In reading a response to a discussion I started on a writer’s group on LinkedIn, I was struck with the thought that it isn’t just self-publishers who need to pay attention to the quality of their products. Some very big names are guilty of foisting-off crap.

The kind of food you'll find at Cracker Barrel.

Recently I visited a Cracker Barrel Restaurant with my wife. For those who may not be familiar with Cracker Barrel, it serves southern style comfort food at reasonable prices. We like to go there when we just want foody-food. Nothing fancy.  No cooking with exotic spices like saffron or curry. On the menu will be dishes like meatloaf, country fried steak, and catfish. You can choose your sides from a menu that includes fried okra, turnip greens, and corn. For desert there are various cobblers, pie, and ice-cream. Yum.

Before you get to the restaurant part of the place you have to wend your way through kitschy collections of merchandise that change with the season. My wife loves to peruse their tables of nick-knacks, music boxes, and stuffed animals. Now, as I am writing this it is three days from Christmas, so they were all decked out in a torrent of red and green. Santas and gift items were stacked nearly ceiling high. My eye caught an illustrated book of The Night Before Christmas. The illustrations were beautiful. I wish I could say the same for the book. The workmanship, especially on the cover was a disaster. Both covers, front and back, bowed outward from the spine. It was not only ugly, but made it impossible for the book to lay flat on a table. Here was a book that I wanted to buy, wanted to take home and treasure, wanted to read it to future grandchildren, but I couldn’t get past the cover. This was not an heirloom piece; it was a piece of carnival crap. I looked at the spine and was surprised to see that Simon & Schuster allowed this mess to go out under their banner.

I believe that books are a treasure. They last decades and centuries even. It saddens me to think that the noble business of publishing, especially the giant houses like Simon & Schuster, may be more focused on profit than quality.

I have heard authors complain that their traditionally published books were an embarrassment to them. That the cover designs didn’t truly represent the book, and that cheap cost cutting methods were implemented. Authors who have sold their rights to the publisher have no claim on how the book is manufactured. As for The Night Before Christmas I’m guessing it was sent to a sweat shop overseas to be printed and bound for the lowest price possible, a price guaranteeing maximum profit but sacrificing the honor of the book. I didn’t buy it. I’m hoping no one does. If enough customers reject poor quality the publisher will have to ask why. Why didn’t this book sell?

I plead with self-publishing authors to realize that they have total control of their children. Dress them up in their Sunday best and send them out to play. The day may come when the marketplace will select a self-published book over a traditional one because of the value added that comes from your care.

I envy the printers for one thing in particular, they are updated regularly by paper merchant reps who call on them with the latest developments, updates, and changes. I get my information either second hand or by attending seminars and showings hosted by the merchants. In the last two weeks I attended a seminar on preparing art files for printing, direct mail, and the danger of the opt-out initiative, and digital printing advancements. I never know what a customer is going to ask of me and I have to be prepared.

Yesterday, Sappi paper sent Daniel Dejan, their North American ETC Print/Creative Manager to town to speak about graphic design and file prep. I thanked Daniel for his presentation, but didn’t thank him enough. You see the printers depend on the artists and graphic designers to keep the presses rolling. The graphic designers need the printers to produce their products. But to hear them talk about each other, you’d think there is a war going on. The printers say that graphic designers don’t even try to prepare their files correctly, that they think because something looks right on the screen it will print right. Designers on the other hand, think that the printers are screwing up their files, and if they just knew what they were doing the jobs would all run smoothly.

Stop the bickering. Mr. Dejan framed the problem as having its roots primarily in the graphic programs and in the designers failure to take the finishing steps necessary to make sure their files are correct.

I can tell you from my personal experience that computer design has completely overhauled the printing industry. When the first design programs were introduced, they created more problems than they solved. Over the years we have seen definite improvements. The programs are much better but still far from perfect. Could they get even better? Yes. Are they striving to implement technology that would fix the disconnect between printer and graphic artist? Not really. Daniel says that he has recommended changes that are possible, but are shrugged off as being too expensive, or time consuming, and aren’t worth doing. Millions of dollars every year are wasted in printer and designer time because the needed tweaks aren’t happening. Printers and designers need to get together and insist that the software is improved. Maybe working on changes that would throw up red flags when art is incomplete or wrong isn’t sexy, but it would go along way to reducing wasted hours and angry phone calls.

