Making Books
I was trying to finish up a draft on paperback publishing and got sidetracked on a research tangent:
Books: From Manuscript to Classroom circa 1920
Oxford University Press and the Making of a Book, 1925
Railway newspaper stand and printing Penguin books in the 1940s
Making Books, 1947
Lithography (1940-1949)
Newspaper Publishing Process: “Newspaper Story” 1950
Learning to Set Type, 1959
Typesetting & Linotype, 1960
How Books are Made & Repaired: “Bookbinders” circa 1961
How a Book Is Made – Episode 6: Printing the Book (uploaded 2013)
The Well-Built Book, Copyright 1998, (but I’m thinking the orig. film is actually 1989-1990)
The Well-Built Book from Dianne Morris on Vimeo.
How Do They Do It? How books are made. (2005-ish?)
Book Printing and Manufacturing- A Guided Tour (uploaded 2012)
Digital Printing, Courier/HP 2011
Courier from Steve Franzino on Vimeo.
Digital Printing, Timson/Kodak 2012
6 minutes to print a book, Espresso Book Machine, Darien Library (uploaded 2011)
How much does all this cost? [for a single-color, 256 page book]
Pricing:
Quantity : Cost : Cost/Unit
5,000 : $10,689 : 2.17
7,500 : $14,255 : 1.90
10,000 : $17,817 : 1.78
…
This is a summary of costs, excluding shipping.
The manufacture of books — the subject of all those videos embedded earlier in this post — is an amazing technological marvel, and because of all the processes and inputs involved, it seems like the printing of the physical object should be the number one contributor to cost. However, by the time plates are made (or files uploaded) at the printer, the book is already finished. The act of physical printing — of making copies — isn’t as cheap as the act of making digital copies, but the difference is only $2-5.
