Printers

I had my first visit to the printers today - I'm hoping to use the local printers: Boothes based in Penryn, although possibly a bit more expensive than a larger city printer, I wanted to keep it local, that way I could visit to ask questions whenever needed and also I had a little experience of working with Boothes through some work experience done with the publishing press associated with my MA course: Atlantic Press

This is a rather early visit in the book production process, but as this is my first book and I'm completely new to the whole business, I wanted to know what options were available to me. Also, one of the illustrators I am part of a collective with: The Picture Club suggested it would be a good idea - to make sure I am working to the right dimensions, that nothing has been overlooked etc. etc.

So I have just got back from the helpful printers, to arrive with quotes already in my inbox - and they are not as bad numbers as I was expecting - woop! To save money, I am probably going to print digitally (rather than litho - which is more expensive for small print runs as the expensive bit is making the plates up) which at Boothes, means a double page spread needs to be smaller than A3. My pages are therefore as big as I can possibly get within this: 140mm by 210mm. In a perfect world, I would have preferred the book a bit bigger, like typical children's books - my ideal that I am using as a model would be the dimensions of Emily Gravett's The Odd Egg

Beautifully produced in hard back with a green material binding.

Anyway, I am consoling myself that a) I can then spend a bit of extra money on making the book as high quality and special as possible and b) the book is meant for little hands to turn the pages, and smaller is therefore more accessible!

So, thats the printing taken care of, I am definitely sticking with hard back, it really has to be to fit in with the gift market. I am also going for a matt laminate (I hate shiny!) with uncoated paper (popular currently, apparently) - again, I'm really not a fan of shiny, reminds me of flashy magazines, and doesn't scream quality to me. I want something of a nice weight and texture though. Not sure about the end papers yet, I might look into printed ones, or extra pages to add in a title and last page.

The printer also kindly gave me a run through the process of proofing and calibrating - this is something I'm a bit worried about, as in my experience with my work - what looks fine on screen, is far too dark once printed, especially if printed high quality. So there will probably be quite the proofing process!

Initial costs were surprisingly low to me, especially as I am able to use digital printing, so there are possible extras that I am going to look into, e.g. gold gilding (for stars on the front cover?), a yellow ribbon to mark the pages, possible embossing of the title 'Yellow Day' - all these possibilities are very exciting, and will be great for making it one of those "must buy", limited edition purchases - that is the idea anyway.

Then it comes down to numbers for the first print run - to get your money's worth, the larger the print run the better, but then I don't want my flat to be inundated with boxes of books and also, if the run is smaller, the edition will be more limited, thus more sought after, in theory. My current idea is run of 200 - but we will have to see.