“The single most important thing a designer can do to communicate the job to the printer,” according to Daniel, “is to provide a hard-copy dummy. Herein lies the rub, most files are now emailed to the printer or go by way of ftp. It used to be that the print rep picked up the art and delivered it to the printer. Hard-copy dummies were more common then. We have gotten away from them today, but they are still critical to successful communication. I hate to say it, but it seems to me that we need to take a step backward and have the print reps pick up the disk and hard-copy dummy to take back to the shop. We’ve lost an important communication opportunity along the way.

The second most important task for the designer is to pre-flight their own files. A good pre-flight program provides information about problem spots like low-res photos, but also tosses all the false starts and junk that accumulate as the design is developing. It’s like delivering a finished statue without cleaning it up or sweeping the debris around it. It’s not just ugly; it confuses the rip and leads to wrong fonts being selected, and other problems.

Every printer in the world would love for Daniel Dejan of Sappi to personally instruct the graphic designers, but that isn’t possible. What is possible is that the word gets out about dummies, and pre-flights and most of the problems would be resolved early.

As for Adobe and the others, come on, give us a break. Listen to Daniel, take his advice, and endow your programs with the tweaks needed to help stop the war.

Sappi’s website is www.sappi.com. If you would like to discuss other design-print problems with Daniel, his company email is daniel.dejan@sappi.com.

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I am in the process of surveying independent booksellers to learn what they have to say about self-published books and authors. The early returns are very enlightening. Self-published books as a rule don’t sell well primarily because they are poorly illustrated (in the case of children’s books) or are in need of professional editing. Often the quality of the printing is amateurish and whoever lays out the book neglects to put the title, and author on the spine.

Does content make a difference? Yes, it does. The most likely self-published books to sell concern themselves with themes of local or regional interest. Sometimes a folksy, handmade quality improves sales on those titles, but don’t count on it.

Will bookstores buy self-published books? Not usually. Sometimes not at all. There are those who might consider a consignment if it fits their demographic and product mix. They may provide limited shelf exposure and if the book does well they could decide to buy that title in the future, but don’t hold your breath. Independent booksellers are aware of the plight of self-publishers because they too are often self-employed. They would be happy to see a S.P. author succeed, but they will not, nor should not, risk their businesses on the untried and unproven. I don’t blame them, do you?

Let’s examine some of those complaints further.

