The Big Bad Book Blog » printing

Book Printing: How to Avoid a Printing Disaster

Vern Harris — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 21:56:57 +0000

Going to press is exciting. Lots of hard work is behind you, and the finished book is close to becoming a reality. But as you print your books, you should be aware of potential complications. Consider the printing of your book as a custom project. The jacket, covers, and text are unique–written, designed, and printed specifically for you as opposed to being interchangeable commodities to be pulled from a shelf.

That being said, it’s difficult for a printer to produce the precise amount of books you request. When the printer orders materials for printing a book, he must allow for spoilage at each manufacturing stage. If production runs smoothly and spoilage is kept to a minimum, there will likely be higher yields of the final product. These extra books are referred to in the industry as “overs.”

And here’s where people tend to get confused: Your invoice will reflect the total amount of books shipped from the printer, meaning that if relatively few books have defects, you’ll end up being charged for the total number of books shipped.

Potentially, there are also “unders.” You guessed it–that’s when spoilage is higher than anticipated, leaving you short on your print run. Unders are less common than overs, but your chances of receiving them rise with smaller runs and more complex projects. Press “make ready” (bringing a press up to speed, setting the proper ink densities, registration, etc.) typically takes the same amount of time and material whether you’re printing 2,000 or 20,000 books. Thus spoilage, or lack thereof, can have a greater impact on the actual copies shipped on smaller runs versus larger runs.

When you go to press, you should be prepared to receive up to 10% variance in the final amount of copies. That’s the industry standard, but you shouldn’t be charged for overs that exceed 10% of the initial run. Likewise, the printer should be expected to provide at least 90% of what you ordered.

Don’t, however, assume anything. Communicate with your printer, getting detailed information on their over and under policy, before signing an agreement. Set a print run that takes into account worst-case scenarios. If you must have 2,000 books for an event, order more to avoid too few copies. An unexpected underage can leave you in a tight spot, as you will probably not have time to go back to press. (Average time to allow for reprints can be 5-6 weeks, even longer if you’re printing overseas.)

It’s best to go in knowing that you’ll have to be flexible. But the important thing, as always, is to create consumer demand and sell the books you do get, no matter what the exact quantity may be.

The Deckle Edge: Affectation or Style?

Lisa Woods — Wed, 23 May 2007 16:52:01 +0000

I recently ran across this post on one of Amazon’s Customer Discussions forums:

DemonsDanceAlone writes: “Both my mother and I received [Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris] as a Christmas gift, and I was quite disappointed to find that the edge of the book was not smooth, but an uneven zigzag shape. When I went to return it, hoping for a better copy, I found that all the books at my local Target and Barnes and Noble had the same uneven edges. Is this a flaw in the book’s production, is it just a bad batch, or is this a new style that this publisher is using for some stupid reason?”

This post brought two questions to my mind: One, who in the heck gives Hannibal Rising as a Christmas gift?! (Cannibalism and candy canes—hmmm.) And two, what is up with those cool irregular edges?

After a bit of Googling, I discovered that rough, untrimmed page edges are called “deckle edges” or just simply “rough trimmed.” A deckle is a wood frame resting on or hinged to the edges of the mold that defines the edges of the sheet in handmade paper process. According to history.com, the rough edges are created by the fibrous pulp flowing between the frame and the deckle of the mold. When books were predominantly composed of handmade paper, deckle edges were considered a defect and were trimmed off. In the late 1800s, however, rough trimmed pages became fashionable. During this time, many books were left untrimmed on one or three sides for purely aesthetic reasons.

The industrialization of printing and the commercial manufacture of paper has sidelined naturally deckled handmade paper to the hobbyist, artist, and neo-Luddite. Modern sheets are machine made, mass-produced, and precisely trimmed (“cut solid”) to pre-determined sizes for letters, magazines, forms, catalogs, laser printer, copying machine output, and, yes, books.

Like the pre-faded and frayed jeans on display at Diesel; the faux crackle, hiss, and skipping of vinyl records on hip hop tracks; or the peeling dingy white paint of shabby chic furniture—it seems what’s old is new again. Today’s deckle edges are artificially created to give a book a more historical or sophisticated look. Examples include the aforementioned Hannibal Rising, as well as Nelly Rosario’s Song of the Water Saints, John Le Carre’s The Tailor of Panama, and Lemony Snicket’s The Hostile Hospital.

