Quality

Having had some time to go through a number of books it appears the quality of the printing and binding is excellent. I have found no printing errors (ink smudges, spots, or bleed throughs). So far I'm very happy with the quality; it is as it should be.

There is no place to rest...

Strange day today (Monday the 25th);

I picked up 560 books from my printer and the ones I checked were fine. I/we then tore the covers off of 540 books from the first printing (disaster) and I took them with me (the covers). How very weird to do that to my books. As we tore away we would check random copies and yes; they all had the same problems. The printer will get 4 baht (about $.12 USD) per kilogram at the recycle center for the naked books.

While I'm satisfied with the final result; I won't use this printer again. There are two reasons for this; 1st, he expressed doubts about wanting to do a job for a farang (western white person) again because; 2nd, we want too high a quality of work. That just completely defies my sense of logic or reason. It's a matter of attitude; one which I don't like. Can you imagine Toyota/Honda/Ford telling a customer that 8 out of every 100 vehicles you buy from them will be defective and that's just the way it is? Mind boggling. The printer didn't even approach his own standard of 92%: his was a 100% failure to deliver quality. Okay, I'll stop beating a dead horse and move on. My real purpose here is information for you; the readers of this blog who dream of having your own book printed.

Now I have 560 books and no idea how to sell them (LOL). Well, now I'll have to learn marketing; let the adventure begin...

There is no place to rest...

Today is Saturday the 23rd (here) and...

...my wife called the printer...he said Monday the 25th at 9 am I can come and get my books. I ordered 500; he printed 560. On the first order he went over by 45. If I do a second printing it won't be with him. This has been an excruciating process that falls entirely on the printer; he mis-spoke/mis-represented his ability and quality and generally got in, way over his head. Live and learn. My wife is an author also and I'll use her publisher's printer for the next book and or, second printing of my first book.

So, we keep going; for there is no place to rest...

Kindle; some comments...

...After a book is uploaded to Kindle, you can do a preview to see how it will look on the device. The text in my book was fine, but the beautiful color illustrations were in black and white. Frankly, they didn't look good at all (picture quality was bad). Amazon needs to include color or what's the point? Think of all of the childrens books and the illustrations that generally go with them. That's a huge market. Think of the possibilities missed; long rides in the car on a family vacation and having a library for the kids to read while on the road; or, in the air; or on the train; or on a long boring bus ride. This will limit their device to text only literature. It does seem an oversight which I fervently hope they correct and soon. At this point the market is wide open and who knows? Competition usually separates the wheat from the chafe.

There is no place to rest...

My book is now on Kindle

Today, I completed the process of uploading my elephant book to Kindle. It is active and available now. Amazon has a 20% discount (very good deal); so it's only $7.99 USD. Amazon did this on their own; I had nothing to do with the decision. It will download to Kindle, iPhone and iPod touch as well.

You can read chapter I by using the link to my web site. I have all of chapter I, including two illustrations posted there.

No place to rest...

Having your book printed; how to avoid mistakes...

Okay, your book is written, copyright in place, layout/design is finished, cover art is done, ISBN number and bar code secured, format decided (book size; A4, A5, etc.) and you're editor says you can take it to the printers. Your editor is your boss and a good one is most valuable. This completes steps #1 – #7. The next step, #8, properly done will ensure you have a sellable book; if it's improperly done, you may end up with a printing disaster. I'll discuss that at the end of this post.

I'd like to expand on the subject of ones editor. After your book is finished the single most important person is the editor. I had gone through my first book 4 - 5 times and declared it ready for printing. My wife offered to edit my book. When she was finished with her first edit I was shocked at the number of mistakes I had missed; never edit your own book. My book went to the presses after 4 more edits including 2 hand made copies (by the printer) of my book. This is why I say your editor is your boss; editors are VIP's.

First rule; assume nothing and question everything. Since my experience is limited to Thailand there may be some differences in the number of smaller, independent printers and book binders available. This is to say that there are probably fewer choices in the U.S. for instance; however the process will be the same, the questions will be the same and the potential problems will be the same as those fundamental to printing with offset presses.

That said, find a printer. Unless you know of one by reputation you will need to see many examples of their work. Especially important are samples that are the same as your book. If you have a coffee table book you need to look at samples of coffee table books. Like for like; my book is a fable, sized at A5, and with 8 full color illustrations. The printer I chose had many samples because they have been in business for many years. My illustrator's family has used them for brochures and catalogs for their business. I have seen these, and they were very good quality. As I want only #1 quality I was also pleased to see a couple of coffee table books on Buddhist Temples of Thailand and tourist places on the Andaman Sea; they were gorgeous and flawless. It appeared this printer was capable of doing the job. But to be sure, check the front pages to make sure they actually printed the book.