1. Poorly Illustrated. Just because Cousin Jimmy can draw pretty well, doesn’t make him a professional illustrator. There is a reason that illustrators, graphic designers, and layout artists are paid a lot of money. What they do adds value to the book. You may buy into the saying, don’t judge a book by its cover, but when considering a book purchase where do you start? Do you even pickup a book that doesn’t catch your eye? Have you wondered why traditional publishers are willing to spend so much money on expensive printing flourishes like foil stamping, embossing, and film lamination? Eye candy. Do you have to incur these expenses for your book? No, you don’t, but you may suffer fewer sales as a result. “The devil is in the details,” after all.
2. Lack of or Unprofessional Editing. Your third grade English teacher was right, how you say it is at least as important as what you say. In the book business grammar and spelling don’t count for part of the grade, they are the grade. Present a book to a bookseller filled with mistakes and it won’t take a minute for you to be turned down, and turned down flat.  Don’t say that colloquial authors like Mark Twain got away with it. First of all, you are probably not Mark Twain. Second, if you read beyond the dialogue you will see meticulous attention to spelling and grammar. And PLEASE don’t hire someone you know, or someone in the family to be your editor. You want the editor to take a hard-eyed look at your work and not be afraid to tell you where the bear went in the woods. The focus of a professional editor is strictly on the work and your tender ego isn’t a factor.
3. Book Layout. Are your even page numbers on the left-hand page and your odd numbers on the right? Do you start new chapters on a new page, and is it an odd numbered page? If your chapter ends on an odd numbered page did you leave the next page blank? Do you count blank pages as part of your total when seeking printing bids? If your book is soft cover, did you make sure the title and author appear on the spine? If your book is hardcover with a dust jacket do you have the title and author name on both the hardcover and the dust jacket?
4. Content. If the book is fictional does the story hold up? Does the plot unveil itself logically? If there’s a surprise ending, did you build a case for it throughout the book? Even some bestselling authors forget that rule. It is almost as if they get tired of the manuscript or their editor is pushing for more pages and they just wrap it all up with an illogical conclusion. One of my favorite contemporary authors, Stephen King, has been guilty of introducing a monster out of nowhere to conclude a novel. If your book is non-fiction, did you do your research, or hire someone to do it? You should be ready to substantiate every fact. If you are ever caught just-making-stuff-up you can say goodbye to your writing career, and do I have to say anything at all about plagiarism? Three words–don’t do it! If you quote someone, make sure you have their permission. The same goes for using trademarked properties, or lyrics, or anything proprietorial.
5. Ho-Hum Book or Premise. Let’s face it; a self-publishing author can’t succeed with a product that is as good as a traditionally published book. You will have to find some way to be superior to the other material on the bookshelf. I realize that is a heavy responsibility, but if you think about it you will know that it is the truth. There are other ways to market your book, but if you want to go through traditional distribution channels, be prepared to have your excellent book rejected. Make it unique. Make it stand out. Always keep in mind that the traditional publishers are very knowledgeable about all of the tricks. and anything you think of has probably been done before.

The Red Hen Association of Self-Publishing Authors, Inc. intends to assist self-publishers find ways into traditional distribution channels, but if the book is not good enough (see the 5 areas above) there is no way on heaven or earth that anyone can make it happen for you. You as a self-publishing author are your own Red Hen. You have to plant the wheat, care for it, harvest it, mill it, and bake it into bread, but don’t confuse that with editing, art, and layout. I plead with you to hire the right people for those things. It will cost more upfront, but will be well worth the expense if it opens doors for you.

What is a crossover? A crossover is an image that crosses over the center-fold in a multiple page product, like a magazine, or catalog. Your printer will try to explain the difficulty involved in producing crossovers, but until you’ve been up-close-and-personal with a project  where the crossovers failed, you won’t completely understand.

Why is that a problem? This would be easier to explain if I were face-to-face with you, but since I’m not I’m going to attempt to lead you through a little demonstration.

1. Get a piece of paper, size doesn’t matter, but make sure you can fold it easily.
2. If your paper is the standard 8 1/2″X11″ fold it in half so it is now 5 1/2″X8 1/2″.
3. Keep the fold at the top and fold in half again to 4 1/4″X5 1/2″.
4. This particular fold would result in an 8 page form.
5. Now with the folded form, keeping the fold at the top, begin numbering the lower right hand corners–1 through 8.
6. Be sure to number both sides of the paper or you’ll only have 4 instead of 8. If you don’t get 8 you’ve missed something.
7. Open your sheet of paper.

Notice that on one side the page numbers are 1, 4, 5, and 8. On the other side the numbers are 2,3, 6, and 7. Now notice where the numbers are in relationship to one another. Numbers 2 and 3 are on opposite sides and so are 6 and 7. Are you with me so far?

Refold the paper along the original creases. Take a pair of scissors, or hand rip the folded top off. What you have is a little booklet with all of the pages numbered consecutively, but it wasn’t that way before you took of the top fold was it?  The only pages on the flat sheet that were next to each other were pages 4 and 5, which is what we call the center fold. The center fold is a breeze, but it is the other pages 2 & 3 and 6 & 7 that cause the problem. If the press operator is unable to make a near perfect color match from one side of the sheet to the other pages 2 & 3 for example when brought together for the final product will look very odd. One page could be more blue and the other more yellow. That would be an unfortunate look for a landscape, but a total disaster for a portrait. Color shifts are very visible in flesh tones.

If you look at the double-truck catalog spread example below you will notice a definite color shift in the background.

Assuming that this all made sense, what can a designer do about crossovers?