Affectation? DemonsDanceAlone thinks so, but I don’t. Rough trimmed pages are just another way to let a book’s packaging communicate a mood and hopefully entice—not confound—readers.

Shotgun Publication

Clint Greenleaf — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 18:34:30 +0000

Rushing a book to market without understanding all the consequences of your decision is about as bright as marrying someone you meet in Las Vegas after a fifteen-hour drinking binge. Even if the reasons behind the rush seem legitimate, beware of the beer-goggle effect—your book won’t look nearly as attractive when it comes off the press as it does in your head when you’re deciding to skip vital steps in the publication process. There are three areas where rushing will come back to haunt you with particular vengeance:

Editing
Your content has to deliver the goods. Editing isn’t just about making sure your book is free of typos and grammatical errors—it’s the part of the process that focuses on sharpening the reading experience for your customers. If you don’t invest the time and money to have experienced book editors work with your book, success in this industry will be an uphill battle. Don’t try to justify your rush by duping yourself into believing that you can save time-consuming editorial work for the second edition or the next printing. Crappy books don’t go into multiple print runs or second editions. It’s like not showering before a first date and thinking that you can always wash up for the second date—unless you’re meeting the Vegas drunk from the scenario above, there’s no way you’re getting the second date, stinky. It’s worth the delay in your book launch to work with an editor who can help you develop a rock-solid title, unique hooks, a smart structure, and a compelling voice. If you rush the editorial process, you’ll compromise the integrity of your work for short-term gains. Is a goal like having books in time for one event really worth that?

Design and Printing
While powerful marketing, a strong author platform, and compelling content are essential for a book to succeed, production quality is equally important. And yet there are countless articles that downplay the importance of quality, often making the obtuse argument that anyone with Photoshop or InDesign can throw a book together in no time, or that the difference between top quality and bottom quality is negligible due to advances in technology. Both assertions are appalling fallacies. The quality of your design and printing determines what kind of first impression your book will make. Retail buyers, book reviewers, and consumer make gut decisions based on this first impression, so while good quality costs money and takes time, this is not an area in which it is okay to be either cheap or hasty.

Sales and Publicity
Sometimes, we’re at the mercy of others. Pitching your book to retail buyers and media outlets is one of those times. If you want to sell your books in bookstores or other trade outlets like Costco and Wal-Mart, know that it takes almost twelve months to get your books ready for distribution. This time is spent setting up the title in wholesale and retail systems, presenting to buyers, and preparing the logistics for an on-time launch. And there’s similar time sensitivity inherent in a proper publicity campaign. You only have one book launch, and if you don’t get advance review copies to reviewers at least four months prior to publication, your print campaign has virtually no shot at success.

Deciding to produce a book on an abbreviated timeframe may be possible from a purely logistical standpoint, but you shouldn’t rush your book launch unless you’re prepared to have a product that isn’t set up to reach its full potential. So take a breath and slow down. The book of your dreams will wait for you. If you follow the rules and wait too, the launch will be much more special. If you know what I mean.

Images to Print: A Guide

LisaLari — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 17:00:26 +0000

Images can add a lot to a book, or any printed material. But if you want to jazz up your pages with graphics (figures, drawings, cartoons, illustrations, etc.) and you’re printing professionally, you’ll need these tips:

Resolution
All images destined for print must be high resolution, which is to say 300 pixels per inch (ppi, sometimes also called dpi) or greater. Sometimes people try to fake the size of an image—an image is not high resolution if it was originally low resolution and then resized to force the resolution to 300 ppi, or if the resolution was simply changed. Using either technique does not improve the quality of the image and may make it worse. If you print a low-resolution image, the difference will show.

File Formats
The most widely accepted kinds of digital image files are:

.psd (Adobe Photoshop native file)
.tif
.eps
.jpg
.pdf (Adobe Acrobat file)
.ai (Adobe Illustrator native file)

Finding Images
Here are some popular stock image sources:

www.shutterstock.com (a subscription stock house)
www.gettyimages.com (also sells news, sports, and historical photos)
www.veer.com (also has hip and interesting illustrations)

Obtaining Image Rights
Images are copyrighted, just like any other form of intellectual property. You can’t use an image unless you get permission. Make sure you have the proper permission and the image will look right when it’s printed with the following guidelines.

