...and I'm very, very disappointed. QC was asleep at the wheel; as every book has ink smudges, spots, multi-colored dots on the color plates, random ink blots and bleed through into the next page. A truly horrible, unacceptable product. Remarkable given I'd seen examples of their work and it was 1st rate.
They showed me the first book and it looked pretty good and then I found an ink smear on page 23. I looked at a second book and there were 2 spots but no smear on the same page. Having worked in production, I decided to randomly check three more wrapped packages. It got worse not better. I told them I couldn't accept the order. The owner was called and he came to the office. At first he said I'd have to pay extra if I wanted another printing. I reminded him this wasn't my mistake. I also explained (through my illustrator) my business depended on #1 quality and these couldn't/wouldn't be sold in the U.S. looking like this. My reputation would be worthless. He checked many copies and soon saw that his pressmen were sloppy and didn't clean the presses adequately. He agreed to reprint the entire order at no additional cost to me. As I've said, I'm deeply disappointed but also figure this is probably not too far from the normal problems encountered in the printing business; at least here. I've had friends in the high end, coffee table book printing business in the states; and I think this disaster wouldn't have happened because QC would have caught it and stopped the presses and corrected the problem. This has been a series of huge learning curves up to this point and I'm looking at marketing as the next one, waiting for me just around the next bend.
No place to rest...
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