artwork tricky (spoiler: preserving fine detail matters!). If you’re building an indie children’s book business, I hope this helps you choose the right production path—and feel confident experimenting. Links + resources mentioned and more behind-the-scenes, are coming together as I prepare to launch my Patreon- coming soon!
“It is a big leap… to go from print on demand… to a full print run. I have done a lot of trial and error with print on demand… local… as well as outsourcing.”
Prefer the transcription? Here you go!
January 15, 2026
*I mention Patreon and resource links below, and I am still prepping to launch. More to come…
Hello, I’m Hillary Dow, owner, author, illustrator and self-publisher and fiber artist of Binding Tales. I create children’s books from farm to bookshelf where I turn unspun wool that looks like this into illustrations that look like this and then transform them into books that look like this.
So welcome. This is week three. I am felting away on an illustration for my fifth fully illustrated children’s book. And in this week’s update, week three of 52, I wanted to talk a little bit about printing.
So along the journey of being a self-publisher, I have done a lot of trial and error with print on demand, printing with a local print house here in Maine, as well as outsourcing to a larger print shop in China.
So if you are trying to make money off of books, then the, here’s two formats of the books that I have printed overseas. So I’ve got a nice glossy cover. The printing is really beautifully done. It is a cost-effective way for me to have both a hardcover and paperback format option and be able to create a wholesale channel.
So versus this book was my first printing of my very first book. It’s got beautiful end leaves. It’s got just the paper quality, the print quality is really just quite stunning, something to behold. I love this book.
I have it in paperback and hardcover. It was a lovely experience printing it here locally. Each book costs a lot more. So as I have evolved from four years ago printing that book to then trying print on demand, so the Sun Fairy book, I only at this point, as of today, I only have this in paperback, but I am currently working with the same printer that did Flock of Rock to print both a paperback and hardcover run of this book so that I will have this book and this book.
I’m doing a four format print run right now, two hardcovers and two paperbacks for these two books. So I’m growing my wholesale channel and in order to do that, I need to have books available for sale at a manufacturing price point that will allow me to make a healthy enough margin to make wholesale make sense.
It doesn’t make sense with the limited edition first inaugural book that I ever published. That’s a very special book. It’s beautiful. It’s a higher, different quality book. So I’m printing the other quality, which is still beautiful.
I absolutely love the way Flock of Rock came out. It’s a beautiful book. I’ve got a saddle stitch in the middle. They’re beautiful books. However, the one that was printed locally is just a little higher quality and printed locally, it costs me far more than not printing it locally, unfortunately.
So while I wish I could say that wasn’t the case, I have not been able to figure out a way to print full color children’s books locally and have it be economical for me and my business. So there is a big, big difference between printing a black and white fiction or nonfiction paperback book and the options that you have for printing because quality is not the same as it is that issue, that concern is just not the same as it is when you’re doing fully illustrated,
full color, full bleed, very fine detail colored pictures. That’s another difference too, is the difference between some styles of illustration and an illustration where my goal is that when you’re looking at this picture, you’re seeing the fibers.
Like you are really, you can see that this is made out of unspun wool. Like it’s very detailed and very fine, right down to the little, the fiber furries that you can see in the picture. And I don’t want to lose that.
So various types of printing have proven difficult to maintain that level of quality. And so I’ve been experimenting. And I’ll put some links down below the video to the some of the resources that I have tried, that I use.
And I am willing to always try something new if the process feels broken or the quality isn’t quite there. So I’m definitely not afraid to maybe not scrap what I’ve done before, but learn from it and move on.
I’m not going to get stuck sort of, what’s the word I’m looking for? I’m not going to sacrifice some of those quality requirements that for me as an illustrator and an artist, as a fiber artist, that are really important for me to maintain that clarity and quality print.
It’s really important enough for me that it drives the production process, the willingness and commitment to working differently and trying different printers and processes. I’ve tried different, I’ve worked with different photographers.
I’ve hired out two books and done the photography myself for two books. So like all those steps of the process, I also am open to and always trying new things. So what I would encourage you to do, if you are an artist or an author, if you’re an illustrator, if you’re in publishing, if you’re in any way, shape, or form part of the indie self-publishing community, I would just encourage you to give different printers a try.