Don’t use images downloaded from websites. Not only will they probably be low-res, you don’t have the right to use them. If you have found the perfect image online, try to contact the owner and get permission to use it. (Your lawyer and publisher will probably require that the release be in writing!) Also, don’t forget to ask for the high-resolution version.
Don’t scan images from other publications without getting the rights to use the images from the copyright holders. This can cause big headaches.
If an image is in the public domain (such as images from government publications), you can use the image without getting permission, but you must credit the original source of the image in a source line.
Once you purchase a “royalty free” photo, you can pretty much do whatever you want with it. “Rights managed” photos are another animal. Not only are they significantly more expensive to purchase, they often come with strict usage rules and restrictions. Make sure to notice which category your candidates belong to while you are shopping. Falling in love with a $2,000 image can leave you brokenhearted, or just broke.
Provide your publisher with all the information you received regarding use of the photo when you obtained permission.
If you own images that only exist in hardcopy and are scanning them before submission, it is critical that the images be scanned in at 1200 dpi. If you are unsure of your scanning capabilities, submit the original hard copy to your publisher and they will scan it in.

Creating Original Images
If you are creating original images (vector or raster images) using imaging software, it is important that you provide:

the original native editable file (fonts NOT outlined, layers NOT flattened)

all supporting files, including fonts and linked or embedded images
a high-resolution flattened version of the image with fonts outlined (for example, an .eps or .tiff file)
a printout of each image submitted with your manuscript
a document that explains the format of the images provided, the software and version used to create the images, and the operating system.

Image Credits and Source Lines

It is important that any image you obtain the right to use is appropriately credited or sourced in the book. One way to do this is to include a credits section at the back of the book listing the images by page and the corresponding credit information. Another possible method is including a source line for each image near the presentation of the image in the text (for example, a line just below a graph). When you obtain the rights to use an image, the rights holder will tell you how to credit the image.

With these guidelines, you’ll end up with beautiful printed images—and a printer and publisher that love you. Happy hunting!

Countdown to ISBN-13: Don’t Let Three More Digits Add Up to One Big Headache

Nathan Delacretaz — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 21:16:25 +0000

Remember the Y2K scare? What if a similar digital dilemma threatened the book industry? As the pros know, January 1, 2007, isn’t just another day of college bowl games and crushing hangovers. It’s the date of the official, indelible, unavoidable introduction of the ISBN-13 system. The ISBN-13 system is a 3-digit expansion of the International Standard Book Number (ISBN)—that little number that holds the publishing industry together.

Luckily, the ISBN-13 transition doesn’t quite inspire the panic (and endless news coverage) associated with the Y2K scare. There are still six months of prep time, but there are good reasons to understand and care about ISBN-13 now. Here’s what to focus on:

1. Avoid printing or distribution delays
Although ISBN-13 has been “sunrising” into distribution and supply systems since January 1, 2005—and current EAN barcodes provide a scanner-readable version of the ISBN-13—new authors and publishers should make sure the “human eyes” in the production and supply chain teams have ready access to both versions of their ISBNs during the final months of 2006. The time necessary to remedy even a minor omission or error can have a serious negative impact on the industry’s notoriously tight printing and distribution schedules. A little extra time and attention will help avoid unpleasant surprises—especially if you’re printing this summer for the all-important fall/holiday season. A mistake now could result in returns before the fruitcake dries out.

2. Make sure your back office is ready
Accounting, purchasing, and fulfillment systems rely on the ISBN as the unique identifier to drive transactions and reporting. Check that your back-office partners—especially any that deal with EDI transactions (electronic data interchange, a fancy way to say sending and receiving orders electronically)—have established ISBN-13 fields in their systems and are prepared to handle ISBN-13 transactions. You don’t want to know what will happen if they don’t.

