Printing & Copying

Several posts ago I mentioned that POD is least effective for children's book publishing. I'll explain why I believe that. There are a couple of reasons, but they are all related to production cost.  Of course, when I say "children's book" I mean a book with full color images or illustrations inside. Here's a shocker: it is more expensive to print a book that has full color pages than to print a book that only has black and white pages.    Here's another shocker: most children's book are shorter than normal books.

Most POD production costs are based upon the page count of the book. From what I can tell, those PODs who offer full-color printing do so at prices that range from 12 cents to 40 cents per color page.  Blurb and CafePress and Lulu are at the upper end  (no surprise there, they don't have up-front fees and make up for it by up-charging on a per-page basis).  Xlibris, Outskirts Press, Trafford, and AuthorHouse are fee-based POD services that also offer full-color printing. Their per-page printing seems to be toward the lower end of that scale. Let's say 20 cents per page for a mathematical example.

Let's assume the children's book is a typical 32 page book. That's $6.4 just for the interior of the book. All these publishers (even the free ones) add on a "binding fee"  to the production cost of the book (which is either a base production fee on top of which the page count fee is added, or an "up charge" that is basically ensures their profit).  Since most of these places use Lightning Source for their printing, and LSI charges 90 cents for a paperback binding, let's go with that number. Hell, let's give each of these places 10 cents per book (because they are businesses and have to make some money, somewhere -- it's only fair, right?).  So, that's $6.4 for the interior printing and $1 for the paperback cover.  That's $7.4 for the production cost of the book, minimum. 

There are various schools of thought on what a retail price should be for a book. Some "experts" say you should multiply your production cost by 2.5 (giving you a retail price of $18.50 for our example).  Others say you should multiply it by 8 (giving you a retail price of $59.2).  Of course, those who say you should multiply it by 8 are printing 10,000 copies in China for $1 a book. That's about as far from the POD business model as you can get.

So, we'll stick with the 2.5 x philosophy to make it easy. That provides a retail price of $18.50 for a 32 page children's book.  Does that sound high to you?  In relation to the other children's books you have seen on the shelf? Of course it is.

It gets worse. Most commercial children's books are in hardcover.  The minute you add hardcover binding to the POD production process, that $1 "binding fee" from above turns into $5.  Now you're looking at a 32 page book over $20.    

 Lightning Source, Inc. currently doesn't offer hardback books for their full color printing. Therefore, some publishers engage in a bait and switch. Xlibris, for example, offers hardback full color books in their marketing materials, but if you carefully read the fine print, you discover that a paperback edition will be the one that is distributed through Ingram (due to the LSI shortcomings above).  Xlibris isn't the only one who does this.  Lulu uses Color Centric out of New York to print the books their authors buy direct, but they use Lightning Source to print the distributed versions.  Same as Xlibris, they also clarify in small print that a paperback edition of the full-color book is what is distributed.   I wonder how many of their "1 million registered users" are blissfully unaware of this. Well, since Lulu books sell an average of 1.8 copies each, and 1 copy is required to be purchased by the author herself, that leaves .8 copies that are purchased from either the Lulu website, or through distribution online.  So, in other words, no one is buying the LSI versions of Lulu's books. Their secret is safe. I wonder if the same holds true for Xlibris...

About Masking

Many plastics, especially those used for displays or signs, are enshrouded in some kind of protective covering, called masking. The two most common are paper masking and poly masking (polyethylene film). LEAVE THE MASKING ON WHILE YOU CUT! If you need to draw your shape on the material first and then trace it with a tool then paper masking should be requested and there will be a bit of premium paid since paper costs more than poly film. As a general rule, poly will be shipped unless otherwise specified.

Poly-masked Polycarbonate

Paper-masked Acrylic

Remember to peel back the masking
when flame polishing

source: http://www.redwoodplastics.com/index.php?content=acrylic_care_and_maintenance

REMOVING (PAPER) MASKING

The sheet masking should be left in place during most fabrication operations to protect the sheet surface. The masking may be removed for intricate detail work on the sheet if necessary. Certain heat sources used in line bending and thermoforming operations may also require removal of the masking.

Unmasked sheet should be stored in the original shipping cartons. Avoid handling unmasked sheet unnecessarily.

You can remove the paper masking with a cardboard tube by rolling the masking around it. If the adhesive has hardened, moistening it with aliphatic naphtha, hexane or kerosene will help to soften it. Do not use gasoline or sharp-edged objects such as razor blades. Any oily film left behind by solvents should be removed immediately by washing.

When a company is promoting .35 a color copy, keep in mind two things: (1) It is only for a limited time; (2) 35 cents only includes single-sided documents (double the price for dual-sided copy work).