It’s not “the economy, stupid” it’s the market. Maybe the phrase should be it’s the market, stupid. Printing companies have been dropping like autumn leaves with no immediate end in sight. According to the NAPL, the future is looking “dim” (my word, not theirs). They expect that a minimum of 4,000 printers to as many as 10,000 will shut down over the next 10 years. Over the last 4 years we saw a decline of 4,800 plants with approximately 150,000 employees. Since 1994 we experienced a loss of over 11,000 plants.

What does all of this mean? It means that the current state of the economy, while rough, isn’t the real reason for the decline in the industry. That’s why I say it’s the market, stupid! Thanks to the Internet,the methods we have used in the past to communicate with one another are withering away. For example:

Newspapers: Major metropolitan newspapers have hit very hard times. Some have already closed shop and many more are about to. It doesn’t take a very clear crystal ball to see that those that continue to exist will be very different from the newspapers of yesteryear. Why? Craig’s List, and other free online classified services eroded the base revenues for the papers. Who would pay for something they can get free, and that has larger reach? Also, every newspaper now publishes their content online. You can do more on a web page than a print page–it’s more flexible. For example you can beef up your story with graphics and movies  on a web page. It’s also timely. Hot news can be displayed on the website within minutes, instead of waiting hours for the next edition to hit the streets. We have no patience.

Magazines: Reuters reports that, “Newsstand and retail sales of U.S. magazines fell 11 percent in the second half of 2008, with celebrity and women’s titles taking a hit as supermarket and drugstore shoppers cut back on spending.” Furthermore, “Fifty percent of all magazines are sold in supermarkets, and obviously those types of places took a major hit.” If the decline in single copy magazine sales is because of the economy, will we see a rebound when the recession ends? And more importantly, when will it end? Again looking through my rather murky crystal ball, I predict many titles disappearing, and those standing will see sharp decreases in readership. Printers relying on magazine printing will be hard hit.

Books: Booksellers report decreases, with the exception of Amazon Media who appears to be up. Amazon is invested deeply in electronics. The Kindle reader entirely eliminates the need for printing. Amazon has also benefited from third party sales (see my For Your Consideration Page on this blog). It is estimated that 1 in 3 books sold at Amazon is actually sold by a third party. Smarter marketing is bringing them more business. Borders reported a loss and announced they are trying to sell their international operations and may sell the whole chain.

Direct Mail Marketing: I was once told by Peter Harrison, a direct marketing expert who is now running Affiliate Crew an internet company, that “Everything that goes in the mail must be printed.” What happens when mail volume goes down? Think about it, banks and other financial organizations have gone paperless. You don’t mail in your bills anymore, you authorize payment on-line. Envelope printers have suffered because of this. Forms printers have also felt the effects. What about other direct mail campaigns? The US Postal Service keeps increasing rates as more and more direct mail companies discover other marketing avenues. The ones left in the game will  bear ever heavier a postage burdens. Once the cost of postage reaches the proverbial camel’s back, the direct mail business will be through. Kaput. What will the post office have to do then, personal letters? Even with my cloudy crystal ball it’s as easy as seeing the housing boom collapse. Really, who didn’t see it coming with overinflated prices, and interest rates at 1%?

Catalogs: I had trouble finding some figures for catalog printing, but I can tell you that the catalogs are pushing web sales more and more. If you think about it they face similar challenges to newspapers. You can just do more on-line to show off your product than you can in print. Why not video the item, particularly clothing, so you can see front, back, and side? Once holographic technology is here the public will insist on 3 dimensional views. It’s just around the corner.

Wedding Invitations & Announcements: I’ll admit that invitations and announcements have never accounted for a big slice of the printing pie, but those printers specializing in them have been hit hard. Why? It’s because people have access to paper options, graphic design programs, and digital printing. They create their own invitations with their own style and creativity.

NAPL also reports that only [are the] larger plants growing in number. Those printers without deep pockets will be swallowed by the others. It’s the law of the jungle. The downside is that more print industry employees will find themselves unemployed. What are their options in the new economy?

