POD Update: Coffee Table Books, BookMobile, and Lulu
Where do our book-designer readers stand with POD experience? A client approached me recently with a project that would use print-on-demand extensively, and I had to do some research — but further feedback is encouraged.
The client wanted a coffee table book, in 9×12 paperback, with French flaps. Quality is important.
My first reaction was to get in touch with BookMobile. While I’ve never worked with them directly, I’ve been impressed with their quality every time I’ve seen a book they’re produced. Alas, some problems:
Unfortunately, the largest width we can print and bind … is 9-3/8”.
I was surprised to hear that, and followed up with some questions. Nichole Baxter, their rep, was very helpful in supplying some details:
We currently print our cover on a Xerox Docucolor 8000, and the largest cover we can print is 18-3/4” wide, which includes the front, spine, and back (the bleed area we need is already subtracted from the 10-3/4” size), grain correct.
We are planning to do hardcover binding, with dust jackets, by the end of 2006. At that time, we will be able to print larger covers and French Flaps for paperbacks. We’re in the process of testing printers for the covers, so I’m not able to provide pricing or specs just yet. I will send out an announcement once these services are available.
Forgive, Nichole, just priming all those book designers out there to keep an eye out…;)
I hope the new dust jacket printer is up and running this summer, but I won’t know for sure for another month. The capability to do French Flaps also depends on the new binder we acquire (our current binders won’t feed French Flap covers), and that’s yet to be confirmed — we hope to have our “potential” binder installed [late in 2006].
So, good. The capability is coming (here’s rooting for the new binder!), and hopefully by the end of this year. (Installing new equipment never goes smoothly, it seems, so even if it’s early next year, I’ll still be very interested in what they can do.)
Meanwhile, however, I still need to get these books printed for this client, who’s looking for sellable titles in September. Have quiered BookMobile about getting in the queue for the new cover printer, and have asked the client if they’re interested in a dust-jacketed paperback, or whether they just want to do without flaps until that capability is available. Everyone’s going to get back with me.
Meanwhile, it made sense to cover my bases and check around — enter Lulu. I’d heard about Lulu through Flickr; they print JPG Magazine, which is more-than-good quality (and a really interesting idea, IMHO).
Unfortunately, Lulu also doesn’t offer French flaps or 9×12 landscape printing. They do offer A4 (8.27×11.69), which may very well have to do. (BookMobile will offer A4 with their new equipment, too; by choosing the size now, we can start the design and postpone the vendor choice a little while.)
Further, Lulu’s site scares a little. It seems the quality of titles they produce should be split into two parts: the physical quality, which seems pretty good (if not up to BookMobile), and the design quality — which is mostly self-publishers. The reason it might be worth it: their cost is significantly below BookMobile’s.
This book designer, based only on the info currently available, would rather work with BookMobile. However, the client’s paying the bills and driving when the titles need to be available, so Lulu or some other alternative may have to be our choice.
Can anyone comment with experience with another POD printer, or experience with one of these two? Thank you very much.
Comments:
During some recent research, I learned that almost nobody can bind 9×12 landscape. Most binderies can’t go over 11.5 except as pricey hand binding. There’s a printer in Philadelphia called POMCO that can handle it, but they’re not POD.
Funny you should ask about Lulu, because I had considered starting a thread about them. I recently designed a book for my wedding and decided to use Lulu to print them. Here’s a breakdown of my experience:
-Specs: it’s a bit of a shift getting used to the way they want files provided (at least it is to someone like myself who designs books and preps his own mechanicals). I found a link to a document from one of the printers they use that spelled out exactly what settings to use when preparing your pdf. You have to dig a little to find it, but it’s better than the info provided on the Lulu site.
-Color profiles: hahahaha!!! They don’t provide ICC profiles for their printers. So, either it’s a shot in the dark, or you do what I did, and do test runs. There are plenty of of discussions on this topic in Lulu’s forums.
