1 August 2001
Desktop
publishing has made producing a publication much easier than it ever
was. It is a mistake, however, to think that ‘easier’ means
‘easy’. There are still many technical considerations when dealing
with digital printing and with specific print on-demand companies. This
article does not aim to answer every technical question about POD, but
it does aim to help you ask some of the right questions of yourself and
of the POD companies you are considering using. As always, if you have
any questions, please email me at jd@jdwrite.com
.
The
most important questions concern your book itself.
General issues
Print
on-Demand books are usually produced in one of two sizes: 5.5” x
8.5” or 6” x 9”. By producing books of the same size, the POD
companies can print many titles at the same time, with the minimum
set-up time.
Although
these formats are increasingly common they are not the perfect format
for all types of content. In these sizes, the text width is only
4.5”-5” on each page. If your book is a technical or non-fiction
book it may contain columns, sidebars or forms. This kind of book may
require a wider page, if it is to have the layout you want. If you still
want to proceed with Print On-Demand and this book format, you could
rework your book to present the sidebar information as in-line text -
perhaps at the end of a chapter, or separated from the main text by a
line separator or different font.
If
your book is too short or too long it may not be possible to bind using
the POD company’s standard methods. POD books are usually cut pages,
glue-bound. This method does not work well with fewer than 100 pages and
more than around 600 pages.
You
should also consider the kind of binding you want for your book. Most
POD companies offer ‘perfect binding’ only. Even hardback POD books
are glued, rather than sewn or stapled. If you want a staple-bound
chapbook or children’s book, or if you want a spiral or comb-bound
cookbook, you will probably not be able to use a POD company - yet. In
future companies may offer more binding options.
Digital
printing makes printing more flexible and affordable in some ways, but
less so, in others. For example, today, color digital printing is still
prohibitively expensive. Although a color cover can be produced,
printing in color inside the book would make it impossible to sell the
book at bookstore prices. Therefore, most POD companies do not offer
color inside the books…yet.
In
addition, interior graphics may be produced at lower quality than if you
were producing them as traditionally printed ‘plates’. Most digital
printers will reproduce your graphics more like art in a magazine than
art in a glossy art book. For most illustrations and most people
photographs, this is sufficient - and it is certainly more economical.
The high-quality prints in coffee table books are what make these books
so pricey.
One
final point about the manufacture of Print On-Demand books: they
generally do not allow for glossy separations to be printed and bound
into the book. Your art will be printed on the same paper as the rest of
your book. This means that you can sprinkle the art throughout the book,
with no need to send it to a ghetto in the middle of the book.
Reprints
If
your book was previously printed it may seem that you should have fewer
problems. After all, you already have a book, can’t they just
reproduce it? Unfortunately there are many questions to ask about a
previously published book.
The
first thing you must do when planning to bring your book back into print
is establish that you have the right to reproduce your text. Consult the
publisher’s contract to find out when the rights revert to you. Even
if you think the rights have reverted to you, you should contact the
original publisher and request written confirmation of that fact. Also
check that you have the right to produce any other formats that your POD
company produces (electronic editions, audio editions, etc.). Sometimes
publishing contracts cover different editions in different ways.
Artwork
and graphics that were included in the original edition may need special
attention when you are clarifying copyright issues. Look closely at any
book with artwork, particularly photos, and you will see
artist/photographer credits. On the copyright page, you will see
copyright information for any quoted poems, essays or reports. This
permission to reprint probably existed only for the original edition. In
order to reproduce the book, you must obtain these reprint permissions
again, from the copyright holder, or omit the copyrighted material. You
may find you can use the original cover art or some interior graphics,
free of charge, but you should consult an Intellectual Property or
Copyright lawyer to be sure of where you stand.
Re-publication
also raises the questions about the format. Do you want it in the same
format? Will the originally formatting work in the 5.5” x 8.5” or
6” x 9” formats used by Print On-Demand companies?
Getting
Your Previously-Published Book Into Digital Form
There
are three main ways to convert your printed book into a file that can be
sent to a digital printer. Simple scanning, Scanning to Optical
Character Recognition software (OCR), or retyping.
