Is there a way I can print a book only for myself?

I print very small scale print runs (like 5 copies of a thesis) at my local Copyshop in A4 and then have them use a binding machine on that stack.

Of course you can have one copy of a book printed…

The only problem will be the cost, which will be vastly greater per copy - here, simply vastly great.

Depending on the size of your book it might be worth printing it yourself, and then you'll need both a suitable press - modern or ancient - and suitable skills.

I agree with the warning about Lulu.com. If you ever want a second copy because yours was damaged, they charge an arm and a leg, making it pricey to reprint. You would be better off going directly to a book printer and asking them. Or someplace like 48 Hr. Books where you keep all the books and all your rights.

Just to offer an old-school solution, you could always print and bind it yourself! Yeah, there's lots of services which can print on demand these days, but when I printed a book for a friend, they were not around.

Whether you want to go through the effort to print and bind it yourself is really a matter of how you feel about the physical object you end up with. Obviously doing the work yourself will put more significance on the physical object. Whether it is worth the effort is up to you. I still smile when I see it on my shelf.

The process I went through was:

• I typeset the document using LaTeX. LaTeX gives superior text layout to any other tool you might use like Word. It's got a learning curve that's pretty brutal, but I already had experience with it. I used MikTEX, which was an easy to use packaged version of LaTeX. I used this to get all of the details like page numbers and chapter titles right. I typeset it for a half page (5.5"x8.5"), which matters for the binding process, and had to spend some time getting the margins right.
• I printed the pages on a duplex-capable printer. I have one at home, but you could go to any print place and get them. There is a correct order to print the pages so that, if you take 4 sheets of paper, and fold them in half, the result is 8 half sheets in the correct order (double sided, so 16 pages of your manuscript printed on those 4 sheets), called a "signature"
• Print and fold all of these.
• Bind the book together using a saddle stitch.

This takes much more time than having a publishing house print it for you, but the memory does last better. I smile when I look at the book, even though the work is amateurish at best!

Here's pictures of the one I kept. I chose not to finish the covers on this copy, so that you can see what it looks like on the inside of a hardcover book. Book contents photographed with author's permission.

Yes, this is relatively easy to do these days through Print On Demand services. One that I've personally used in the past is Lulu.com. Their user interface is easy, and their POD books are of comparable quality to what you would see from a traditional publisher. The price per book is also comparable to what you would pay retail for a standard book. They do both hardcover and softcover. Amazon.com has a similar service called "CreateSpace", with ties to the main Amazon site.

When I did POD, those two were the industry leaders. However, that was a decade ago, so my information may be stale. A quick search for POD (Print on Demand) should help you find out.

The caveat with all this is that you will either need to do all formatting, layout, cover design, and so forth yourself. Otherwise, you'll pay a premium for someone else to do it for you. As with many industries, a lot of how POD makes money is through upselling high-priced optional extras.

'Publish' is a word with specific meaning and from the context of your question I can tell you're not looking to publish. You're looking to have your work printed.

That can be done quite easily, if you have $39 to spare and live in the US.

(I'm not affiliated with BookBaby and have never had them print a book. I can't say anything about the quality of their work and this answer is not an endorsement. Other printing services are available.)