3. Allow for overlap in your promotional materials
Will the catalogs or other promotional materials in circulation this summer or fall continue to generate orders through January 2007 and beyond? If so, make sure they display your books’ ISBN-13s as well as the ISBN-10s. Having both is the best idea—easier for your customers and a smoother segue to the new world order.

Don’t let an aversion to details or a case of “bar code boredom” get in the way of a successful book launch and strong sales down the road! For a comprehensive guide to the coming ISBN-13 transition, check out the excellent online resources at www.isbn.org/toolkit.html.

How to Make Your Book Cover a Knockout

Lisa Woods — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 19:27:41 +0000

If you want your book to be a contender, don’t underestimate the importance of your cover—more than any other single factor, it determines whether or not your book sells. The average consumer spends just eight seconds looking at a front cover; consider that your book’s “standing eight count.” Printing technology gives a cover a potent visual punch. Read on to find out how you can use special effects in sharp, non-tacky ways that will make consumers see stars all the way to the cash register:

Embossing
Embossing is the process by which a die is used to raise an area of paper to create letterforms, shapes, and textures. There are several types of embossing, including sculptured, multilevel, chiseled, platform, and dome.

Lightweight Use: Use embossing to emphasize the title.
Welterweight Use: Emboss images to give them dimension. Or try embossing the edges of faux stickers for a more realistic look.
Combination Punch: Combine embossing with foil stamping to give a more “finished” look to the foil. (Using foil stamping and embossing together is called “stamp and bump” in printer jargon.)

Ringside Tip:

Don’t emboss spines or back covers. Embossing really only packs a punch on the front cover.
If possible, only emboss areas that are close together. This reduces the size of the embossing dye and consequently reduces the printing cost.

Hall of Fame: The Loch by Steve Alten (the title, monster, paddle and boat are embossed)

Foil Stamping
The foil stamping process covers paper with a super thin, flexible sheet of metal. The foil comes in a range of colors and levels of sheen. Mirror foils are the most reflective, while dusted foils are more subdued, and nonmetallic foils offer shiny solid colors that look a little like plastic. The foil is carried on a plastic sheet and during the printing process, stamping separates the foil from the plastic and makes it adhere to the paper.

Lightweight Use: Use it to emphasize the title. Foil can also be used in decorative elements.
Welterweight Use: Printing ink over foil is a very dramatic effect. “Ink on foil” can be done on a small area or over the entire cover. For more information about ink on foil, check out Cutting Edge Technology Guaranteed to Make Your Book Cover Pop.
Heavyweight Use: Foil stamp the entire cover and print on top of the ink.

Ringside Tips:

When using foil over the entire cover, use opaque white ink to cover the foil in specific areas where you don’t want the foil to show (for example the area for the ISBN barcode).
Foil stamping is the most effective way to achieve a metallic look on uncoated paper. Do not use metallic inks on uncoated paper stocks. The rough texture of the paper absorbs the ink and eliminates the metallic look.

Hall of Fame: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling, The Lost Van Gogh by A. J. Zerries

Holographic Foils
Holographic (or diffraction) foils have a “rainbow” or patterned light reflection.

Heavyweight Use Only: Use holographic foils with caution. Holographic foils can overwhelm a design and look tacky fast! However, used in the right way, they can be show-stoppers.

Hall of Fame: Spook by Mary Roach, Confessions of an Heiress by Paris Hilton

Uncoated Specialty Stocks
Uncoated paper is usually rough to the touch and is manufactured in a great variety of finishes, colors, and weights.

Ringside Tips:

Use uncoated papers to create eco-friendly, historical, literary, journalistic, or nostalgic looks.
Use a photographic texture that mimics a textured or antiqued paper to get the specialty paper look without the cost (example: Season of the Snake by Claire Davis).
Due to its rough and absorbent surface, uncoated paper becomes dirty more easily than a coated paper. If you opt for a white or light-colored cover design on uncoated paper, be prepared for more damaged/returned books. (Note: That didn’t stop Blink!)
Remember, metallic inks on uncoated paper lose a lot of their sheen. Opt for foil stamping instead.

Hall of Fame: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, Blink by Malcom Gladwell, and The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Follow these guidelines and your contender will have more than just a fighting chance.

For more information about printing technology, see Cutting Edge Technology Guaranteed to Make Your Book Cover Pop.