Most first-time authors arrive with a manuscript and no idea what happens next. Here is the whole sequence, including the two steps people skip.
You have finished writing it. What you have is a document; what you want is a box of books. Between those two things sit about six steps, and knowing them in advance is the difference between a straightforward job and three rounds of expensive surprises.
One: the file becomes a layout
A manuscript is not a book. Typesetting turns it into pages: margins, running heads, page numbers, chapter openings, and the hundreds of small decisions that make a page comfortable to read.
This is the step first-time authors most often want to skip, and it is the one that most visibly separates a self-published book from a professional one. A book laid out in a word processor with default margins looks exactly like a book laid out in a word processor with default margins.
The technical necessity within it is the gutter: the inner margin must be wider than the outer, because binding eats into it. A page laid out with equal margins produces text disappearing into the spine, and it is only visible after binding.
Two: the page count becomes a real number
Typesetting produces the final page count, and the page count drives everything after it: paper cost, spine width, binding method and price. Nothing downstream can be quoted accurately until this number is fixed.
Most binding methods also want the page count in multiples of four, because sheets are folded. A book that lands on 213 pages will be padded to 216, and it is better to decide what fills those pages than to have blanks appear.
Quoting before typesetting: ask for a price, change the page count afterwards, and the number quoted becomes wrong. The second quote then feels like a moving target, when it is simply a different book.
Three: choosing how it is held together
Saddle stitch: folded and stapled through the spine. Excellent up to about 60 pages, impossible beyond that. Programmes, booklets, thin reports.
Perfect binding: pages glued into a wrap-around cover with a flat printed spine. This is what a novel is, from about 60 pages upwards, and it is what most people picture when they say "book".
Spiral or wire: for anything that must lie flat, such as manuals, workbooks, cookery books and training material.
Hardcover: for durability and occasion. More expensive, and appropriate for reference works, textbooks that will be handled for years (A5 textbook printing starts at KSh 280 a copy, from 50), and books meant as objects.
Four: paper, which people underestimate
Two decisions. Weight, which decides how substantial the book feels and how much show-through there is from the reverse side. And finish: uncoated for text, because coated paper is tiring to read under a light, and coated only where photographs matter.
Colour matters too. Bright white is right for a manual and slightly harsh for a novel; a cream stock is easier on the eye over 300 pages. This is not a detail. It is most of the reading experience.
Five: proof, and read it
A physical proof comes before the run. Read it as a book, in a chair, not as a file on a screen. Things that are invisible in a PDF become obvious on paper: a chapter starting on the wrong side, a running head carrying the previous chapter's title, a page number missing on one page in ninety.
This step gets rushed because everybody is tired by now. It is the last point at which anything is cheap to change.
Six: the run
Then it prints, folds, binds, trims and boxes. Short runs are entirely normal: printing 50 books to see how they sell is sensible, and far cheaper than storing 500.
One practical note that catches people: books are heavy. Five hundred paperbacks is a serious quantity of boxes, and somewhere to put them is worth arranging before they arrive, not on the day.
Once the books exist, the law asks for copies. Under the Books and Newspapers Act (Cap 111), publishers in Kenya, self-published authors included, deposit two copies of each new title with the Kenya National Library Service, which also accepts digital copies of e-books. Set two aside from the first box.
A company profile or a catalogue follows the same sequence with a shorter page count, and there the cover decisions matter more than the binding. For the smaller printed pieces that go with it, specification choices on cards follow the same logic about weight and lamination.
Sources: Kenya National Library Service, ISBN questions and answers (read 14 Oct 2026).
Common questions
What is the minimum number of books I can print?
Short runs are normal and often sensible: printing a small first batch to test a book before committing to a large one is a good strategy. The per-copy price is higher at low quantities because setup is spread across fewer books, but that is usually cheaper than storing hundreds of unsold copies.
Do I need an ISBN?
Not to print. You need one to sell through bookshops and to be catalogued, and it comes from the Kenya National Library Service, the country's ISBN agency, not from a printer. KNLS charges KSh 1,500 for a single ISBN, processes a complete application within about 24 hours, and needs a separate ISBN for each edition and each format, so a paperback and an e-book are two numbers. Sort it before the cover is finalised, because the barcode has to be placed in the layout, not added afterwards.
Can you typeset the book for me?
Yes, and for a first book it is usually the right choice. Supply the manuscript as a clean word-processor file with consistent heading styles and nothing manually spaced; the tidier the source, the less it costs. Photographs and diagrams should come as separate high-resolution files, not embedded in the document.
How long does printing a book take?
Production is measured in days once files are approved; the whole project is measured in weeks, and the difference is proofing. Typesetting, one round of corrections, a physical proof and your reading of it is where the time goes. Build that in from the start, and nothing about the schedule will be unpleasant.
