Book Printing Machines – Not The Real Challenge

Book printing can be performed by any of the book printing machines – be it offset or digital but the real challenge comes in when the binding process starts. The time taken for book binding mainly  depends on size of the book and the number of copies need to be created. Nowadays, the printing machines used for book printing are being introduced in the market with ‘finisher’ options in the printer to bind the books. Book binding can either be fulfilled manually or machine.

However, if less number of copies need to be produced, let’s say 10 or 20, they can always be photocopied for cost reduction. This is quite fast as well as cheap. Though there are different set ups and different machines to perform book printing but it is the speed, volume and efficiency that differentiates the processes from each other. Like to print short run books even a commercial print shop with an offset or letterpress machine are enough producing a 48 or 96 page book. But if the customer is not demanding instant production then even large volume of pages uptil 500 pages can also be produced in the same setup keeping the per unit price same.

Hence printing large volume in small infrastructure is not a costly affair. For prints more than 500 pages, offset printer will be a suitable choice as it is cheaper and simultaneously faster. It has been projected since a long time that book binding is time taking but for medium or large volumes the sewn or spine may not work.

Hence, it is advisable for the printers to segregate the book into two parts. Basically, these kind of books are printed over POD (Print-on-delivery).

The cost break-up of the entire total cost is again a very crucial affair to decide which printing press to go for. The general trend is that the author will take up 8-15% of the royalties for creation. Since the publisher is involved in playing the role of curator and also involved in polishing, marketing as well as manufacturing he deserves to have a share of 45-55% that includes author’s royalty also. The printing process will just incur 10% of the total price of the book.

The remaining 50% of the total cost will be divided between distributor and retailers in 4:1 ratio. The whole process on Book Printing Machines from pre-production to royalty stage covers a 5-stage process. The pre-production starts with an editor and graphic designer with the printing stage depending on ink, glue, paper etc. The market stage lets in book tour, NYT book review ad, printing and shipping galleries to journalists. The wholesaler plays a role of middlemen who can handle distribution for publishers and lastly, the author royalties will further provide its shares his piece of cake with publicist and agents.

Offset Lithography: A Machine For Lithographic Printing

Lithographic printing is a process of printing from a smooth surface of a metal plate or limestone to print on paper or a different substrate to print text or artwork. Earlier this method was used to release theatrical works. This comes under the category of Planographic printing which uses the immiscible property of grease and water such that the image and non-image areas can be easily classified. The image areas are grease-treated and the non-image areas are wet with moisture. Moisture repels ink.

When it comes to Offset, there is no direct printing involved. The ink first gets transferred from the plate to the rubber blanket and from rubber blanket to paper. This method follows the principle of repulsion of oil and water. This method is used for mass-production printing. It is also helpful to lengthen the life of plates. However, the substrate media can be canvas, cloth or wood which have a rough surface.

 Irrespective of the volume of the job supplier has Web Offset Printing Machine produces high and uniform quality of images. Offset lithography is basically a three-stage process – pre press, on press and post press.

In Pre-press stage, the files are being transferred from designer to printer. The pre-press department then ensures that all files are properly packaged and all images are high resolution. After this the designer has to choose between spot or processed colors. Then is the stage of proofing that checks for color accuracy and imposition proofs. These proofs must be approved by the designer. This stage is carried out on plate cylinder.

On press stage is a make-ready process in which the ink is pressed on the pressman plates and then a test print follows. The final press-run should be signed by the designer which is followed by the printing of entire job. This stage is performed over offset cylinder.

The last phase is Post-press that will be executed on impression cylinder. The print is then dried on impression cylinder and the piece of work is folded. The final work is then packed into boxes for shipping it to desired destination. It also employs special processes like die-cutting, foil stamping, embossing, thermography etc. 

The color scheme used in this process is CMYK that is cyan, magenta, yellow and black. An Offset printer employs labels to the printing work with their reference on the left margin with bold effect on the label fonts.