Re: Company that creates hardcopies (book format)?

Subject: Re: Company that creates hardcopies (book format)?
From: Dick Margulis <margulis -at- fiam -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 07:21:42 -0500


Jacqueline Jacinto Favis wrote:

Hi All,

I work for a very small company (under 15 people) as their sole tech
writer. And, I'm looking for a company that can take our electronic
documentation and produce hardcopies, in a professional-looking book
format.
Does anyone know of any companies in particular that can do that?

Thanks,
Jackie



When you say professional-looking book format, do you mean you are you looking for a publisher to import your text into a publishing program and generate better-looking pages than you have designed? Or are you looking for a printer to take your professional-looking pages and get them onto paper and between covers?

In the former case, I'd recommend posting a project on http://www.creativemoonlighter.com/, where a lot of talented, really cheap graphic artists hang out. Among them you will likely be able to find a designer who can deal with technical publishing without getting all arty-farty on you, and you will save considerable money compared with bidding the project out to local graphic design firms.

In the latter case, you are looking for a printer, and you need to know up front how many copies of the book you want to produce. Armed with that information, you can determine if this is going to be an offset job or a digital printing job, and once you know that, you can either go through a local print broker (who knows the capabilities of printers in your region and works on commissions paid by the printers, so this won't cost you extra), or you can do your own research, starting with the yellow pages. Depending on the printer who eventually gets the job, the binding will either be something they do in-house or they will send the job to a bindery after printing. This should be transparent to you, and you should be able to specify any style of binding you want.

One word of caution: If you do not know what you want--that is, if you are ignorant of printing considerations such as kinds and weights of paper, different binding types, page size and imposition issues, book layout conventions, etc.--I'd strongly suggest working with a professional designer.

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References:
Company that creates hardcopies (book format)?: From: Jacqueline Jacinto Favis

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