-Bleeds: are inconsistent. My files were set up exactly to the required specs and my bleeds were never cropped correctly. Strange shifts occured and no one could tell me why. I had to cross my fingers and hope for the best when I finally bought 12 copies of the book I produced (after 3 test runs), but apparently that wasn’t good enough. I had a slight hairline of white at the top of all my pages.
-File Size: My second test book arrived with half of the pages missing (Lulu was very helpful, after I explained the problem, they expedited a reprint for me). It seems my document was too large for their RIP. I had several individual images on each page in my original design. I avoided future problems by creating a single image for each page.
-Color: The color on the interior pages is dull and large solid areas appear splotchy (I had large areas of light blue and orange). The cover color was great.
All-in-all, it was a so-so experience for me. Then again, Lulu’s main goal is to provide book publishing to any and everyone. I’m sure most people are fine with the quality. However, if you’re a book designer, you’ll probably end up a bit disappointed like me.
Hey I was just searching for book design across the web and stumbled upon your site. Interesting you should mention this, as it somewhat applies to me. I am a Graphic Media (aka Printing) student at the Rochester Institute of Technology. I’m involved with a student organization called Technical Association of the Graphic Arts, or TAGA. Every year, we produce a book full of technical papers relating to the Graphic Arts Industry, and we base our book around a theme each year. We then enter our book into competition with other chapters each year at a conference, and we’ve won Best Overall Production for the past 6 years in a row.
For these past publications over the years, we have done all of our books using production digital presses (first a Xeikon, then a NexPress 2100, and this past year a Xerox iGen3 110). This past year’s publication was actually a case-bound 9”x12” 220+ page book (portrait).
The problem you’re running into is one that many people who want print-on-demand books run into: production constraints. Binding a book of that size in an on-demand environment is tough because most on-press finishing equipment has a lot of limitation, especially in the binding area. Most places like LuLu (who have a contract through ColorCentric here in Rochester) are in the business of providing pocket-sized books for people. Todd is right: They’re not really about high quality. I’ve received books (written by professors for a course, mind you) where the color covers are totally different shades in two different batches (and that wasn’t intended, either).
When we printed the signatures for our book, we got the binding outsourced to a professional bindery because it was case-bound, as well as large. However, since you want (I assume a perfect bound) paperback book, there are some options. While not all companies will have such an item, there is a piece of finishing equipment from Xerox called “Manual + Book Factory.” It can produce perfect-bound books with a maximum sheet size (pre-trimmed) of 12”x14” and a maximum sheet count of 125 sheets (250 pages). It creates these books right after being printed off a variety of Xerox digital machines. I don’t know what companies have these, so you might want to contact Xerox, or search for the product and see what companies may offer this.
However, if you want a dust jacket, or even a wrap-around cover for this book, it is going to have to be run off a traditional offset press. The largest sheet size that can be run on a digital press at this time is on an iGen3 with an XL sheet option, which is 22.5”x14.33”. Obviously, that’s not large enough to fit around a book that’s 12 inches in width. That’s one of the big setbacks of digital right now. I suggest cutting the size of the book down to 10”x8”, which is a more feasible size. Otherwise, the books can be made POD, but the covers will have to be printed offset, and bound offline.
I hope this helps a bit. If you’d like to talk more, please shoot me an email!
I was just reading your post and your frustration. I have been looking for something extra for our KonicaMinolta 6500 printer to do, the next step up would be an igen, this machien rocks. Right now it just prints our book covers. The quality is fantastic. WE CAN print up to 12×18 not full bleed. We could do 13×19 so we could full bleed on 12×18 but that is a very big custom cutting process of high quality stock. We can print on up to 100lb cover. Want 9.3412 x 12.837 ? We can do that. I have 4 different binding companies here and between them we can get anything bound, even a 12×18 coffee table book. I have an artist on staff so you know the color will be great, but I he’s busy all day with our stuff so I can’t have him doing LAYOUT. If you want to do the layout and provide us with the PDF or illustrator file etc… we’ll do the printing. 1 book or 1000 books.
Thank you
Steven Harris
CEO
KnowledgePublications.com