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Writing and Publishing, Part 16:
Creating the book:
The book manufacturing process:
Last time, I covered prepress work which is the pre-manufacturing
process. Once that is done, we are ready to manufacture the book.
This is where it starts to get expensive. Most publishers do not
manufacture books. This step is done for the publisher by companies
which specialize in printing and binding. Selecting one is a critical
decision for the publisher. I will discuss more on this decision
in a future essay.
There are many small and large book manufacturers around. A look in a metropolitan phone book will confirm that. Here we must distinguish between printers and book manufacturers. There is nothing wrong with either one. It's simply a matter of what we want to do. Book manufacturing is concerned with printing and binding books. Printers can do a great job of making sales brochures, booklets, and other straightforward printing jobs. They are usually also good at duplicating. They are not normally equipped to do binding or highspeed offset printing. The equipment is too expensive.
In addition to the traditional method of book manufacturing, there are two new processes called "Computer to Plate" (CTP) and "Print on Demand (POD)." Print on demand is very similar to what we do on the desktop. A printer uses the electronic files to print the book directly. There are no printing plates or negatives involved. This makes it possible to print one or a few books rather than the larger press runs which the big printing presses demand.
The actual book binding is done in the traditional way. The cost per book in (POD) is considerably higher than the traditional way, but warehousing and excess stock problems are eliminated. We do not have to predict the market. At present, the advantage of POD are, at best, questionable. This may change rapidly as technology advances.
Computer to plate is different in that it eliminates one step in the process. Here I will describe the traditional method and point out the difference in CTP.
To begin the manufacturing process, the Postscript files, which were created in the prepress work, are read by a very expensive, high resolution device called an imagesetter. By expensive, I mean thousands, often hundreds of thousands, of dollars. This device uses laser imaging to convert the files into negative images of the defined pages. These negatives look exactly like very large black and white photo negatives. In practice, each negative will contain several pages, often sixteen. This is necessary because the big presses don't print one page at a time. They print sheets of pages either from rolls or large sheets of paper.
This is the point where blueline copies can be made from the negatives. These can be cut and folded to make a proof copy of the book. They smell just like blueprints because that's what they are. I don't like them but the writer and publisher must check the bluelines to make sure they are what they intended. If not, some cutting and pasting of the negatives may be required. In an extreme case, new negatives may have to be made. It's a good idea to spend extra effort in the beginning to avoid this. When we are satisfied, extra blueline copies can be sent to reviewers, if desired.
Once the book is proofed and approved, the printing plates can be made. Most printing plates are no longer soft metal. Don't think Ben Franklin. Most plates are now composed of photosensitive coatings on aluminum sheets. The negatives are used to expose the photosensitive coating of the plates and the coating is selectively etched away with chemical baths. When finished, the plates are washed to neutralize the chemicals. Thus printing plates are produced. They are then mounted on the rollers or beds of a printing press.
Here is the only difference between the traditional method and CTP. There is a new species of imagesetter which produces printing plates rather than negatives. The tedious, environmentally dirty, and very expensive film negative step is eliminated. Although much better environmentally, CTP plate material is quite expensive so there is no cost savings yet. In the future, we do expect the plate cost to decline which will make CTP the better choice.
At the same time the book is being made, the cover is going through the same process on different machinery. The cover is done separately because it is on different weight paper and it will have a special finish. It will also often have color requirements.
There are many kinds of presses used in the printing business today depending on the kind of resolution desired, the volume of printing to be done and the color requirements. There are whole books and technical education courses devoted to explaining and understanding these machines. For myself, I just stand and watch with big saucer eyes. I will trust the specialists. The folks who run these machines are part chemist, part technician, and part magician.
If you ever get a chance to tour a modern printing plant, jump on it. It's a fascinating world of machines with metal levers, rollers, plates, arms, and fingers flying everywhere. Metal fingers, not people's fingers. You can watch a giant roll of paper unwinding so fast into a machine, you must wonder why it doesn't get shredded. I was told, in confidence, sometimes it does. Usually, though, the paper comes out the other end, neatly printed and folded into 32 page signatures.
The books are printed in what are called signatures for economy of paper and handling. In most cases, the most economical signature is 32 pages. Did you ever wonder why books sometimes have blank pages at the end or superfluous babble in the front? That's one of the reasons. Remember the 16 page negative? One for each side of the paper. The detail of how proper page order is maintained is handled when the negatives are made. Meanwhile, the covers are being printed and cut on a separate press.
For those who want more detail about the printing business, I suggest starting with an encyclopedia. Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia is just one which has a long discussion on printing and it's history with a bibliography.
Binding is the final step in the book manufacturing process. Book binding machinery is every bit as fascinating as printing machinery. Although there are several options for binding, most of the books you will find at your local bookseller are perfect bound. The signatures are gathered together and clamped. The spine is milled off and the cover is glued on. The book is then trimmed on the three open sides. This is fine for most paperbacks. It has the disadvantage that it will not lay flat and will eventually come apart.
Some books, like cookbooks and journals must lie flat to be useful. The three methods used for this are wire-bound, comb bound and lay flat binding. Of these three, lay flat, which looks just like a perfect bound, is the most attractive. Wire bound, just like a Spiral Notebook and comb bound, a plastic comb instead of wire, both have a cheap look. Some special books can also be bound with hard board bindings and embossed covers and all that stuff. The hard cover version of a book will be priced higher that the paperback version because it costs much more to manufacture.
Next time I will discuss some or the aspects of marketing a
finished book.
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