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Book Printing Tips
Preparing For Book Printing
The less a self publishing company has to do for you, the more you will save on printing your book. This is one good reason to create PDFs of your book yourself. PDF stands for Portable Document Format, a technology pioneered by Adobe which puts a user friendly face on postscript printing files. The advantage of creating a print-ready PDF is that you can see exactly how your book will look and no-one can change it.
There are several options for creating PDFs, though not all of them produce the high quality PDFs required by printers. Adobe Acrobat is the market leader in PDF creation, but it is quite expensive. However, there are a number of free solutions, which you can find by searching for 'PDF creator' on the Internet. Make sure that the free creators do not include a watermark or other advertisement in your finished PDF file. You will also need to ensure that your PDF creator allows you to include high resolution images (300 dpi) where these are required.
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A Matter Of Choice
The number of books you should print depends on several factors. One consideration is the printing process used. Offset printing is uneconomical at quantities below 1,000, so if you are using this printing technology, then it is sensible to print that number at least. It may even be worth printing the industry average of 3,000. This means each book will cost about $1.39 to print.
Digital printing is more economical for short runs, so you can print in multiples of 100 depending on how many you think you might sell. The amount of promotion you will do or the number of sales you have got through pre-publishing promotion will also give you a guide to how many books you might expect to sell. It is best to be realistic about how many books you will sell and how much marketing and promotion you will do.
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Does Book Size Matter?
Paperback book sizes vary slightly, depending on where they are printed. In North America mass market paperbacks are 4 1/4 x 7 inches while trade paperbacks are 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches. In other parts of the world, paperback books are either A format (6 7/8 x 4 1/4 inches), B format (8 x 5 1/4 inches) or C format ( 8 3/4 x 5 5/8 inches).
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ISO Paper
With the exception of the US, Canada and Mexico, most countries in the world use ISO paper sizes, which is a symmetrical metric format. There are two sets of paper sizing that are intended for newspaper, magazine and book printing. These are the RA sizes (for printing without bleeds) and the SRA sizes (for printing with bleeds. The sizes (in millimeters) are as follows:
RA sizes
RA0 860 x 1220
RA1 610 x 860
RA2 430 x 610
RA3 305 x 430
RA4 215 x 305
SRA sizes
SRA0 900 x 1280
SRA1 640 x 900
SRA2 450 x 640
SRA3 320 x 450
SRA4 225 x 320
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An Imposing Story
Page imposition is a system used by printers to save paper when printing. Printing pages in the way that we read them (one page at a time) would be quite wasteful. Instead, book printers print pages in sets of 16 or 32 (or 4 or 8). However, instead of using readers' spreads (with pages 2 and 3 together), they use printers' spreads, so that when the pages are folded, cut and collated they form a conventional book layout.
If you are printing a book or booklet yourself, it is useful to know how this works. Printers' spreads start with the first and last pages together and end with the middle pages together. For a 16 page booklet, the printers' spreads would be 16+1, 2+15, 14+3, 4+13, 12+5, 6+11, 10+7, 8+9. The pairs add up to the number of pages in the booklet plus 1. In addition, the odd number is always on the right. If this seems daunting, an Internet search will reveal several software programs that will help with page imposition for your self published book.
If you ask your local book printer, they may have European paper sizes in stock. Although it's not widely advertised these are available in North America too, and they may be a smart choice if you want to sell your book abroad.
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Paper Weights Explained
North America and Europe use different systems for estimating paper weight. The North American system goes back to medieval Europe and uses the weight in pounds of a ream (500 sheets) of a particular size of paper to give a basis weight. Typical weights for book printing paper are:
Book - 30 to 100 pounds
Text - 70 -80 pounds
Cover - 60-100 pounds
The European system is based on grams per square meter (gsm). A typical photocopier or laser printing paper will be 80gsm. Paper for printing most books will be upwards of 110 gsm, while cover stock will be heavier at 140 gsm plus. Cover stock in both regions is usually available in coated and uncoated varieties.
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Book Printing Choices
There are a number of factors the self publisher must look at when deciding on the right self publishing option. One of the key choices is which book printing company to go with. Some factors to consider include:
The print quality required - this will determine whether you choose a digital printer, print on demand company or a book printer with a traditional offset press. This choice will also be determined by the relative cost of those options.
The location of the book printer - this may be particularly important for your first self published book. One advantage for choosing a local printer using the traditional offset technology is that you can drop in, inspect the printing and collect the books yourself, saving a small fortune in shipping costs.
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Publishing And Printing
A book publisher is someone who deals in intellectual property. As a self-publisher, you handle the promotion and marketing of the material you write and you own the copyright. These are areas that would be handled by publishers in the trade publishing route. In contrast, a book printer is in charge of using technology (and ink) to take your words and putting them onto paper to create a book. New forms of printing and publishing, such as print on demand, mean that the division between these roles has become blurred.
If you are publishing and printing your own book, try to get hold of a Pantone swatch book. This will make it easy to choose the colors you want to use on your pages. Beware, though: printers guard these like gold dust as they are quite expensive.
