You can print a custom coloring book in four places, and the right one depends on how many copies you need and when. Your own printer covers one or two today. A copy shop covers twenty the same day. A print on demand service mails you a bookstore finish, and Amazon KDP author copies print your published book at cost. In all four you hand over one PDF in its exact size.
The PDF Colorin AI downloads arrives ready for all four. Any other coloring book PDF goes to the same places with the same settings.
Which File Do You Take to the Printer?
The book PDF, plus the cover as a separate file. Colorin downloads a finished book as one PDF in the 16 trim sizes Amazon KDP uses, from the small paperbacks up to letter and A4, plus a custom size you type in, with the margins applied. Downloading it costs no credits and the pages carry no watermark. The cover is made in Colorin's own Cover creator, not the one on KDP: it links to the book so size and page count match, and you download it separately.
Two settings travel with the file to every printer. Print it single sided, because markers soak through, and ask for it in the exact size of the PDF, not fitted to the sheet. Single sided means one drawing per sheet: a twenty page book is twenty sheets, and twenty copies are four hundred. That is the number you give the shop, plus twenty bindings. The one order that goes double sided is stapling along the fold, further down.
The cover downloads as its own file, from Colorin’s Cover creator.
Where Can You Get a Coloring Book Printed?
| Where | Good for | What it costs (published rates, checked September 9, 2026) | What you bring |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your own printer | One or two copies, today | Paper and ink | The PDF, printed single sided, then stapled or clipped |
| A copy shop (Staples, FedEx Office, the one on your street) | 1 to 20 copies, bound the same day | Self service color copies ran 59 to 76 cents a side at the two big chains in July 2026; black and white is cheaper, and a coloring book is black and white. Binding is quoted on top | The PDF on a USB stick or by email, the size written down, single sided |
| A print on demand service such as Lulu | 1 to 100 copies with a bookstore finish, delivered | Lulu's own estimate for a 50 page paperback coloring book is $4.28 per copy; short run printers land around $4.50 to $8 per book under 300 copies. Shipping is extra | The interior PDF and the cover PDF, in the exact trim size |
| Amazon KDP author copies | Your own published book, at printing cost | Black ink paperbacks of 24 to 110 pages cost a flat $2.30 to print on Amazon.com in a regular trim size, and $2.84 in a large one. Large trim is anything wider than 6.12 inches or taller than 9, so a letter size coloring book is in it. Above 110 pages it is $1.00 plus 1.2 cents a page, or 1.7 cents in large trim. Shipping is extra | Nothing new: the interior and the cover you already have. KDP paperbacks start at 24 pages, and author copies need the book published, though a proof copy can be ordered while it is still a draft |
The copy shop is where most twenty copy jobs end up, and the price is decided by one word at the counter: ask for the black and white price. A coloring book has no color in it, and a shop that quotes color out of habit is quoting a different job. Which paper to ask for is in the guide on printing at home, below.
Which Binding Should a Coloring Book Have?
The one that lets the book lie flat, because a page that curls back is a page nobody colors. The per book costs below are what printers quote at volume; a copy shop charges more per book for twenty.
- Stapled along the fold, called saddle stitch. The cheapest, at roughly 50 cents to a dollar per book, and doable at home with a long reach stapler. It is the one exception to single sided: the sheets print on both sides, two pages per side, and fold, so the page count is a multiple of four. Keep markers for the other two bindings.
- Spiral or coil. It opens flat and stays there, which is what someone with markers wants, at around $2 to $5 per book.
- Paperback, glued at the spine, called perfect bound. The bookstore look, at about $1.50 to $3.50 per book. It does not lie flat, so it suits pencils.
Spiral opens flat and stays there; stapled is the party favor format.
Printing is the last step, and the book depends on the pages you send. If you are still choosing photos, that is in the guide on how to turn a photo into a coloring page.
If you only need loose pages, the home printer settings are in how to print coloring pages at home.
How Do You Order Author Copies From Amazon KDP?
Upload the interior PDF and the cover PDF to KDP, choose the trim size that matches the file, and declare that the pages were made with AI where the form asks. Approval can take up to 72 hours. Then order author copies from your bookshelf at printing cost plus shipping, with no royalty and no markup. KDP shows the delivery date at checkout, and it arrives by mail: this is the route for stock, not for a party on Saturday. Before that, while the book is still a draft, KDP lets you order a proof copy, which is how you hold it and check the lines without publishing anything.
A book from Colorin goes into this step as it is: the PDF arrives in a KDP trim size with the print margins applied, so there is nothing to reformat.
The download screen: type 5.5 by 8.5 for a booklet, or pick a KDP size.
Make a coloring book and download it in the size your printer asks for
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Colorin AI print or ship the book?
No. Colorin delivers the print-ready PDF and the cover file, and printing happens wherever you take them: your own printer for a copy or two, a copy shop for twenty, a print on demand service, or KDP author copies.
Does downloading the book PDF cost credits?
No. Credits are spent when a page is generated or edited with AI. Downloading the finished book, in any size, costs nothing.
Which paper do print on demand services put coloring books on?
Their heavy uncoated white stock. Lulu recommends its premium white paper for coloring books so the color goes on without smudging, and it is the same paper to ask a copy shop for.
Published prices, checked September 9, 2026 against published copy shop rates, Lulu's coloring book page and KDP's paperback printing cost page. They change.
Colorin AI is an AI coloring page and coloring book generator built for creators who sell on Amazon KDP and Etsy, with generation from a written prompt or from a photo, character lock for consistency across pages, and print-ready export sized for KDP. Written by Kisbel Blanco.