Sneezin' and Wheezin'
By Suellen Duga of Choice Health

More than 40 million Americans suffer from seasonal allergies. Are you one of them? An “allergy” is defi ned as a state of extreme sensitivity (hyper immunity) caused by exposure to a particular allergen, like pollen, mold, dust, and animal dander. Unfortunately, the body remembers this exposure and often over reacts when it is exposed again. This causes the common allergic symptoms such as blocked and itchy, sneezing and rhinorrhoea (diarrhea of the nose, so to speak). There is a whole cascade of events that trigger these allergic responses, but we don’t need to know. What we re-ally want to know is what to do about them! The whole idea is to keep your mast cells from imploding. Mast cells contain histamine and histamine like substances. When histamine and histamine like substances are released, that’s when our allergies kick in.

The drugs sometimes used for allergy control have certain side effects that are often unwelcome. Natural remedies do not come with negative side effects. One particular product called Aller-7 has been extensively tested for 10 years with overwhelming results in allergy symptom relief. Some of the benefi ts for Aller-7 are easy breathing, clear airway passages and most importantly, Aller-7 stabilizes mast cells so we don’t get a release of dreaded histamine. There are also some other natural remedies worth considering. Stinging nettles, Quer ce tin (pronounced ker-c-tin), Bromelain and vitamin C are a few of these. By the way, all of the above are already in Aller-7 Support, which is a more complete product than Aller-7 Quercetin, by itself, is a powerful natural antihistamine. You can also get Quercetin in apples, onions, raspberries, black and green tea, red wine, red grapes, broccoli and leafy greens. So enjoy the bounty of summer and include the above foods into your daily diet.

Bromelain is the name of a group of powerful protein-digesting enzymes that are found in pineapple. When taken WITH food, bromelain will help digest protein foods. For allergy relief, bromelain and bromelain products need to be taken AWAY from foods. When used in this fashion, bromelain will help reduce inflammation in nasal passages as well in muscles and joints.

We all want to enjoy the outdoors, I think it makes perfect sense to use the natural allergy products instead of medication with their harsh and sometimes unfortunate side effects. No, the natural remedies do not act as quickly as a medication, but they are far safer.

For more information email choicehealth@livingnaturally.com

This summer I was searching around for companies that could assist me with the production of a debut EP for the Solar Dog catalogue. When you're thinking about producing a record there are quite a few things to consider - from demo recordings to production, mixing & mastering, packaging & artwork, reproduction & distribution, etc, etc, etc (I'm still working out what exactly the "etc" phase entails). Not ever having done any one of these things in particular, I felt the need to reach out to those who know how it's done - and who do it well.

So, my first instinct was to contact the guys at Constellation Records and ask them for some advice. Eventually I was put in touch with Don Wilkie, co-founder of the Montreal-based record label, who contacted me by telephone and was kind enough to spend a good length of time answering my questions.

I have always admired how the Constellation label puts together their records. From the production of the music to the packaging, they definitely take an artistic approach to how it's all done. The jackets are made from card-stock, covered with stunning artwork and the inlays are unique for each artist. Not to mention that the sound recordings create a wonderful sonic catharsis for those of us weary-eared audiophiles.

However, during our conversation I found myself asking mostly about their packaging and artwork. As it turns out, these guys used to create their own hand-made packaging in limited runs until it eventually became too costly and time consuming. More recently they have moved on to contracting local printers and reproduction houses to meet the needs of their fan-base.

Nearing the end of our conversation I was pointed in the direction towards a certain Toronto-based company called Standard Form Printing & Publishing, who recently began printing and assembling small runs of paper-based CD packaging. I contacted Standard Form owner Alex Durlak by email to discuss what they were all about.

I discovered from our e-conversation that these guys weren't just your ordinary packaging company. Standard Form is in fine form indeed. They multitask between managing a record label, a publishing house for art books, an mp3 shop and a packaging/ printing company for CD's, vinyl, art projects, posters, stationary, zines, comics, magazines & post cards. Needless to say I was convinced that it would be a good idea to work with these guys.

It was a few weeks back when I received the first official Standard Form Communiqué announcing the release of their first three artist books. Below are some sections that were extracted from the Communiqué describing the releases along with some links to the authors/ artists websites.

This is the first official Standard Form Communiqué! We are excited to announce the launching of our first 3 artist's books!