Like the dawning of the Industrial Age big changes are happening, but at a much faster pace. What will it be like when clouds in my dirty crystal ball clear? I just don’t know–do you?

What’s more important, state-of-the-art equipment or skilled operators? That was the subject of a discussion I had with a very successful printer over lunch. I’ve always maintained that quality products are produced by quality employees. Inexperienced press operators make mistakes that they are often unable to fix.

For example, my brother Dan Ruesch, a top graphic designer, told me a story of a press check he attended where the PMS color was dingy. It just didn’t pop they way it should. After the pressmen tried everything they could think of to fix it, Dan remembered encountering a similar problem once before. He recalled that the solution was to change the paper wrap on a water roller.  So, of course, he made the suggestion to check it. The pressmen were surprised. Most customers don’t even know that there are two basic sets of rollers in a press, water and ink, and here was a graphic designer recommending a mechanical solution to their problem. Wow.

They took the suggestion, checked the roller, and found out that the paper wrap did need to be changed.  It worked, and they were able to go on and happily complete the job producing a printed product that both the company and the designer were proud to show.

Why did I tell this story? I told it to show what experience can do. Dan couldn’t run a press if his life depended on it, neither could I for that matter, but Dan carried with him years of experience from attending press checks. He had encountered a similar problem before, and remembered how it was solved. The press operator, had not come up against this particular difficulty before and was stumped. Experience vs. inexperience? I vote for experience myself.

This is my slant on the experience issue, the printer, eating his salad, disagreed. He believed if you bought state-of-the-art equipment with as many fully-automated features as you could get, you wouldn’t have to pay the wages of journeymen press operators. So, he hired less-experienced operators, and supervised them with a journeyman. His thinking was that they could call the guy over with the experience when they got in a jam, otherwise smart presses would take care of most of the problems.

Did this approach work for him? You bet it did. He was able to grow his printing company into one of the most prosperous firms in the area. Before he reached the age of fifty he sold it off, and retired. Boy, am I jealous.

What was my experience printing with his  company, you might ask? I’ll tell you. Despite all the awards he had hanging on his walls, and their sales literature that claimed they were the finest craftsmen in town, whenever I took a job there, it seemed to have problems. Not necessarily huge problems. There were difficulties getting the color right and holding it. Sometimes the trim or folding was off. The proof provided by the pre-press department couldn’t be matched on press. They came up short on the quantity. Things like this that could be worked around, but if he had paid higher wages for more experienced employees, would he still have this many problems? I don’t think so.

So, why was his business so successful? I believe that most customers don’t know the difference between excellent quality and good quality. If you don’t know the difference you won’t be able to see it even when right in front of you. The best work comes from people who know they are trying to please an expert. When I attend a press check, I carry with me a lifetime of press experience. They know it and will always strive to do their very best. If an inexperienced customer comes to a press check, assuming that they even know to come, their lack of knowledge becomes quickly apparent and they can be jargoned into approving anything. Remember a press operator has a vested interest in getting through the press check and running the job, otherwise they might be called on the carpet for lack of productivity. The number of press impressions per hour is important and if their numbers are down they will hear about it. If down often enough they could even lose their jobs over it.

My point? If you want to get quality printing, but you are not experienced enough to get it, don’t go into the print shop alone. Take someone with you who is experienced, but is not connected to the printer in any way. Someone working for the printer, and that includes their sales reps, has to protect the company’s profits. Unprofitable employees are invited to hit the bricks.  An independant print broker like myself is looking for a win-win, and that win includes getting you the product you need and paid for.  Since I am not paid by the printer, except through discounts, I stand by your side, like a free attorney. Isn’t that comforting?

When I first began selling sheet-fed printing in the early 1980′s, my company Progressive Printing, printed an announcement flier for me. Before then I didn’t have much experience with paper other than commodity sheets used on web-offset presses. Think of magazines, catalogs, and newspapers. In the sheet-fed business a whole new world of paper opened up. I was so ignorant of paper that I didn’t understand that the paper my announcement was printed on was an expensive sheet. I didn’t know it until the office manager looked at it and said, “Wow, they must really like you because this is Cranes Crest.”

