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WritersPrintshop – Designer notes
 | Some guidelines for designers submitting files for publication. |
| This is only for people who want to design their own book or cover. We
offer a full design service for the text and cover. |
| Unless you have the necessary equipment, software and the information
below makes sense, then you are strongly advised to use our experts. |
| However, the ability to produce digital files is increasingly common and
these guideline will indicate what is required. |
General
| Interior content should be black and white. Colour content that is
submitted is reproduced as black and white although this is due to change
early in 2007 when colour will be possible. |
| Exterior covers may be colour or black & white but are all printed on a
four-colour print machine. |
| Binding processes require that a book must have more than 48 pages and
less than 800 pages. |
Books size
The final cost of the books depends on the number of pages so it is worth
thinking about the layout. Larger page size means fewer pages so lower unit cost
of each book.
Binding Types and Trim Sizes for paperbacks
| Book mm |
Paper stock |
| 203 x 127 |
Cream 55lb./ 85gsm |
| 216 x 140 (Demy 8vo) |
Cream 55lb./ 85gsm |
| 229 x 152 Demy |
Cream 55lb./ 85gsm |
| 234 x 156 (Royal) |
White 50lb./ 75gsm |
| 244 x 170 |
White 50lb./ 75gsm |
| 254 x 178 |
White 50lb./ 75gsm |
| 246 x 189 (Crown) |
White 50lb./ 75gsm |
| 235 x 191 |
White 50lb./ 75gsm |
But if they are planning a book size of A4, 280x210 or 210x297, the page
print cost goes up so try to fit into one of the sizes in the table above. All
these sizes can be bound in cloth covers or as hardbacks.
Book Block Page Count
Text pages are printed in four-page (two front/two back) single sheet
"signatures". The last page must be left blank for production information (a
barcode) and the page count of the book must be divisible by four, or additional
blank pages must be added.
Books are printed using digital printing equipment similar to a quality laser
printer. Reproduction quality may vary from offset production due to many
circumstances including original print quality, original halftone/picture
quality. The proof copy allows quality to be adjusted to suit the print process
and this ensures expectations are met.
It is difficult for designers to get the cover spine exactly the right
thickness until they have to know the page count (and the thickness of the
paper). So sort out the text first to find the number of pages, not forgetting
to include the preliminaries and any index or additional pages in the
calculation. (Two pages make one sheet or piece of paper).
The Cover
| The cover is a vital part of the book which deserves a significant
investment of your time. It must attract attention. As many people will
probably buy the book online, the image must be strong even when viewed as a
small image inside Amazon (only 648 pixels high). |
| The best solution is to flow any image from the front onto the back cover
to avoid a sharp edge at the binding. Avoid sharp graphic boundaries between
the front, spin and back. |
| Lettering on the spine must be 2mm away from the nominal edge. A larger
margin is recommended unless you are very confident about the thickness of the
spine of the finished book. |
| When the cover meets the pages there must be at least a 2mm margin of
error. This is known as ‘bleed’. Make sure the cover image extends at least
this distance (preferably 5mm) beyond the design edge. |
| Covers should be produced as a landscape page, wide enough to cover the
front, spine and back of the book, along with 1/8" bleed on all sides. |
| You will need to have about 76 pages to allow you to include any text on
the spine. |
| To make life easy for you, we can produce a cover template with all these
margins marked along with the barcode. You need to send us the number of
pages, the page size, the title, the price (if you want it included in the
barcode and finally the isbn – which we normally supply as a part of the
deal). |
| We can email this template to you for you to place your cover artwork.
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Barcode
An EAN bar code is created on the back cover of the book ( not on cloth bound
books) by WPS. Barcode will be placed on the back cover of the book, with the
appropriate EAN embedded in the barcode and the ISBN within the box above it.
