Printing - It's Complicated

One of the first things that an artist/author must consider is where the customer will buy their book. Where the book appears determines what type of printing process will be used. There are three main types of book printing, Conventional, Print on Demand, and Electronic. While there are similarities between the different types of printing there are also some major differences that you need to be aware of.

Photo credit: Thomas Hawk on Visual Hunt / CC BY-NC

Conventional Print
Conventional printshops are found all over the world. They use printing presses or industrial printers that are similar to your home printer to print each page and then assemble it into a bound, finished book.

Each printer will have specifications for your book and cover file that will give the best result their equipment is capable of providing.

Illustrated children's books and coloring books are laid out in the same fashion. Text-based books with little or no illustration are a different animal. You must be sure your printer knows they will be dealing with an illustrated book.

The process is similar between each printer, no matter where they are located in the world. You pick the paper weight and paper type from their available stocks, specify the type of binding, specify the number of copies you need to have printed and send them your layout files in the format they need. This format is commonly a PDF file.

Physical print shops do "print runs". They set up their machines with your file, using the paper you have chosen, and then run 50, 100, 500 or more copies of the book, trim the pages and cover to the correct size and bind the pages together using the binding style of your choice.

Paper can be different colors, but white or cream is the typical choice. Paper weight is expressed in the universally accepted Grams per Square Meter or GSM. You may be more familiar with "pounds" as an expression of paper weight, but this is not used as a standard measure around the world. Pounds designated fixed weight of 500 sheets, measured in pounds, in that paper's basic sheet size. Thus, the thickness of paper expressed in pounds can vary depending on how large the sheet may be.

Here is a good page that compares GSM and some common pound weights.
About Paper Weights

In recent years, offshore printers, often located in India, China, or other parts of Asia have become popular choices because of their high quality and affordability. The best, and easiest place to obtain printing quotes and compare printers is Alibaba. Merely enter the word "printing" to get a huge list of printers that can be sorted by paper, binding, cover finish and more.

I highly recommend that you do some research both on Google and on the Alibaba site itself on how to find and communicate with the manufacturers you will find on Alibaba. As with any supplier, pay attention to the vendor ratings. Also, pay attention to how your books will be delivered. Many vendors will use shippers such as International DHL and your shipment will arrive quickly. But it's also possible to have your shipment on the proverbial "slow boat from China" where it could get held up at a destination port along the way.

Do your homework on ANY printer you use, whether they're local to you, or on the other side of the world.

Print on Demand or POD
Unlike conventional printers who do "print runs" of a fixed number of copies, Print on Demand only prints the number of books actually sold. These POD printers are online and you won't see or interact with them in the physical world. Here's how it works.

You choose the paper weight, color, size, binding type and perhaps other features from their onsite menu. You then format your book according to their specifications and send the file - usually a PDF -to their website. They check the file for formatting errors and then send you a link to view and proof the book online. Some also allow you to order a physical proof. Once you have approved the book, it is available for sale on the distribution channels you have chosen. The book only gets printed when a sale is made.

Most artist/authors use the Amazon company CreateSpace as their POD printer. Be aware, however, Amazon is running a Beta program that may be replacing CreateSpace with an inhouse Amazon POD program in the near future.

IngramSpark is another well known POD printer with a strong list of distribution partners, including Amazon. There are many other POD book printers - LuLu, BookBaby, DigiPod to name just three. The most important part of POD printers is their distribution agreements. If you want to sell books, you need to have them in the places people look for them. If you go with Ingram, for example, Amazon will list your book as being out of stock as it waits for order fulfillment from the POD printer. If you go with CreateSpace, your book will normally always be "available for sale".

The color mode is always CMYK for physical print. The PPI is usually 300, although some printers may want a higher number.

Printing for Electronic Devices
When making your work available for Electronic Devices, such as Kindles, iPads, and other tablets and smart phones, you become your own printer. You format your book according to the device type it will be used on, sending the correct file type to the sales site and it is downloaded to the customer's device at purchase.

If you want to have your book available for Kindle, Apple and Android devices, be aware that each uses their own file type. Also, each device has a different "footprint" or screen size, thus each one needs its own images properly dimensioned for its screen size.

There are so many things to consider and learn in formatting your book for electronic devices, that it will take more than this article to cover them all.

WARNING - Do NOT use CreateSpace to format your book for the Kindle. Illustrated books - kids books and coloring books - are Fixed Format Layout. Fixed Format means each page is fixed in size.

Text based or lightly illustrated books are Reflowable - allowing pages to "flow" to the dimensions and orientation of the device. If you turn the device from landscape to portrait, the text flows to fill that space and probably has several additional paragraphs on each screen in portrait orientation than it did in landscape orientation. Fixed Format has one page per screen and that page is set by you.

CreateSpace does not do Fixed Format well. Amazon has a free layout program Kindle Kids Book Creator that is easy to use and does a good job formatting Fixed Format layout for the Kindle line of devices. You can use it for both kids books and coloring books.

The color mode for electronic screens is always RGB. PPI will vary depending on what device you are formatting for. Generally speaking, it is less than the 300 PPI required for physical print.

Next up we'll take a look at common types of image files, what each is used for and when to use them in Size Matters.