“Huh,” I said, “What is Cranes Crest?”

It turns out that Cranes Crest is made from 100% cotton fibers and is most often used on upper end letterheads and such.

Nothing more was said about my flier paper, but I realized that I had a whole lot to learn. Luckily for me a paper specifier from Zellerbach Paper Company conducted a mini-seminar in our offices. He covered paper fundamentals. His name was Mark Lander and even though he is no longer in the business I can still recall almost word-for-word some of what he taught us that day. Some of the lessons I’ve adapted and use as 60 second sermons when a customer needs to understand one aspect of paper or another.

I learned about paper because I felt I had to learn to do my job. Most people, including graphic designers find paper stocks they like and pretty much stick with them. There is nothing wrong with that approach. After all we can only hold so much information in our heads at one time. Because I took mastering of paper seriously, I found that my customers trusted my opinions and sought my advice.

If you are one who would like to know more about paper and don’t know where to go to get educated, let me give you some ideas.

• Check the yellow pages, or call a printer to find out who your local  local paper merchant’s are.
• Ask the paper merchant if they hold educational classes and attend if you can.
• Be sure to get swatch books and begin building a library of paper options. If you are a frequent user of printing papers they may be willing to furnish you with a whole paper cabinet, at no charge. Ask.
• Find out how they treat new paper introductions. Do they hold paper parties or bring mill reps around to the various buyers. Ask if you can get on the invitation list.
• Research paper on the Internet, some specialty papers may not be carried by your local sources.
• Many of the paper mills have websites that allow you to sign on to their news-feeds. Sign up, this will keep you ahead of the pack.

One service provided by most paper merchants that I’ve found to be particularly helpful is their willingness to create paper dummies. If you have a project with multiple pages there may be weight issues to consider. Your choice of paper could cost or save you a ton of money in postage expense. I’ve often had dummies made and taken them to the business services department of the post office to have it weighed so we would know for sure if we would pay a higher or lesser price. Often postage on a direct mail campaign will cost more than the printing and design of the pieces.

In a future blog I’ll get into paper weights and finishes, so hold on more is coming.

First, I want to thank all of you who read my blog about the challenges of offset printing on black paper. I especially want to than those who have responded with additional  suggestions and recommendations.  Whenever there is a challenge you can expect the cleaver production people in the printing universe to find a way over, through, or around the problem. Kudos to you.

Mr. Carlo Toscano of Global Printing in California pointed out that the digital printing industry has solved the problem by laying down a base of white and then printing on top of it. I have not personally seen this done digitally, so I’ll have to take his word for it. My concern is founded on what I have experienced, and that is that opaque white inks aren’t opaque enough. The black paper is tamed some, but still allows the paper color to influence the image and makes it gray. Digital is so new on the scene and uses different technologies than offset printing, that they probably have found a way to make it work better. I’d like to see samples if anyone has them.

The downside? Digital printing is most cost effective in very small runs. They generally top out at 500 – 1,000 imprints. If you need a larger quantity digital may not be for you.

Mr. Harvey Halperin (no company name) wrote, “Lay down a double hit of opaque white then dry trap process colors onto it. This will require two print runs, to allow the opaque white time to dry. We often do this with foils, or foil stamp and print on the foils there are a few new press that do this in line.”

Mr. Halperin is quite correct. A dry trap is a technique used by printers wherein they lay down a color and allow it to dry thoroughly before printing on top of it. A single pass of opaque white, as I said before, hasn’t proven to my satisfaction to be sufficient. A double bump, or a double hit, would certainly form a better base. If the white ink is allowed to dry, you avoid the problems associated with co-mingling wet inks. Contaminated inks will turn your normal process colors to pastels, but maybe pastel is what you are trying to achieve.

The downside? Every pass through the press requires additional make-readies, and plates. This technique will give you a good result, but you’ll pay for it. His other suggestion of printing on top of a white foil stamp will also work, but again you have additional costs that come into play. The double-bump, dry-trap technique probably work out to be the most cost effective way to achieve it.