Simple
scanning a book essentially photographs each page and creates an image
of it. This means that you
cannot easily make changes to the text or layout. It also means that the
text quality will be a little fuzzier than it was in the original when
reprinted (compare a photocopied document to its original and you will
see this effect). If your original book was a different size from the
new edition, it is possible to resize the scanned pages or to increase
or decrease the margin around the edges of the text. Neither of these is
a perfect solution, though. Resizing the text can render it unreadable:
the original designer chose the font, font size and spacing to work
together. Scaling a layout up or down can interfere with these
relationships.
It
is possible to scan a book and process it with Optical Character
Recognition (OCR) software. This method creates a word-processor file
from your printed document. This word-processor file can then be
changed, updated, and prepared for a new layout. Unfortunately OCR is
not perfect - and even a error rate as low as 2% yieldsup to 2000 errors
in a 100,000 word book. This error rate increases as the quality of the
original declines (in other words, if the original copies are in small,
close-set type on frayed or yellowing pages, the software will not be
able to ‘read’ it as accurately).
The
final option is to have your text re-typed. This creates a new,
word-processor document that can be changed, updated and prepared for a
new layout. If you decide to have the book retyped professionally, try
to find a service that uses ‘double-keying’. This means that the
book is actually entered twice. Computer software eliminates errors by
comparing the two versions. This is a little more expensive than having
your granddaughter type it as a summer project, but may end up saving
you money in the long-run.
Artwork
and republication
The
final issue to consider when copying a previously published book is the
quality of the artwork. If you do not have the original artwork, the art
in your book must be scanned. As with the text, scanning reduces the
quality of the final product. If you are using photographs or other
‘half-tones’ you will find that the quality of a scan from a
previously-printed version decreases dramatically. Line art will
reproduce better. If possible, supply the original art to your printer.
Preparing
a manuscript for layout
[this
section assumes that you are not simply scanning a previously-published
book]
The
world of word-processors and desktop publishing have made it relatively
easy to produce a professional publication economically. This does not
mean, however, that anyone who can use a word-processing program can
necessarily handle the complexities of manuscript preparation and book
design. This is why some Print On-Demand companies handle the layout of
the book in-house. Others rely on the author to produce a good-looking
layout by providing detailed specifications that the author must follow.
Preparing
for a professional layout
If
you are preparing your text for a professional layout, you may need to
follow very explicit instructions (unless you are paying for highly
customized work - unlikely with print on-demand companies -- you may
find they are not willing to spend time coaching you through the
preparation process). If you do not follow the instructions exactly, you
may creating difficulties with the layout. Difficulties and corrections
usually translate into additional cost.
If
you find lists of word-processing instructions hard to understand, if
you do not know how to combine all your files into one master file and
transfer it to a floppy disk, or if you do not know how to re-format
your existing file to different specifications efficiently, consider
hiring someone who does.
If
you have an index, you will probably have to learn how to use the
tagging feature in your word-processor, so that the index can be
imported into the new layout and retain its integrity.
If
you have graphics you will have to ensure you can provide them in the
correct size and resolution for best results on the digital press (a
resolution that looks good on your computer screen, at 72 dots per inch,
will not necessarily look so good output from a high resolution
printer).
Doing
it yourself
Artistic
considerations
Word
processors are wonderful inventions, but they do not replace a good
artistic eye and experience. Knowing where and when to use features like
underline, bold, italics, shadow boxes and columns, comes with study and
practice - things a designer has, things that the average writer does
not have. Even a good artistic eye cannot replace the help of someone
trained to know what font size goes with which spacing; just how much
white space is enough; and where to put the chapter titles for best
effect. Unless you have design experience - and book design experience
at that - be very wary of designing your book without expert help.
Technical
considerations
You
must be sure how the Print On-Demand company wants to receive the file.
Will they accept a word-processor file or do they need something more
‘high end’? If you are concerned about your book looking ‘real’
you may want to use high end graphics tools. A book expert can usually
tell the difference between something designed by a designer and
something created in Microsoft Word. If you are not experienced in using
Quark Xpress or Adobe PageMaker, it will take time to learn them. Then,
once you have mastered the program, you must master the the temptation
to use all the new bells and whistles you’ve discovered. Less is more.
In
this article I have attempted to cover a lot of ground, quickly, and
have not tried to give all the answers thoroughly. If I have raised
questions and you want a more thorough answer, email me at jd@jdwrite.com
and I’ll be happy to clarify, expand on any point in this article, or
address new questions.
***
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I’d love to hear
your comments on this article: was it helpful; have you questions or
comments about self-publishing or print on-demand, send them editor@jdwrite.com.
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