Bleeds

“Bleed” is a term for printing (color, images, backgrounds) that goes to the edge of the sheet after it has been trimmed. If your book cover has a white border or is white around the edges, it does not bleed. If, however, the ink (color) goes all the way to the edge on every side, then your cover has a “Full Bleed”.

What this means for you:

• If you want your cover to “bleed”, you must design your cover larger than your final cut size
• If cover will have images that will run off any edges of the book it will require an additional 1/8" (.63) minimum to be added to each side (extending any images or color you want to bleed off the page). In other words, add ¼” total to both your cover width and height
• We trim through this “enlarged” cover in order to create a cover that bleeds to the edge of the sheet

For example, your should design a cover with a final trim size 5.5 x 8.5 with bleeds to be approximately 5.75 x 8.75 in size.