There was also a suggestion to screen print the sheet. Silk screen inks are more like paint than they are offset inks. Because by nature they are more opaque, you may not have to lay down a base of white at all. It is a suggestion worth considering depending on the quantity you want to print and how the printed piece is to be used.

My point? With very few exceptions, the mid-night brainstorms graphic designers have, are by-and-large achieveable. If the budget is sufficient,  we can find a way to make their artistic dreams come true.

There are several approaches to getting things printed. As for me, I prefer teamwork. I know of brokers who keep their vendors secret. Delivery receipts and boxes are either furnished by the broker or are devoid of any printer, or any other  identification. I do understand why they do it. Some customers and some printers view a broker as someone to dump. We can be viewed as a temporary obstacle.

I don’t see it that way. I see myself as an adjunct to the printer’s own sales force. I provide the same services as their people, but without the added cost. I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating. A typical sales rep will earn: 1. 8% t0 12% commission; 2. Matching Social Security contributions; 3. Expense reimbursements (usually); 4. Group Health Insurance benefits; 5. Probably some kind of 401K or other retirement; 6. General Overhead (desk, phone, office supplies). Add these six expense  items and what does it actually cost to have locked-in sales people? Do the math, pay a sales rep 25% to 30% including commissions and benefits, or discount the invoice by 10% to 15% for the broker. Brokers are a win-win. Where printers go wrong is that they want to make the broker the customer. The broker isn’t the customer anymore than your employees are the customer. Get that right and everything will run smoother.

As for the real customers, they usually call me because their printing is problematic. They are paying too much, they aren’t getting cooperation, and the work isn’t up to their liking. Usually I can find ways to solve all of these problems.  Most people are untrained in printing, because they don’t know the best ways to get a printing job done, five to forty percent reductions are very common. As for getting cooperation, I’ve formed a growing cadre of printers, mailing houses, and other services that over the last twenty years have proven themselves over and over. When I choose a printer to add to my quiver I’m judging them through a lens of decades of experience. My customers don’t have that advantage. There is nothing like a history to gain cooperation. As for the quality issue, I make sure that the customer gets an adequate proof, and I go with them to  press checks, just to make sure. Most customers B.B. (before Bill) don’t know what to do when presented with a proof and have never heard of press checks until I teach them. And what if something is going wrong, does the customer have to take it up with the printer? No. They hand the problem to me and I discuss it with the printer. I am the customer’s advocate, but I’m not a trial lawyer, I don’t have to defend a customer in the wrong. I’ll present the arguments as best I can looking for the win-win, but I can’t morally support a demand that I see as unfair or unethical.

Despite all the services we brokers provide for both the printer and the customers, why do we continue “to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune?” Let me paint the typical life-cycle of a customer and broker.

1. The customer is fed up with all of the problems they’ve been experiencing getting their printing done right, on time, and a reasonable cost.
2. Someone recommends us to the customer.
3. As a FREE service, we evaluate their printing needs and find ways to cut their costs while offering better quality, and outstanding service.
4. We’re the conquering heroes. The customer loves us and wonders how they ever got along without us  before.
5. Time passes and they forget how much they’ve been saving since our association. They forget how difficult it used to be getting their printing done.
6. One day a printer’s rep calls on them , and tells them that brokers (not true–see above) are an added cost.
7. The printer low-balls the price to get the business.
8. The customer becomes convinced and unceremoniously kills the goose that brought them the golden egg. Down goes the conquering hero.
9. Eventually the customer has turnover in that department. Printing becomes problematic again, because they are fragmenting it to suppliers who insist that they are capable even when they are not. Where a salesman’s commission is involved they will force, if necessary, the round peg into the square hole.
10. The new people get frustrated.
11. Someone recommends us. The company has a cloudy but long memory. They have  totally forgotten what we did for them, but they seem to remember that brokers cost  them more.  Are you kidding me? What happened to the conquering hero? We didn’t change, they did.