And if you’re feeling like the print quality or the process or the reliability or whatever it is isn’t up to your standards, don’t be afraid to try different avenues. And it is a big leap for a self-published author, author illustrator, to go from print on demand where you have the ability to only order 50 books, five books.
You can order as many or as few as you want. And that’s it. You don’t have to store them. You don’t have the upfront expense of a full print run. So if your desire is to print 50 books, then print on demand and the quality of the color and clarity of the picture reproduction.
If that’s less of a concern for you and really your goal is to get your book published, you want to hold your book in your hands, then print on demand could be a wonderful choice for you. But if your goal is to grow your business and build different channels of distribution, so retail, wholesale, you’re doing events, you’re selling direct.
My experience has been that that slow and steady growth has come with trial and error and experimentation across the different printing options. So a little update on this guy. Oh, yep. So I haven’t yet fully situated him because all of his tentacles aren’t in place yet.
But eventually his head will kind of be looking more over here towards the coral. So Eva was right. I like those eyes better. Not quite as scary, as she said. So there’s a little bit of a 10,000 foot view of some of the considerations when printing books.
Print on demand, printing local, by local that could be within your state or domestically somewhere in the U.S. or going overseas and printing internationally and then having the book shipped back to you.
And I have found that at this point in the growth of my business, outsourcing, printing internationally and having those books shipped back to the States, even with the freight cost, is still more cost-effective, allowing me the margin on each book to offer a wholesale price.
So not everyone listening will be in this mode if you’re just following along on my author illustrator journey as a entrepreneur of a growing small business. But if you’re in the self-publishing space and certainly if you’re in the children’s book self-publishing space, I have found that that’s a much more niche market to find resources, podcast content.
A lot of self-publishing content is not children’s book focused, nor is it focused on like full color illustration. That’s some sort of tangible artwork that’s then photographed and reproduced. I mean that’s a difference too.
Print quality of a computer generated image compared to print quality of artwork that’s been photographed for reproduction. There’s a lot of variety in there. So there seems to be a lot more content creation in this sort of resource space for fiction, non-fiction, black and white printing authors.
So or author illustrators who or authors who work with an illustrator. So there’s so many different varieties of who this week’s update could be beneficial for and or just an interesting little peek behind the curtain of what it’s like to have the different business considerations that one has to think about if you’re really in earnest trying to grow a indie publishing children’s book business.
So thanks for listening. Thanks for following along. I hope that you can get the sense and feel that I love this. This is my happy place. And I’m just thrilled to share every week more about the process that I take and lessons learned.
And I hope that in some way it’s either inspirational or educational for you. So if you are interested in learning more and being a more keyed in member of my community, I am in 2026 now offering a Patreon community, Patreon.
I got to make sure I’m saying that right. So I apologize if I’m not. But please check the link below this video and consider joining my community. And in that community, I offer additional resources.
And so in what form those are going to be as I develop this are still taking shape. But in 2026, this is still, this is week three. So I’m just getting into this and much more to come. But if you would consider joining my community, there’s links below and a little bit more information about that.
So thanks for considering and I will see you again next week.
In Week 3 of my Author-Illustrator Journey vlog, I break down how I’m deciding on a second print run for fully illustrated, full-color, full-bleed children’s books—comparing print-on-demand (POD), domestic printing, and overseas/offset printing. I share what matters most for an indie publisher: cost per unit, print quality, lead times, minimum order quantities, and wholesale margins, plus how photographed fiber-art/needle-felted illustrations can lose texture if your production process isn’t dialed in. This post is for self-publishing creators weighing hardcover vs paperback and building a sustainable print strategy for wholesale and direct sales.
#childrensbookprinting #selfpublishing #indiepublisher #printondemand #podvsoffset #domesticprinting #overseasprinting #printinginchina #hardcovervspaperback #wholesalepricing #costofprintingbooks #fullcolorprinting #fullbleed #illustrationreproduction #photographedartworkprinting #fiberartillustration #needlefeltingart #bindingtales #authorillustratorvlog #smallpresspublishing