Think before you hop on the saddle! Saddle stitching is less expensive for books of 64 pages or less. Instead of piling the signatures on top of each other (like perfect binding), signatures are wrapped around each other on a "saddle," wire-stitched, then trimmed on three sides. This book binding technique is great if you're producing a newsletter for the local PTA, but not if you're trying to sell a book, so many book binding services don't provide this service.
Saddle stitching your self published book has a much lower perceived value. Since these books do not have a spine and would have to be displayed face-out, bookstores do not generally like saddle-stitched books — consider this when considering different types of book bindings. The exceptions to this rule are certain types of children's picture books.