Once you've found a printer you'll need to have:

Cover; art/design and weight of paper. Bring a book to the printer that represents the qualities you want in your book. They will know the paper weights.

Pages; choose the weight of paper for the body of the book(mine is 120gm). It should be heavy enough to avoid seeing print on the other side of the page.

Illustrations; glossy paper for color plates (if any), again, heavy enough to avoid “bleed through” on the opposite side.

Quality of printing; this is where one must be very clear on what is expected. This and all of the previous decisions, coupled with the quantity of books printed, will determine the price you will pay per book.

The quality issue is where a printing meltdown can occur. Even though you specifically say you need to have #1 quality, it is important to go through a list of potential problems that will be unacceptable. Examples; ink smears, spots, bleed throughs (both text and illustrations), soiled pages, spots on color plates, fuzzy/blurry illustrations and text and anything else that would hurt the potential marketing/sales of your book. Number one quality is number 1, not 2, 3, or 4. I cannot over emphasize the importance of communicating quality concerns and their importance. This may not be that much of a problem in the west, but here in emerging markets it can be a stretch; but it can be gotten.

In summary; these problems are not entirely unique to Thailand, but some are. Life and business here are far more relaxed than in the west and it can be difficult to impart a sense of urgency when trying to get things done. This can be very frustrating at times. I had to reject the 1st printing of 500 books because I failed to detail to the printer just what #1 quality was for me. Unknown to me, because he didn't say, his idea of #1 quality was 92% (he is the one who said this after the fact). Fortunately (as it turns out) he didn't even achieve that. Every copy had many errors of QC (not editing). The pressman didn't maintain clean presses. Western standards of quality are possible and attainable but may take more effort to achieve. This chapter isn't over yet, so I'll be updating as things progress. As it now stands; the reprinting is scheduled to be completed about May 25th.

There is no place to rest...

It's Monday morning and I got a call...

...from my illustrator Pui. She had a meeting with the owner of the printing business and he has agreed to reprint all of the books and destroy the previous printing. I'm the first foreigner he has worked with and was a bit surprised by how serious I was regarding QC and the destruction of the rejects. He now understands how important quality is for my book. He is apparently a good businessman and takes full responsibility for his workers carelessness. All is well for Now. It will take 15 days for this next printing.

Again; I will do a critique of my own mistakes so there will not be a misunderstanding again. I will post it soon.

Addendum...(edited)

...it gets worse. I talked to my illustrator (Pui) after we left the printers and she gave me more details about her discussion with the owner. His "solution" to the disaster would be to reprint the defective pages (at least 30 per book) and "un-bind" the books and replace the defective pages and then re-bind the books. That process horrified me, no way that's going to happen. Unless he/they reprint all of my books in their entirety; I will cancel my order. This may be headed for a total meltdown. Further, Pui said the owner said (for the first time) that for the price I'm paying he can only assure 93% of the books will be error free. This absolutely floored me. Unacceptable. Further yet, the problem with "his" solution is that after rebinding they will have to trim the book again thereby reducing the size of the book, plus; will they look like new books?, or books that have been grossly mishandled. This is not an option, period! The cover is already somewhat screwed up but you wouldn't know that unless you had seen the original version. I had thought to offer an additional 5 baht per copy for a total reprint, which is an additional $.14 USD per copy. That's about a 10% increase in my cost. I've decided I will not offer an additional 5 baht per copy. At this point I don't see how I can work with this printer but Monday will be the showdown. I'm at a distinct disadvantage because I'm not fluent in Thai so I have to rely on either Pui or my wife for translation (my wife wasn't available yesterday). Monday my wife will go to the printer and (hopefully) straighten this out. My wife agrees with me 100% on everything, which makes her a very strong advocate for getting the right thing. Fortunately I had only put 2,500 baht ($72 USD) down, not the usual 50%...so, I can walk away, which I may well have to do. I do hope the owner is honestly interested in making this right.

I will follow this up with an additional post on the lessons learned and what I'll do differently next time. I definitely made some assumptions (never good in business) I had no business making, so I did make many mistakes because of my inexperience.
Keep tuned for further developments...

Disaster today at the printers...

...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...