Sonority of Words
by Katie Bond Pretti

...consists of three chapters designed to develop a narrative as the drawings progress from beginning to end. Though not containing any literal message, the lines and shapes which form each drawing direct the viewer through a sequence of events. Similar to way in which the letter-symbol elements of sound poetry necessitate that the viewer forms their own associations, this story depends upon handmade marks to express dynamics and intonation...

http://katiebondpretti.com

I got an A+ in Art and You can too.
by Tonik

...this guide, full of explanatory text and pictures, delves into exposing how art school operates and how and why students should address the system. Written in a clear and jargon free prose, it elucidates a cheat sheet for the naïve, lazy, artless or keen student; complete with a glossary and chapters concerning What is higher learning? and Good Art vs Good Grades.

http://rockonski.com

A Report
by Alex Durlak

...a response to a report written in 1978 by the Advisory Arts Panel to the Canada Council entitled The Future of the Canada Council. The government-subsidized publication features an introduction originally written in a concrete poetry style explaining the importance of art in society. Alex Durlak has created a new layout for the text using the introduction to both critique the challenges of contemporary artistic practices and to reinvest the ideals held by the late-70's artistic community.

You can learn more about this fine formed company from their wiki-style website at http://standardform.org.

Today kids we are going to talk about taking photographs, printing photographs, and posting photographs on the web - Hurray! That means that we have to talk about "color management" - Aww, maaaan.

If you have ever read the "Captain Underpants" book series by Dav Pilkey, the preceding paragraph should sound familiar.

Now, I like to read to my son for a little while just before bedtime. Our routine is to read a short cute story borrowed from the library and then finish up with something weightier.  After we read through all four books of the Hobbit/Lord of the Rings series twice in a row, I told him we had to try something else for a while. We tried the Narnia series, but he decided they were too scary so for something different (and I mean completely different), we are reading "Captain Underpants".

Anyway, back to color management. If you have read Captain Underpants, you will also know that before I can tell you that story, I have to tell you this story...

A while back I noticed that my aging Epson 2000P printer was not printing up to par. Even though I cleaned the heads and fiddled with it all the time, the prints became lighter and lighter until it was too noticeable to be ignored. I took some drastic void the warranty type measures like pouring alcohol down the nozzles and it got better, but I figured it was time for a new printer.

I decided to stick with Epson printers and budget-wise I needed to stick with a desktop model. That narrowed it down to the R1800 and the R2400. I went with the R1800 because I mostly do color prints and because I'm cheap.

My totally subjective totally unscientific review of the R1800 goes like this. It is a good printer.

The output is better than my 2000P, but not wildly so. The addition of a gloss optimizer is nice for glossy prints as it eliminates bronzing. The 1800 adds a red and a blue ink and both glossy and matte black inks to the original cyan, magenta, and yellow inks. I might be more psyched over the additional inks if my prints were more brightly colored. My stuff tends to have subdued earth tones - green, brown, black, grey, rust, etc. - not a lot of fire engine red or royal blue.

So the printer is fine. The problem is that anytime I change something in my workflow like a new camera, or computer monitor, or printer, I have to spend lots of time fiddling around to get all the parts to play nice with each other and give me output that I'm happy with. A new printer although not greatly different than my last one, means different inks in the printer, different drivers on my computer, and the possibility of using different papers.

I got the printer to print basically like my old one as a starting point. This wasn't too difficult. Once I updated to all the latest drivers and what not, I pretty much used the same settings in the printer driver that I used on my 2000P and things looked pretty good.

Next I went nuts and decided to crank things up a notch. A new printer with new whiz-bang features should be better and not just the same, right? As Red Green would say, "If it ain't broke, you're not trying".

The new gloss optimizer opens up the possibility of using gloss paper something that I had never been too keen on. However, paper manufacturers have come out with some new papers that I wanted to try - specifically ones that emulate the old sorta glossy F-type fiber based papers from the chemical print days. I ordered a sample pack of various papers from Moab (now owned by Legion). Next time I'll tell you what my testing revealed.

(I promise this will come around to color management in the end.)

MDW

Celtic Tree T-shirt in purple.

Silver metallic dragon on black.

Gold metallic 'Freedom' T-shirt.

A mug for beautiful people.

Imagine mug.

WizardFruit is my new shop. It sells t-shirts, gifts and accessories with my designs on them, both the purple doodled variety and the arty artwork variety...and a few bits and pieces that are neither. All the printing, payment and delivery stuff is dealt with by Spreadshirt, which means it's all excellent quality and nice and secure. I'm working on an American flavour shop too, which should be up and running in about a month (in time for Christmas shopping!), since at the moment stuff can only be shipped to Europe and a few other places. :)

Oh yeh, click on the images above to view them in the shop.

From wikipedia:

"Ordinary silver-covered photographic paper is fixed on an internal drum, where three lasers simultaneously expose the paper (or Duratrans) with red, green, and blue light. The print is then processed using traditional photochemical means.

Whereas xerography and inkjet printing employ a halftone process to reproduce digital images on paper, LightJet is a true continuous tone process. Posterization and banding are therefore absent from LightJet prints."

I want one.