First what is POD? This is really confusing. There are iPod’s for music, pod casts for recording, pea pods, pod people from the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Printing on Demand (pod).

Since I’m a print broker and this blog concerns itself with printing, publishing, and [other] observations you could guess that the pod I’m concerned about is Printing on Demand. By the way, that’s a darned good phrase. Whoever came up with it should write political slogans, you know, the kind of things that sound good but have no real substance. After all, if you wanted something printed why not have it done on demand?

I DEMAND PRINTING NOW!

“My good sir, I demand my printing.” Wha? What does it mean? The phrase by itself is meaningless, but it has impact. It lets the customer feel that they are in charge by being able to demand it. How often if life do we get to demand anything? Demands usually cause trouble, but here’s the printer giving you permission to DEMAND something. That’s refreshing, don’t you think?

First, printing on demand is a misnomer. It is not a printing method at all. The method is called digital. Think of POD like the term quick print. Quick printing is offset printing utilizing faster turnarounds, smaller runs, and cheaper methods, like using paper plates instead of metal. There is no printing process called Quick Print. And there isn’t a printing press called an “on demand.”

Digital printing burst onto the printing scene just a few years ago. The computer industry spawned it, and in fact, the printing you do on your office laser jet is digital printing. The difference between the commercial digital “press” and your office printer boils down primarily to speed and sophistication.

So what’s the big deal? Oh my friend, it is a very big deal because Printing on Demand is revolutionizing the field of publishing. Until it came around, it wasn’t economically feasible to print just a few books. To prepare an offset press for printing requires several steps that we call “make-ready” in the biz. The time and materials, such as plates,  and file prep, have front-end costs. With POD, many of those front-end costs don’t exist. if your electronic file is right, the setup is virtually done. Now is the beginning of the golden age of short-run publishing.

If the price is better why isn’t all printing POD? Because, it isn’t always better. For all the hoopla, POD has a serious weakness. It is great at micro print runs, like quantities between one and five-hundred, but can’t keep up with offset printing at around one-thousand. If you wish to print say 2,000 books, offset printing will offer a much better price, but if you only want 50, POD beats offset, hands down.

What’s the future of Printing on Demand? Who knows? I suspect that someone, somewhere soon will figure out a way to make digital printing more economical for longer runs and offset presses will quickly disappear like dinosaurs. That day isn’t here yet. For the time being I recommend digital printing for short runs and offset printing for larger.  Here’s a pretty simple guide: 500 or less = digital, 1,000 or more = offset, between 500 and 1,000, get a bid.

P.S. If you have self-published a book and want to learn how to totally master the power of Internet marketing check out The Author Platform.

What do you look for on a proof? That seems like an easy question and it used to be a little easier to answer than it is now. The first thing you need to understand is that your signature on the proof releases the printer, or the broker, from all responsibility for the printed piece. By that I mean, if the product is a close match to the proof, but you don’t like it after all, or you found an error, the problem is yours.  Don’t blame the printers even if they were the ones who introduced the mistake. Proofs are your chance, often your last chance, to make sure everything is right before printing. I often hear customers say they don’t need a proof, or they don’t want a press check. That, in my opinion, is a big mistake. More than once I’ve seen jobs get  all the way to the press before the customer notices a critical error like a wrong phone number, or address.

wrong + wrong = right

Printing, in general, is an imperfect process. I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating, you start with the premise that oil (ink) and water (fountain solution) don’t mix and proceed to make it work. It’s a case of two wrongs making a right.

Back to the question of checking a proof. What you look for depends on the kind of proof you received. Most printers are now using direct-to-plate technology. Direct-to-plate has revolutionized the plate making process. A print shop of not too many years past used to have large rooms with big light tables throughout. The light tables were used to strip the film. Now the tables are gone and the rooms are empty, leaving lots of space for an arcade, or shuffleboard. I’m kidding, but what do they do with the extra space? Maybe shuffleboard isn’t a bad idea. In the era of the light table and hand stripping proofs they were  either bluelines (for one color printing), or color-keys (for four color printing). You aren’t likely to come across these terms anymore, but you might, so I’m telling you about them. There were other kinds of proofs too like Matchprints, or Chromalins. No matter what kind of proof was presented to the customer there was always one flaw–the color proofs were good for four color process, but if you used a PMS color from the Pantone book, you had to guess at the result. Kind of like looking at a small  paint chip vs. painting a large wall. Most printers will provide a digital hard-copy proof.

What do I look for?

Generally you want to check a hard-copy proof for:

• Color. Does it look like the color you expected to get? Remember though, the color that appears on your computer monitor might not be the actual color. Ripped (separating the colors into dots) color is different. Your monitor’s pixels are RGB (red, green,blue) and ripped color is CYMK (cyan, yellow,magenta, black). If the color is way off, you might have to go back and fix some things or have the printer help you fix it. If the color is close, don’t make yourself crazy, let it pass.
• Size. If your image was supposed to be 8 1/2″X11″ and it comes out as 4″X6″ there is a problem.
• Type. Because computer design is done in layers, it is very easy to cover a portion of your type block with a window. You may not see it on your screen, so you need to watch for it on the proof.
• Reflow. This is becoming less of a problem than it used to be, but you should still watch for it. Reflow usually happens when the font you are using doesn’t match the font in the printer’s system. If you haven’t downloaded your fonts they will default to the printer’s defaults. Small sizing or kerning (the space between letters) can throw your document off. Particularly if you are using a PC and the printer is on Mac.
• Missing or Added elements. I think this one is self-explanatory.
• Bleeds. If you want your piece to bleed (ink goes to the edge of the sheet) did you allow a 1/8″ overhang beyond the trims?
• Back up. Does the front back up correctly with the back? You might need a second low-res proof to see this, but unless back up isn’t important, be sure you get a folded proof.

wait til the press check

What to ignore or save for the press check.

• PMS or Spot color. Ripped proofs are still using four color process dots to create approximate color. It can be way off. If you are concerned about the spot color, do yourself a favor and attend a press check.
• Small dots. The computer picks up very small dots and reproduces them on the digital proof. A 1% to 3% dot may not appear on the plate. If those dots are important to the design be aware that they could disappear. If the dots are fighting your design the same is true. To be sure, go to a press check.
• Paper. The proof you see will be different when ink touches paper, particularly if it is an uncoated sheet. All proofs are approximations. To know for sure you have to see the ink on paper.

Respect the proof. That might sound funny, but if you attempt to glance at the proof and give it a cursory approval, you are bound to have mistakes. Stop, take a deep breath, and concentrate on the proof. You’ll have fewer errors. And maybe, fewer times called on the carpet.

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.