Despite  the fact that having an open relationship with customers and suppliers is risky, I prefer to focus on the job at hand and let those other issues take care of themselves. The job at hand requires that it be done right, on time, and at a reasonable cost. Sometimes I need to get the customer’s graphic designer in contact with the printer’s pre-press department to work out some of the file issues. Other times I’ll schedule a meeting with myself, the printer, and the customer to hammer out specific production, delivery, or billing issues. I don’t disguise where proofs originate, and more often than not, I accompany the customer to a press check. It is pretty difficult to hide your source when they are going to the building. Maybe blindfold them? Nah. I like the teamwork approach. I think it is the best way to proceed and if it costs me over the long haul, so be it. I’ll “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” if it gets the job done right, on time, and at a reasonable cost. But that’s just me.

The last few blogs I’ve posted have been stressing the importance giving the printer correct specifications so that your returning bids will be accurate. If you do that, and do it perfectly, will that prevent errors? No. Ask any printer you know or any that you don’t know for that matter if Murphy was a printer and you’ll hear a resounding, “Yes” or maybe an emphatic, “Hell, Yes.” For those readers who may not know Murphy’s Law, it goes like this, “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” What does that mean? I’ll tell you, it means that no matter how perfectly you plan a print job, and how thoroughly you execute that plan, in the end there’s a chance that a boogie will jump out and ruin the whole darn thing.

So many steps, no wonder someone trips.

Why does Murphy pick on printers? That’s a good question that I think can be answered very simply by the complexity, and number of steps it takes to get something printed. For example I once worked on a company’s brochure. They, the company, hired a graphic designer who hired a photographer to take shots of the workplace. The pictures were professionally done, and the graphic designer did an excellent job in preparing the art. This was before computer design programs when art was furnished to the printer on art boards, so the first step in the process was to shoot the art on our stat camera, and send the photos out to be drum scanned. State of the art stuff for the day. When the prepress people, who were called in the industry (don’t laugh) strippers, got the camera’s film and the film from the separator they had to strip it all together.  This required a different set of negatives for each color. Which were carefully taken over to a plate burner where the negatives were placed precisely over a printing plate and the images photographically etched onto the plate. Then the plate had to be developed. I could go on and on, but I’ve probably already put you to sleep so I’ll stop here.

miscommunications happen

Did you count the steps it took just to get a plate made, and the number of places where something could go wrong? The first possible communication error was between the customer and the graphic designer, the second between the photographer and the designer, and the third between me (the sales rep) and the designer. Another possible point of error is between the printer’s sales person and the estimator. Do you see where I’m going with this? If the job is miscommunicated up front, in any way, there isn’t anything you can do in the production to make it right. I often hear customers say, I don’t need a proof, just go on with the job. I understand, they are busy and don’t need any more to-do’s in their day, but proofs, and specs, and everything else we do to communicate the job are as necessary to the job performance as getting the art in the first place.

Ruined because of what?

Back to the brochure, after all those steps and I didn’t even enumerate what could go wrong on press, in the bindery, or even with delivery, after the job was delivered I got a phone call from the president of the company. He said, “This is a terrible brochure. You ruined what was supposed to be a showpiece for our company.”

I had samples on my desk and for the life of me couldn’t understand why he would be so upset. It was a beautiful piece. So I asked, “What exactly is the problem?”

He told me that his secretary’s dress came out too aqua it was really more of a royal blue color. I swear this is a true story! Her dress was the wrong shade of blue, are you kidding me? Assuming there was a real problem, where could it have taken a wrong turn? First if shot under fluorescent lights unless they are color corrected everything will be tinged with yellow. The color separator could have been adjusting for pleasing flesh tones and tweaked it a little off color. Printing is done with dots as I mentioned in an earlier blog (Sunday, February 15th, 2009), those dots are made with four pigments, CYMK. Not every color can be perfectly reproduced with those colors. Finally on press, the ink flow to the sheet is adjusted by the press operator to get the best result. Where did it go wrong-anywhere, nowhere.  The real question was did the brochure fulfill it’s purpose? Was it professionally produced in an accepted workmanlike manner? Yes and yes. Did any potential customer refuse to buy his product because of the color of the secretary’s dress? I don’t think so. His reaction was a bit over the top don’t you think? I wonder what was really going on?

He was

But again, Murphy was a printer. I swear that he was.