How much a personalized book costs and what's included

Print isn't ordered instead of the digital book, but on top of it: first the book is created, you read it through and fine-tune it, and only then do you send the finished book to print. That's why the prices add up rather than being alternatives.

The things people ask about most, because they're used to seeing them as add-ons.

Shipping is added to print and is charged per parcel, not per copy — a second copy in the same parcel doesn't double it. The audiobook is an add-on: you can add it straight to your order or at any time later in your account, at the same price.

Illustration redraws only cost extra once you've used up the ones included — after that they're $0.39 each and can be bought in the editor, from one to twenty at a time. In practice, most books are finished without paying anything extra: suspect illustrations are checked and redrawn automatically before you even see the book.

What you never pay for: storing the book, downloading the PDF again, rewriting texts or editing the dedication.

Real cases show best which items add up and which never appear at all. None of this is a bundle — every item can be ordered on its own.

The price of the digital book is a single figure, however ambitious your brief. More heroes don't make it dearer — siblings, parents and the dog in one book cost the same as one child. Neither does the choice of language or illustration style, even though some styles take more work than others.

The length of the dedication, the number of text edits and how many times you download the book make no difference either. That's deliberate: while you're putting the book together, there should be no reason to skimp on the things that make it a book for your child.

The only two things that really move the price are a physical parcel (print and shipping) and illustration redraws beyond the ones included.

With an ordinary book from a bookshop, the cost of the text and illustrations is spread across the whole print run — ten thousand copies share one illustrator's work. With a personalized book nothing gets spread: the story is written for one child, and every illustration is made once, for one book, and never used again.

The second difference is printing. A personalized book is printed as a single copy to order, not in a print run — no warehouse and no risk of half a pallet left over, but no volume discount either.

That's why offers can't be compared on the price tag alone. Compare what's included: whether the text and illustrations are created after you order, how many edits are free, and whether print and shipping are part of the price or on top of it. How to tell a name simply printed into a stock book from real personalization is explained in our introduction to personalized books.

None of these is a trick — they're options that really are there at checkout, people just often don't know about them.

You can pay by card or phone through a secure payment gateway — your card details never reach us — or by bank transfer, in which case you'll get the payment details and a payment reference after you order.

With a transfer, one thing is worth knowing: the book only starts generating once the money arrives. An instant payment lands within minutes, even in the evening or at the weekend; a standard transfer usually arrives the next working day. How much leeway to allow when the book is for a birthday is covered in our article on timing.

Discount codes, gift vouchers and partner codes all go into the same field at checkout and are deducted before you pay. One code can be used per order; a gift voucher, however, can be spent gradually across several items and its balance carries over.