I made a really big assumption about a book printing bid recently that turned out to be totally incorrect. It taught me a lesson, or maybe a few lessons. I thought that sharing this case study might help you avoid making the same mistakes. (more…)

I’m brokering the custom printing of two books for a husband and wife publishing team. Both print books will be 5.5” x 8.5” in format, but one will be 450 pages plus cover (the fiction book) and one will be 80 pages plus cover (the poetry book). (more…)

This is a continuation of a prior blog article on custom printing and binding a 488-page, 8.5” x 11” perfect-bound book for one of my clients.

She and I have been in almost continuous contact to discuss options for the print book she is producing for a US government agency. Early this week, her clients had some concerns about the binding. (more…)

A client of mine does work for the federal government. She has a large book that’s mostly complete, and she’s looking for printing options. She has a firm budget. (more…)

I realize they’re not really “bluelines” anymore, now that printer’s proofs are produced via inkjet technology, but the term is resilient, and some printers still call these digital inkjet proofs by their former name. (more…)

It is a truism that in custom printing you can have any two of the following: “Quality, Service, and/or Price.” In the recent past, however, to be competitive in a tight commercial printing market, the motto has become more like “Free, Perfect, and Now” (which also happens to be the title of a book by Robert Rodin). (more…)

As a commercial printing broker, and a student of offset and digital printing, I was pleased to read “Students Prefer Print,” (The Hays Daily News, 2/17/14) and “Students Prefer Print for Serious Academic Reading” (The Chronicle of Higher Education, Wired Campus, 7/17/13, by Sara Grossman). I had heard a lot of “buzz” over the past several years about how colleges were going to replace printed textbooks with digital textbooks on e-readers, and I was surprised to read that this wasn’t happening as planned. (more…)

I wrote a blog a few weeks ago about a print brokering client who wanted 1,000 sets of book covers to GBC bind or plastic coil bind herself. The covers are for a convention handbook. They are diecut, and my client’s logo will be embossed into the printing stock. Interestingly enough, there will be no offset printing involved, unlike most of my other jobs. (more…)

I learned something new today about book printing.

A Book Printing Case Study

A client of mine wants to produce a 68-page, 5.5” x 8.5” perfect bound print book of poems. It has a press run of 2,000 copies, and she wants French Flaps (the flaps at the face trim of each cover that fold back into the book, giving the impression of a dust jacket). It’s an upscale “look.” The text is black only, and the cover is 4-color process, printed on the exterior and interior covers. (more…)

I found two intriguing books in a thrift store yesterday and quickly snapped them up for my fiancee. Both exemplify the element of surprise and the tactile quality only available in a print book. (more…)