The standard size of the barcode is 57.6 points, however, a barcode of up to 72
points can be inserted. If the price on the cover of a book should be added,
deleted, or revised please indicate this in the special instructions field when
submitting the title. Specify if this change is to be made to the cover itself,
the barcode, or both.
Pricing in UK Pounds and US dollars is conventionally printed to the right of
the bar code.
WPS logo
A set of jpeg files in various colours are available. These go at the bottom
of the spine. The WPS lettering block is never bigger than 11mm wide by 15mm
tall and there is no minimum size provided it is ‘legally legible’. If you
condense, expand or distort the logotype in any way it may end up with it
looking like someone else's logo. So we strongly recommend you include it ‘as
is’.
Text Block files
"Print ready" files can be accepted in the following formats:
| Adobe PDF (.pdf) |
| Adobe InDesign |
| Quark XPress |
| PageMaker |
MS Word document files are not accepted for printing. (PDF versions of Word
document files are accepted.) You can, of course, send Word files to us to
design the pages for you. The best known page-layout programmes are Adobe
InDesign, Quark X-Press and Microsoft Publisher. These sophisticated graphic
programmes offer more options to a designer than any word processor.
Submitting PDF Files -
| PDF stands for Portable Document Format. They are the preferred way to
deliver your digital files. There are a number of ways to turn your text files
into the PDF format. PDF is an output format that is normally ‘read only’ so
it cannot be edited. You need to make sure that you have all the correct text
and settings inside your page layout document before you convert it to a PDF. |
| PDF files should be set to an A4 (8.26x11.69/297x210mm) template, centred
and contain no crop marks. |
| All the text must all be in a single file. |
| Please embed all fonts and all font family members used. Submit even the
most common fonts; your version’s special characters, expansion sets, etc. If
you omit any font it can upset your layout. (Font embedding should be
specified to the distiller in order to assure that all fonts are included
in-line with the document.) |
| Font subset should be set at 100%. We have been experiencing some
difficulties when font files are compressed so please send extra copies of any
font files embedded in your files. |
| Output resolution should be set to 600 dpi. |
Submitting Quark and Pagemaker Files
If submitting a QuarkXPress or PageMaker Document, all elements must be
provided to complete the digital set up process (i.e. live art, images and
fonts).
| All images must be in a CMYK format and at a 300dpi resolution. |
| All fonts must include screen and printer versions. |
| All artwork must be saved as a CMYK format. |
Cover files are accepted in the following formats (listed by preference)
| One or three piece TIF files (.tif) |
| Adobe PDF (.pdf) |
| Quark |
| PageMaker 6.5 |
Naming your files
When you submit the text and cover file the names must have the isbn followed
by txt or cov then the file type ( which is normally added automatically). These
are the accepted formats: 1234567890txt.pdf and 1234567890cov.pdf
For all cover files:
| Scan all images at 300dpi |
| Save all images as CMYK TIFF |
| Convert all colors to CMYK |
| Convert all EPS files to CMYK |
Casebound Titles
Cloth-style casebound titles require text copy for spine production.
Up to 42 characters (including spaces) may be used to stamp the title,
author, and/or other text the publisher designates onto the spine. Characters
available include the 26 upper letters, numerals 1-10, space, period, comma,
hyphen, quote, apostrophe, slash, and the two parentheses. Text is positioned on
the spine of the book as the publisher designates during the title setup
process.
The same digital file or hardcopy book may be submitted for paperback and
casebound editions provided the trim size is the same, however, a new copyright
page containing the ISBN for that format may be needed. A new ISBN is required
by the book industry for each format.
Hardback Specifications
Hardback (hb) book blocks are bound in 215gsm/80lb crème-white end leaves and
glued into hardback cases. Books are dressed with headbands and footbands and
bound into either printed four-colour laminated covers or a durable Kivar
acrylic latex-saturated linen-weave covers with a gold foil stamped spine. Cloth
covered books are available in blue or grey. Foil stamping on the front of the
book is not available.
Revised Feb 07
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