I’ve dedicated many of my blogs to self-publishing authors for a couple of reasons, first, I too am about to publish two books that I’ve written, a good brush up is always warranted, and second, I find myself working with authors more and more recently. As I listen to them I try to anticipate their needs. The miracle of the Internet has opened many more pathways for authors to get their work into the hands of their audiences, and self-publishing is a good way to go. In traditional publishing the authors were shielded from printing. It was the authors job to write and the publisher’s to handle all the other details.  Authors didn’t have to know anything about that other stuff, but if one goes the self-publishing route, you better have at least a cursory knowledge of what I’ve called in a previous blog printerese.

what you have to know

Suppose you were searching for a printer what do you want to know first? Right, how much is this going to cost? To determine the cost, the printer will  ask you some questions:

1. How many books do you want to print?
2. What kind of binding, hardcover or soft?
3. What is the page size of the book?
4. How many pages?
5. If it is hardcover, what kind of material do you want for the wrapper, leather, cloth, or paper?
6. If leather or cloth do you want foil stamping on the spine and cover?
7. What kind of paper do you want for the text?
8. Will it be half or full bound? This refers to using a different wrapper material on the covers than is used on the spine.
9. Will there be photographs, and if so, will they be color or black & white?
10. Will the pages bleed? (Remember this from a previous blog?)
11. Do you want the pages sewn or burst bound?
12. Do you want a dust jacket, if so will it print?
13. If the dust jacket prints is it four color, two color, or one?
14. Do you want a protective coating on the jacket like UV or film lamination?
15. Will there be any special processes such as foil stamps, or  foil embosses on the jacket?
16. Will the edges of the text be deckled or  smooth?
17. Will there be any other special requirements such as gilting?
18. Do you want a bookmark ribbon bound in?
19. Do you want endpapers (recommended), if so, will they print?
20. Do you want flyleaves?
21. How about headbands?
22. Are there any special boxing or packaging requirements?
23. If the books are to be shipped what is the address, how do you want them shipped, and do we use your account?

got lost after No.4

I’m sure there are other questions that must be addressed, but this is a pretty comprehensive list–don’t you agree? While each of these questions is important to pricing the project, unless you are in the business, you probably got lost somewhere after question number 4. What do you do? Well, you can run back to the safety net of traditional publishing, if you can find a publisher to handle your book, that is. Or you could decide to persist and learn what you can. Good resources would include, the web, the library, book designers, graphic designers, printers, or print brokers like myself.

knowledge saves

Whatever learning path you decide to take, concentrate on the 23 questions above and make sure you can answer them completely. Then and only then, are you ready to seek printing bids on your own. Otherwise you are a sheep just waiting to be sheared and trust me there are plenty of people who will gladly take your money while you are all starry eyed and dreaming of being a best selling author. In one case a woman spent over forty-thousand dollars before even one book was printed. Now that’s sad.

Over the years I’ve developed a few soapbox sermons I use to teach my customers about the printing process. One of the easiest to visualize is the one about ink dots. I’ve taught this to small audiences and larger ones.

Lots of Dots

Printing is done with round dots. Some will argue with me about this because there are square dots called Stochastic, and elliptical dots, but let’s keep it simple for the time being–shall we? The smaller and closer the dots are together the more intense the color. For example let’s say you are using a black dot. When the dots are all shoved together you have solid black, but if you separate the dots using a screen you’ll get various shades of gray.

Copyright © 2000-2009 Dreamstime. All rights reserved.

The spiral image here clearly shows the point I’m trying to make. In printing we use four colors, sometimes called full color, or four color process. These four colors Process Cyan, Process Yellow, Process Magenta, and Black (CYMK) combine to make just about every color you can imagine. Why do I say process before each of the colors? It is because process inks are a little different than PMS (Pantone Matching System) inks. Process is this case is not a verb, it doesn’t mean the procedure. Process as printer’s use the term is a noun.

Like I said earlier, the smaller the dot and the closer they come to one another, the stronger color. Look at the Dreamstime illustration again. On the upper part of the pink, you’ll notice that the dots get so small, and so close together, that you have a difficult time distinguishing them.The same is true with the solid blacks.

Under Flawless Skin

One thing I like to show my customers who are unfamiliar with printing dots is to take a magazine, any magazine, place my printer’s loupe (a magnifier) on a color photo and let them see the printed dots. It’s always surprises them to see that a flawless model’s skin is constructed from tiny dots.

The same is true of a picture of a mountain reflected in a pristine lake, or a red tricyle in the rain, or the blue-ribbon winning pig at the fair. It’s all dots. Dots, dots, dots, and more dots. When first exposed to this, most people are a little taken aback. It somehow seems a little magical, and that is just one of the reasons that printing is a miracle.

I’m not just talking through my hat. I have to evaluate printers on a daily basis. Part of the job of being a printing broker is to access the capabilities, the pricing, and the attitudes of printers. Because of the differences from shop to shop, the task can be daunting to someone outside of mainstream printing. Many people suspect that there are differences between printers, but even if you take them to the shop and show them around they won’t fully understand what those differences are. Unfortunately there is no pat answer. The honest truth is, choosing the right printer for your job isn’t easy. The honest answer to the question, “Which printer is best for my job? Is–it depends.”

What does it depend on? Well, it depends on what you are trying to do. It’s a little like asking which screwdriver in a box of tools is best. It depends on whether the screw is a Phillips head or slot. It depends on how much maneuvering space you have. If you have six inches of space, a twelve inch screw driver won’t do the job, so if you are printing a 25 1/2″ long brochure it won’t fit on a press with a maximum image size of 17″. That’s a no-brainer isn’t it? What if you have a full-color (cymk) postcard and your regular printer that does your office forms only has one or two color presses? What do you do? In my experience most people will follow the line of least resistance. If you have a relationship with a particular printer and they are not equipped to efficiently produce your job, you might find yourself giving it to them anyway and unbeknownst to you, they do what I do, and broker the job to another company.

If they do what you do, is that a problem? It could be. First of all, most printers have much higher markups on buy-outs than I do. Thirty-five to forty percent is normal. I get between ten to fifteen percent. Second, if you don’t know that they are sending the job out, you probably won’t have an opportunity to do a press check. Press checks are rarely necessary on one or two color work, but on four-color that’s a different story. Most full-color printing is used on sales materials. It is the stuff your customers see. Don’t you want to make sure you are putting your best foot forward if that printed piece is representing you? Of course you do. When you go to a press check you get one last chance to see the job before it is finished. I can’t tell you how many times a customer found a deadly flaw that had passed through all the proofs and wasn’t spotted until the press check. One example comes to mind where the company’s phone number was wrong. This was a ten-thousand dollar printing job and without a press check the customer wouldn’t have seen their error until it was finished. Yikes!

If you liked this information please let me know and I’ll give you other tips on choosing the right printer in future blogs.