Tomorrow the artist Lajuana Lampkins is publishing The Collected Works of Prince Akbar aka Jus Rhymz, which she edited. Here’s an article in Block Club Chicago about the book. I helped produce the book and I want to share specifics about how we got it done. Here’s details on the printer and how to get the files ready for press.

Placing an actual order for 500 real books of 120 pages each that is going to be shipped directly to a place in the real world is a kind of nerve-racking experience. But if you live in the moment, treat your files with a seriousness and obsessiveness, and accept that fact that you will still make about a hundred mistakes, you can come out on the other side.

Choosing a printer

Printing is publishing. Mega-sized publishing houses wrap a ton of activities around printing, but in the end, printing is publishing. In 2019 I printed two editions of Arte Agora: Art made, sold, or placed in the public way with Steuben Press.

I was very happy with them– good quality, good communication.

Earlier this year I published a 24-page booklet, Paul Jacoulet: Outsider Artist, A reconsideration of Japanese Woodcut Art from a Parisian in Japan, 1934 – 1960 and I did a google search in this “lower-end” zine/ comic/ booklet printing space. I found Printing Center USA— they printed the booklets super-fast and very cheaply.

When I compared Steuben to Printing Center USA for the “Collected Works” job, Printing Center USA was slightly cheaper and had a far shorter lead time for priting & delivery.

One of the best things about them is that they have this estimator so you can easily get a quote and quickly get a look for the book.

Preparing files for print

Working out the actual pagination– the exact flow of the book, accounting for the physical requirements of the printing process– is always the hardest thing for me to figure out. I have two ways to get this done– comps and a test book.

A “comp” is a photocopied printout of the book on 8-1/2 x 11 paper that shows page layout and allows for visually review and editing. I just go to FedEx Kinkos and print them out double-sided. You have to make sure that you put in your spacer pages for the inside front cover and the inside back cover otherwise the whole thing gets muffed up, throwing the whole thing off of registration.

For this book we decided to start each section with a two-picture spread:

Then the reader turns the page to see another picture, then the content starts on the right hand side.

This is the kind of simple concept that makes a coherent layout possible- you’ve got to have this rhythm set before you try to lay out the book.

Once the comp is good (it can take 3-4 times to get it right), I dummy up a “test book”. For this, I take a previous book I’ve already written (or you can just take a book with a format you like that you want to mimic) and using it as a template. I literally write over each page, using the comp as a guide.

First you have to upload the interior. You don’t have to account for inside front cover or inside back cover here, because the cover is uploaded as a separate file.

Online print shops will always have useful templates for the cover. I’m not that talented so I use PowerPoint to do it. Getting the spine done is the worst.

Download the templates, read the tutorials, stay within the cutlines, keep uploading again and again until you’re clicking finger turns blue, you got this.

Remember that if you don’t know what you’re doing, lower your expectations. Publish, publish, publish.