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Adding Text Color to your Trade Book
The most cost effective self published book uses only one color text in the book printing. Adding color to your text will kill the unit cost of your book unless you print thousands of copies. Printing cost is made of two items: setup and run.
The setup on an offset printing press is high (compared to a digital printing press), but the running rate is low. This "setup" is fixed and is amortized over the number of copies printed. A $5000 setup spread out over 1000 copies is significantly higher than if you spread it out over 10,000 copies or 50,000. Most books that you see in the store with two- or four- color text print significantly high quantities (which you are probably not going to do).
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Digital Advantages
A digital printing press can take the digital files from your computer and go right to print. In the case of book text type, it's hard to tell the difference between the different types of equipment. The main difference comes in the reproduction of halftones (pictures).
The Xerox product looks like a "Xerox" copy (because it is). While many people are getting used to the "toner" look, most still consider it an inferior product compared to offset printing.
The Océ Professional System offers "Copy-Press Technology" (which is a cross between the offset printing process and the copying process). Although this relatively new process utilizes toner rather than ink, the toner does not sit on top of the paper as it does in the copying process. The toner is "pressed" or absorbed into the paper much like the offset printing press does with ink. The end result of this process is a black image quality similar to offset. When halftones and screen tints are reproduced, the quality is generally closer to that of offset although the line screens should not exceed 120 lines per inch.
The Scitex process is different in another way. While it is a digital press printer, it uses ink and not toner in manufacturing books. There is a distinct difference in appearance of halftones printed on the Scitex vs. those done on the Xerox or Océ, it's debatable whether it's any closer to offset halftone reproduction.
*Océ does cost a little bit more than other digital book printer processes.
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Halftone Reproduction
Be cautious trying to print halftones (pictures) in the text of a book that is being printed on a digital printing press. The quality is just not there yet, (no matter what the salesman says).
*To see side-by-side comparisons, pick up a copy of "Publishing Basics - A Guide for the Small Press and Independent Self-Publisher." This is a great guide for short run book printers, too.
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Digital Printing Galleys
There's another advantage to digital printing: You can use it for very short print runs, and so, if you want professional looking galleys to send to reviewers, you can print them digitally quickly and easily. Even if you don't print your entire book digitally, your galleys will look better and more professional if you print them digitally.
*Book printing is one of your most important expenses, and you don't want to send out anything to reviewers that might take away from the strength of your book itself.
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Looking Trim
Trim sizes for book printing in the UK and Europe are different to those used in the United States. Common European trim sizes include (sizes in millimeters):
Metric Crown quarto (189 x 246)
Metric Crown octavo (123 x 186)
Metric Large Crown quarto (201 x 258)
Metric Large Crown octavo (129 x 198)
Metric Demy quarto (219 x 276 )
Metric Demy octavo (156 x 234)
Metric paperback trim sizes are A format (111 x 178) and B format (129 x 198).
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The POD Publishing Myth
Print on Demand (POD) has been around since the days of Ben Franklin. The publisher "demands" and the printer "prints." The only thing that has changed is the turnaround time and cost. Don't be taken in by printing "POD" and all the hype that surrounds it. It's about quality, quantity, and price, and POD may not be the most cost effective way to print your book.
*Most of the time, using traditional book printing services are your best bet.
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Printing For Kids
Book printing for children's books is quite expensive compared to trade paperbacks. Children's books have to be illustrated in full color and you need to print thousands of them to make it economical. Some experts suggest that a self-published illustrated book will cost $10 per book through digital printing and $4 per book through offset printing. Large publishers pay around 50 cents a book for their illustrated children's books. This is because the average retail price of an illustrated children's book is less than $5. Children's books are usually sold through a distributor which adds to the cost.
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Does Book Size Matter?
Paperback book sizes vary slightly, depending on where they are printed. In North America mass market paperbacks are 4 1/4 x 7 inches while trade paperbacks are 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches. In other parts of the world, paperback books are either A format (6 7/8 x 4 1/4 inches), B format (8 x 5 1/4 inches) or C format ( 8 3/4 x 5 5/8 inches).
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Text Color for your Self Published Book
Although the prepress costs have fallen dramatically in the last decade or so, four-color process book printing is still expensive from any book printer. Printing a full-color 16-page signature in a 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 book will cost you about $1,000 for film and proofs and another $1,000 or so for the plates and printing.
If you're only printing 500 books, that's a unit cost of $4 per book just for the 16-page color signature. Using a standard markup of five or six times the production cost to find the retail price, you would have to add an additional $24 per book to make the numbers work out profitably.
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Printing Color Text on a Digital Printing Press
The full color digital printing presses have come to the point that full and four color printing is now possible (but not very cost effective in multiple page formats). Digital book covers have been printed successfully for quite some time. The $1/cover is very cost effective compared to a $750+ makeready on an offset printing press.
The problem comes when printing text. That same $1 applies except for say a 32-page children's book. You essentially have the equivalent of 9 covers or $9 unit cost. This is fine for advance copies or digital book proofs but far too expensive for production copies.
*It is better to look for traditional book printers and binders when you are working on a tight budget.
