The primary requirement for making a large number of books, aside from the necessary hardware and materials, is ample space. In particular, you need a table large enough to collate quantities of signatures - in my case ten books at a time, each of nine signatures apiece. You also need space to stack printed-off signatures … Continue reading Ch. 14 – The first day of volume production

I cannot now find the first book I ever made, but I recall that in the publication data I said something like 'printed and published, with labour and great pain, using Microsoft Publisher'. Part of the pain was certainly Publisher, which I recall as a quirky beast that took some time to master, but far … Continue reading Ch.13 : The time it takes – printing multiple copies

Even if you are not costing your time in making a book, you still want to keep track of it (just in case you want to do it all again...) One thing I should certainly advise is keeping better records from the outset than I did. Only when I started actual printing did I begin … Continue reading Ch.12: The time it takes – typesetting in InDesign

I was determined from the outset to keep track of my expenditure: there is a curious sort of excitement in working to a budget, and the magic figure of 100 books meant that any purchase could immediately be reckoned 'per book' which had the effect of reducing large numbers to gratifyingly small ones - thus, … Continue reading Ch.11 : Costing not less than everything

Ah, Endpapers! They are lovely, as you can see here   and here However, you pays for what you gets: the Hewit's range pictured above come in at £3.96 per sheet (inc VAT) where a sheet is 480mmx680mm: with each book requiring 2 A4 size sheets* (210 x 297) then you will not get more than … Continue reading Ch.10: The Singular Delight of Endpapers

A printer we have already discussed: clearly it is the heart of the business as far as producing the book itself is concerned. My choice (after some research) was a Samsung Xpress M2885FW, a monochrome laser which did duplex (i.e. double-sided) printing. Laser is more economical than inkjet and gives better quality print. Monochrome is … Continue reading Ch.8: Costing a book – necessary hardware

The basic elements of a book are two: the book itself and the case or cover that serves to protect it; bookbinding is the craft of making then joining one to the other. The case is the simpler of the two. It consists of three boards - front, back and spine - which may be … Continue reading Ch.7: Costing a book – the general shape of the thing