The folks at Bookwise-Writewise asked me to prepare an Internet segment to teach self-publishing authors some things they will need to know when seeking printing bids. It dawned on me that these authors might never have had any experience with printing except the occasional wedding, anniversary, or birth announcement. Maybe they took a tour in elementary school to the local newspaper, but that’s about it.

the language of printing

Printing has its own language. As a buyer, if you don’t understand the language you can be as lost and desperate as a tourist in Mexico who doesn’t know the word for restroom.  And it isn’t el restroom-o. I know. I already tried that one.

Some of the terms we use everyday include, bleeds, folios, coated, halftones, PMS, CYMK, RGB, and mill order. I could go on, but to the uninitiated these few words are enough to give one a headache. They aren’t that difficult, really. A bleed, for example, occurs when the ink goes to the edge of the paper or in other words, there isn’t a border. To create a successful bleed the printed image must extend beyond the trim. When the paper is trimmed a small, probably 1/8″ of the image trims off. Why is this important? Sometimes it is critical and sometimes it is not. It all depends on the size of the sheet that’s being printed. If the bleed forces the printer into buying a larger sheet it will cost more. That’s pretty obvious wouldn’t you think? Me too, but everyday, customers will either forget to mention that there is a bleed, or how many sides bleed. This little thing can make life difficult in more ways than one. If you have a printing bid sans bleed and there is one, the printer may have to raise the price. What’s worse is if you have not specified a bleed and the paper, as it sometimes is, has to be special ordered from the mill. The printer may not be able to return the paper without a restocking charge, or worse.

two sides–one side

Another area that often causes communication confusion is pagination (page numbering). Imagine I’m holding up a 8 1/2″X11″ sheet of copy paper and I ask, “How many pages are there in my hand?’ Most would say one, but the right answer is two. It is one sheet of paper, but it has two sides. Each side is a page, if you don’t believe me pick up a book and prove it to yourself. The only time this isn’t true is if you aren’t printing both sides of the paper like for a report. If you tell the printer the wrong number of pages, and whether both sides of the sheet print, you are going to get an incorrect bid.

your goal, my goal

Here’s the rub, how is an unknowledgeable customer supposed to make intelligent decisions when they don’t know the first thing about what they are getting themselves into? The easiest and maybe safest way is to take the hand of a trusted someone to lead you through the process. That someone could be a printer, an artist, an advertising agency, or a print broker, like me. You have to do your due diligence like you would in any business transaction. You should check the credentials, reputation, and motivation of your guide. If their purpose is to lead you one way, and one way only, into their shop their advice might be suspect. Also be wary of people who assure you that they will take care of it all and you aren’t allowed to know where your work is printed. I don’t like secrecy myself. I am very open with who I’m working with and I treat each project as a team effort. It isn’t just me, it is the printer, the mailing house, and other services that might be needed. Getting each job done right, on time, and at a reasonable cost is the final goal. At least, that’s my goal, what’s yours?

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.

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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.