The Print On Demand Process; Printing and Binding

If you are handling all the editing and design yourself you will save all the costs involved; however, you will need to supply us with the files ready for printing.

Files for printing

• print-quality PDF files
• Postscript files
• Microsoft Word files

We may be able to use other file formats, but you should contact us first with the details. We need the cover to be supplied in the application file in which it has been created. All scans and fonts should be supplied with these files. QuarkXPress, InDesign, PageMaker, Freehand and Illustrator files are the norms. Microsoft Word files are not suitable for covers.

Our preference is a print-quality PDF (portable document format) file but the cover will have to be correctly set up with the spine size and bleeds, etc. You will need to contact us in advance for this information. More information on files and the creation of PDF and Postscript files can be found in our technical notes.

Printing and binding

We can advise you on the appropriate paper and cover board, print methods and binding styles for your book. We can always send you samples of the proposed materials.

How many copies to print?

It has always been the publisher’s dilemma; deciding how many books to print. With conventional offset litho printing, the cost per book is lower the more copies you print, but it is a false economy to print more copies than you realistically need. We will work with you to come up with a realistic print quantity.

Binding styles

We provide a full range of binding styles.

• Perfect binding: also called paperback or square back binding.
• Thread sewing: the book is bound by machine-sewing folded sections together. This is a stronger binding than perfect binding but only suitable for litho-printed books.
• Stitch sewn: the book is bound by gluing together folded sections that have been stitched with wire. It is only suitable for books of 72 pages or more. This is also a stronger binding than perfect binding but a little more expensive.
• Loose-leaf binding: individual pages are shrink-wrapped, drilled and presented in a ring binder, ideal for reference and training materials. We can organise the production of ring binders.
• Wire-o binding: this is useful for reference books, cookery books, manuals and material for photocopying as the pages lay flat. There are variations of this binding style with a printed spine.
• Wire stitching: also called saddle stitching, this is used on journals, magazines, booklets and other short publications, normally up to 52 pages.

Maintaining availability

Among traditional publishers, POD services can be used to make sure that books remain available when one print run has sold out but another has not yet become available, and to maintain the availability of older titles whose future sales may not be great enough to justify a further conventional print run. This can be useful for publishers with large back catalogs of older works, where sales for individual titles may be low, but where cumulative sales may be significant.

Managing uncertainty

Print on demand can be used to reduce risk when dealing with “surge” titles that are expected to have large sales but a short sales life (such as celebrity biographies or event tie-ins): these titles represent high profitability but also high risk owing to the danger of inadvertently printing many more copies than are necessary, and the associated costs of maintaining excess inventory or pulping. POD allows a publisher to exploit a short “sales window” with minimized risk exposure by “guessing low” – using cheaper conventional printing to produce enough copies to satisfy a more pessimistic forecast of the title’s sales, and then relying on POD to make up the difference.

Niche publications

Print on demand is also used to print and reprint “niche” books that may have a high retail price but limited sales opportunities, such as specialist academic works. An academic publisher may be expected to keep these specialist titles in print even though the target market is almost saturated, making further conventional print runs uneconomic.

Packing and delivery

Our quotation will include packing into sturdy cartons and delivery to you.