Printing Companies
  1. About Printing Industry
  2. Printing Services
  3. Print Buyers
  4. Printing Resources
  5. Classified Ads
  6. Printing Glossary
  7. Printing Newsletters
  8. Contact Print Industry
Who We Are

Printing Industry Exchange (printindustry.com) is pleased to have Steven Waxman writing and managing the Printing Industry Blog. As a printing consultant, Steven teaches corporations how to save money buying printing, brokers printing services, and teaches prepress techniques. Steven has been in the printing industry for thirty-three years working as a writer, editor, print buyer, photographer, graphic designer, art director, and production manager.

Need a Printing Quote from multiple printers? click here.

Are you a Printing Company interested in joining our service? click here.

The Printing Industry Exchange (PIE) staff are experienced individuals within the printing industry that are dedicated to helping and maintaining a high standard of ethics in this business. We are a privately owned company with principals in the business having a combined total of 103 years experience in the printing industry.

PIE's staff is here to help the print buyer find competitive pricing and the right printer to do their job, and also to help the printing companies increase their revenues by providing numerous leads they can quote on and potentially get new business.

This is a free service to the print buyer. All you do is find the appropriate bid request form, fill it out, and it is emailed out to the printing companies who do that type of printing work. The printers best qualified to do your job, will email you pricing and if you decide to print your job through one of these print vendors, you contact them directly.

We have kept the PIE system simple -- we get a monthly fee from the commercial printers who belong to our service. Once the bid request is submitted, all interactions are between the print buyers and the printers.

We are here to help, you can contact us by email at info@printindustry.com.

Book Printing: Self-Cover vs. Plus Cover

When you work with book printers, catalog printers, or magazine printers to produce multi-page documents, it is important for you to specify whether your job will be “self-cover” or “plus cover.”

How Thick Is the Paper Stock?

The key is whether a heavier stock will be used for the outside four-page cover. For instance, if you design a 16-page booklet on 80# text stock, you would call this a “16-page self-cover booklet.” If you added a four-page cover on 80# cover stock, this would then be considered a “16-page-plus-cover” job. However, adding the same four pages but using 80# text stock rather than cover stock would yield a “20-page self-cover” job. The difference is the weight of the printing stock for the outer pages. If it’s thicker than the text stock, it’s considered a cover; if it’s the same, it’s part of the text.

This concept is important to remember for a few reasons. First of all, it’s easy to forget this specification when you’re getting prices from printing companies. If you do so, your estimate might not match your expectations when you receive the final invoice.

More importantly, you can use this information to save money when buying printing services.

How Many Pages Do You Have, How Big Is the Press, and What Is the Trim Size of Your Book?

First of all, let’s define a signature. Whether it is a book or booklet, a magazine, or a catalog, your multi-page print job will be composed of signatures. These are the groupings of four, eight, sixteen, etc., pages that are the final product after a single press sheet has been printed, folded down, and trimmed. For example, on a 25” x 38” press sheet, the printer can lay out sixteen 8.5” x 11” pages (eight on either side of the sheet). Some presses can accommodate a larger sheet size, and therefore the number of pages in each signature can be much higher (32 or even 64 pages, depending on the size of the press sheet and the size of each book page).

Now, let’s say you’re printing a 16-page booklet. Furthermore, let’s assume you had planed to add a cover but through a few editing and design changes, you no longer need the 4-page cover. In such a case, you could print one 16-page self-cover booklet in one pass on the press instead of one 16-page text signature and one 4-page cover signature in two press runs. By eliminating the cover signature, you could save yourself press time, ink costs, wash-ups, paper, folding and trimming costs, etc. (in short, you could save a lot of money).

When designing a booklet, you should ask the printing companies what size press will be used for the job, what size sheet the press will accommodate, and how many pages can be printed in one signature (leaving room for bleeds). In some cases, depending on the press size and the final trim size of your book, you might actually be able to shrink the trim size slightly and get more pages on the press sheet.

Be Mindful When Adding Pages.

It is also wise to be aware of the cost of adding pages. For example, on a 25” x 38” press sheet, you can lay out sixteen 8.5” x 11” pages. Were you to add four pages to the design of your book (even on the same text stock rather than cover stock), you would require an additional signature to accommodate the extra pages, and hence you would need to pay for a second press run.

Working with printing companies (whether book printers, catalog printers, or magazine printers) to produce multi-page documents requires you to specify whether your job will be “self-cover” or “plus cover.” Being mindful of the difference, as well as the size of the press, the press sheet, and the book page, can save you money.

4 Responses to “Book Printing: Self-Cover vs. Plus Cover”

  1. Debra says:

    Exceptionally useful article!

  2. WILLIAM says:

    Just what i need. Thank you so much!

Archives

Recent Posts

Categories


Read and subscribe to our newsletter!


Printing Services include all print categories listed below & more!
4-color Catalogs
Affordable Brochures: Pricing
Affordable Flyers
Book Binding Types and Printing Services
Book Print Services
Booklet, Catalog, Window Envelopes
Brochures: Promotional, Marketing
Bumper Stickers
Business Cards
Business Stationery and Envelopes
Catalog Printers
Cheap Brochures
Color, B&W Catalogs
Color Brochure Printers
Color Postcards
Commercial Book Printers
Commercial Catalog Printing
Custom Decals
Custom Labels
Custom Posters Printers
Custom Stickers, Product Labels
Custom T-shirt Prices
Decals, Labels, Stickers: Vinyl, Clear
Digital, On-Demand Books Prices
Digital Poster, Large Format Prints
Discount Brochures, Flyers Vendors
Envelope Printers, Manufacturers
Label, Sticker, Decal Companies
Letterhead, Stationary, Stationery
Magazine Publication Quotes
Monthly Newsletter Pricing
Newsletter, Flyer Printers
Newspaper Printing, Tabloid Printers
Online Book Price Quotes
Paperback Book Printers
Postcard Printers
Post Card Mailing Service
Postcards, Rackcards
Postcard Printers & Mailing Services
Post Card Direct Mail Service
Poster, Large Format Projects
Posters (Maps, Events, Conferences)
Print Custom TShirts
Screen Print Cards, Shirts
Shortrun Book Printers
Tabloid, Newsprint, Newspapers
T-shirts: Custom Printed Shirts
Tshirt Screen Printers
Printing Industry Exchange, LLC, P.O. Box 394, Bluffton, SC 29910
©2019 Printing Industry Exchange, LLC - All rights reserved