If
the name Baker Johnson, Inc. rings a bell, I've known you for at
least nine years. It also means you remember the capabilities and
markets we served back in the day.
But
the great thing about Grub Street Printing is that none of those
caveats apply anymore. Printers specialize in producing books that
take advantage of their equipment's capabilities. Sheet-fed printers,
like Baker-Johnson, Inc., tend to be most efficient on shorter runs.
The web printers we work with like runs so long they wear out their
plates running them.
But
guess what? Grub Street Printing doesn't own any equipment! We serve
about 99% of the book manufacturing marketplace because we work with
printers that have all kinds of money invested in every kind of press
or binder you can imagine (except gravure and I've never been asked
to quote a book produced gravure).
In
hopes that you'll forgot the limitations of our days at Baker
Johnson, Inc., I offer the following.
- Grub Street Printing does digital...lots of digital. Since we are a part of a small press (we published our first book in 2002), learning about and using digital methods was a natural step for us. Even if you're using a printer that we don't happen to work with, we don't mind spending as much time as necessary to help you get your book ready for CreateSpace or LightningSource at no charge to you. It's fun, remember?
- Last month we requested pricing on an oblong casebound ultra-short run 4/c (CMYK) and got competitive pricing from three different printers that had the equipment to efficiently produce such a book. Never assume Grub Street can't produce unusual books.
- Grub Street Printing has produced quantities as low as 100 and as high as 37,000, competitively and of the highest quality.
- Baker-Johnson, Inc. also specialized in perfect bound books, but one of the first books American Perspective (our small press) produced was a 500 copy casebound book with dust jacket and slipcase, utilizing seven different paper stocks, foil stamping on cover 1 and spine, and blind embossing on the case and slipcase. (Sorry. We're sold out.) Casebound is no problem and our pricing is fantastic.
- Mechanical bindings are no problem either; plastic comb, plastic spiral, wire spiral, double O wire...you get the point, right?
- Full color offset books are no problem either. We have domestic and international printers delivering the highest quality work at the lowest prices we can find anywhere.
- By utilizing our network of free-lancers, we can put you in touch with just the right person to lend you a hand. We work with editors and designers across the country. I've personally worked with some of these pros over twenty-five years and will gladly vouch for their talent and creativity, but of course references are available.
- Speaking of services, when you need a bar code in a hurry, email us your ISBN and pricing preference and we'll send the files to your designer or printer within 24 hours. Free, as in no charge.
- We have a small program that tells us exactly what your next soft cover title will weigh and what it's bulk will be. These aren't real difficult calculations anyway, but this little spreadsheet takes about 10 seconds to figure it all out at once. I'll even share it with you for the asking.
- And while it's probably not applicable to you, since closing Baker-Johnson, Inc. I've taught classes in book production and publishing which means that I still enjoy working with first timers, self publishers and micro-presses. That's how it all starts, isn't it?
So
that's about it. We can pretty much produce any kind of book in any
run length you want, cheaper than the printer you're using.
Which
means I'm glad Baker-Johnson, Inc. never had to compete with
GrubStreetPrinting.com
Coming
to a Store Near You This Saturday
Saturday,
May 3, is “Free Comic Book
Day” which sounds like one of my childhood dreams come true
(although they were only 10¢
back then). Click here
to find a participating merchant near you.
eCommerce
Discovers Print
To boost profit margins,
the digerati have discovered that print
indeed has an audience and can positively support online
marketing campaigns. What insight!
Millennials
Prefer Paper Coupons
The generation of Americans
who have grown up using multiple digital services prefers
couponing with paper and ink coupons. I suspect that's because
digital offers are subject to bait and switch and retailer
double-talk.
A
New Eco Font
After learning that the
Garamond font used less printing ink than Times Roman, I changed
this newsletter's font to Garramond. It has always been a popular
book font, easy to read and scale. Now a
new “eco-font” has been introduced, Ryman Eco, and freely
distributed. It's very nice but I find Garamond much easier to read.
Download Ryman Eco here.
(Apparently not for use in Open Office.)
The
Use of Trees...
Unfortunately,
while discussing the eco benefits of these new fonts, the statement,
“Of
course, using no paper at all would do a lot more to help the
environment” which is only partially true. There are more (and
healthier) trees growing in America today than there were when the
Pilgrims landed, thanks
to (for profit) forest management.
...and
Water
One
billion people lack
access to clean drinking water, and critical regional
droughts have focused scientists' attention on safeguarding
current water supplies and rethinking usage from dwindling sources.
Since it takes 2
½ gallons of water to make one sheet of 8 ½ x 11 paper,
manufacturers need to rethink their use of water used for
manufacturing paper.
Bookshelf
Snooping
I'm
shameless about walking over to someone's bookshelf and checking out
their collection. I think you could almost guess someone's age by the
books they display. Here's an
interesting look at some of the most influential titles in the
collections of the rich and famous.
3D
“Ink” from Water Bottles
I remain unconvinced that
3D printing has much to do with printing, but an interesting twist in
that technology is a new “open source” converter that makes
3D printer filament from used water bottles. Now your 3D printer
can build the parts for a converter that will replace retail filament
with DIY.
More
Design Challenges
Graphic designers always
seem to have interesting creations that display their skills and
creativity, like these
business cards designed for historical figures.
What
Are Libraries For?
After reading about a
library without books in Texas, I now know that libraries need to
be more than paper and ink repositories. This
story of a young man teaching himself how to build a prosthesis
on the local library's 3-D printer demonstrates that good libraries
are for free, unstructured education.
Inkjet
for 4/c Book Production
In the way that toner-based
printing changed how we thought about book production, warehousing
and fulfillment, 4 color (CMYK) inkjet book printing may
offer the same options for full color short run book printing. I
just quoted such a title, and believe me, the economies are NOT
readily available yet.
Employee
Owned Print Shop Adds Book-selling
Collective
Copies, a copy shop in Western MA, will
add book-selling to its printing business. It also publishes
titles as Levellers Press and its imprints.
Playboy's
Future from the Past?
Struggling
for a foothold in the digital age, Playboy has found profits in
issuing anthologies and in
this case, a reprint of Issue #1.
Perspective
on Fonts
While I'm not a big fan of
TED talks, this video
on the changing art of font design by Mathew Carter is a
refresher course, offering a modern perspective on how different
media require different fonts.
Final
Thoughts
“A
mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its
edge.” George
R.R. Martin -
