You can print a custom coloring book in four places. The right one depends on how many copies you need and when. Your own printer covers one or two copies 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 every case you hand over one PDF, single sided, in its exact size.
The PDF Colorin AI downloads arrives that way. 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. A custom size you type in is there too, on the plans that include it, and the margins come applied. Downloading the book costs no credits, and there is no watermark on any plan. 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. 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 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; above 110 pages it is $1.00 plus 1.2 cents per page. Shipping is extra | Nothing new: the book has to be published on KDP first, and KDP paperbacks start at 24 pages |
The copy shop is where most twenty copy jobs end up. 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; a shop that quotes color out of habit is quoting a different job. The second word is the paper. The default is thin copy paper, fine for crayons and pencils. A heavier sheet costs a little more and stops markers showing through.
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. Three bindings cover almost every case. 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. For thin booklets and party favors. 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. The book opens flat and stays there, which is what someone with markers wants. 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, for a shelf or a store. It does not lie flat, so it suits pencils.
Spiral lies flat for markers; stapled is the party favor format.
Printing is the last step, and the whole book depends on the pages you send. If you are still choosing photos, how a photo becomes a clean page 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. The copies arrive by mail in one to two weeks: this is the route for stock, not for a party on Saturday. KDP also lets you order a proof copy first, to hold the book and check the lines.
A book from Colorin goes into this step as it is. The PDF arrives in a KDP trim size with the safe print margins applied. There is nothing to reformat between the download and the upload.
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. Printing happens wherever you take them. That means your own printer for a copy or two, a copy shop for twenty, a print on demand service, or KDP author copies once the book is published.
Does downloading the book PDF cost credits?
No. Credits are spent when a page is generated or edited with AI. The eight free pages of the free plan cover a first small book, and downloading the finished book, in any size your plan includes, 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. It is the same choice to ask a copy shop for when markers are the plan.
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.
