April 2010 - Four Short-run Binding Tips
It's no secret that book production runs continue to get shorter and shorter. Printers and their customers have discovered that shorter runs result in lower inventory levels and less waste from product obsolescence. Advancements in printing technology allow these jobs to be produced much faster and more accurately than ever before.
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Depending on your project details,
printing covers or text two-up
can greatly reduce costs and
turnaround times. |
From a planning perspective, digital printing and other short-run applications are different animals than longer production runs. To help you save time and money, keep these tips in mind:
- Pay Close Attention to Grain Direction - Digital presses use heat to fuse toner to paper. If your books are printed cross-grain - grain direction running spine-to-face rather than head-to-foot - this process can dry the paper and contribute to waviness and cracking. Whenever possible, print your text pages with the paper grain parallel to the spine.
- Allow for Makereadies - Be sure to provide your bindery with a sufficient makeready materials. To avoid excess click charges on digital presses, we suggest supplying 10-15 dummy books made up of blank stock, trimmed and prepared to the exact size and thickness of the live production run.
- Specify Cover Printing Method - Let us know if your covers are going to be digitally or offset printed. This may impact the film laminate we need to choose and sometimes advance testing is required, which could affect turnaround times.
- Use Multiple-Up Layouts for Efficiency. The click charges common in the digital printing world put a premium on layouts that make the most efficient use of paper. Depending on the format of your books, a multiple-up layout can help reduce your printing costs by as much as 50%. Let Muscle Bound help you optimize layouts for your digital printing equipment and our binding capabilities.
The Muscle Bound Advantage
Muscle Bound Bindery has kept pace with the latest printing and publishing changes. We continue to improve our capabilities to accommodate shorter runs of both softcover and hard bound books. Let us put our substantial planning and production resources to work on your next project.
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