subject: Things You Need To Know About Book Printing [print this page] Printed books still maintain a certain cache which is unlikely to ever be replaced by sitting hunched over your laptop screen or even with one of those funky book reading devices which have become popular. So book printing and printers are definitely here to stay.
The truth is that most people simply prefer to have a book that they can physically hold in their hands. The individual characteristic of each page, slightly creased or perhaps grubby if it's been shared gives the book a sense of having been enjoyed by others. And of course there is nothing which can quite match a book sitting on you bookshelf. When people see the book titles that you have read they will automatically make a judgement about the kind of person you happen to be.
So if you need to get a book printed where can you turn?
The answer is actually relatively few places, because whilst there are plenty of general jobbing printers around, there are far fewer capable of printing your book.
The essence of good book printing is to find a printing company who have the right kit. It is no good printing a book on a small printing press if you need even a relatively short print run, because books tend to have a high number of pages and small presses are not therefore best suited to print books.
What you really need is a printing company who use B1 size presses. Perhaps a Heidelberg 102 book printing press for example.
This large format equipment is capable of printing pages of books quickly and efficiently, meaning that for every pass through the printing press up to 18 sides of your book are produced at once.
These large sheets of paper are then folded and trimmed in order to create your finished printed book and not surprisingly there is quite a skill involved in ensuring that the pages of your book all end up in the right order. That is a job which falls to two people within this process.
The first is an expert at pre-press. He or she will pre-flight your book by using a computer to ensure that all the pages are lined up and paginated in the right order on those monster size B1 sheets of paper.
The second key person is the finisher who will take those giant sheets of paper and trim them down to size so that your book can be crafted together.
Finishing off your printed book.
Of course books come in all shapes and sizes and with hard and soft covers. A soft back book is usually perfect bound. This is a process of adding glue to the spin of the book and is also sometimes known as PUR binding or PUR bound.
Meanwhile a hard back printed book might have all manner of additions like a dust jacket or fancy finishes which can include foil blocking and all manner of other techniques.
