Saragrace Knauf wrote:
Looking the 1869 Corset and Crinolines book in bookfinder.com,
My friend Robb Shep reprinted that at one point, though I don't see it
on his list now.
I came across several "ads" for books on demand printing.
<snip>
Has anyone used this type of service?
There is something called print on demand, or POD, but it actually isn't
"on demand." It is used by publishers rather than retailers or
consumers. It is used for short print runs, usually under 500 copies,
but as far as I know, never for one or two copies. (The latter, BTW,
_can_ be done, it's just really expensive.) The unit cost (the cost for
one copy of a book) of POD is always higher than for offset printing,
which makes the cover price significantly more expensive for consumers.
For over 500 copies, it's usually cheaper for everyone to use offset.
Current POD technology is based on laser printing, and most POD print
services use fairly low resolution; meaning the quality is lower than
for offset; particularly for illustrations and very much so for color
printing. The other problem with POD printers is that unlike offset
printers, they do not have the publisher check proofs every time they
print, and they often send the books direct to the wholesaler or
retailer who orders, not via the publisher. This means that if they do
something like omit a chapter or mix up pages with some other book--both
of which I've heard of POD printers doing--no one will know till they
read the book.
While offset printers are certainly capable of making printing and
binding errors, because they do quality checks themselves and then send
the publisher proofs--at several stages in the project--before shipping
the books to the publisher, most of those errors are caught before a
reader sees the book. (Unless it's a flawed but not _too_ flawed book
that the publisher winds up selling as a discounted remainder, in which
case the publisher probably accepted those copies after getting the
printer to make a financial adjustment to compensate for the error.)
Bookstores dislike books marketed as POD because they are afraid the
publisher will always be out of stock when they order. Getting a book
through a POD service takes several months; it's no faster than using an
offset printer, which also takes several months. Book reviewers dislike
POD due to the existence of several rather sleazy companies who offer
additional publishing services such as editing, layout, and cover
design, but who perform them badly; so those POD companies have become
associated with exceptionally low-quality books.
In other words POD is currently considered a suboptimal printing method.
We do offset print runs, of about 5,000 books per print run.
I have always been dubious about the "POD in the bookstore" model
because with the current equipment, I can't see getting your copy of the
book in less than half an hour or so. That's longer than most people
want to be in a checkout line; and if you multiply it by several other
books you're buying, or several other customers ahead of you, well, no
one is going to stand around waiting for their purchase to pop off the
press. Maybe you could call in ahead and go pick it up--but unless your
need is same-day, in that case you might as well just order an offset
copy off the Internet.
I do see a use for POD equipment, and it probably _is_ used, on site for
large corporations wanting to produce short runs of user manuals,
technical reports, and in short bound corporate publications that don't
have to be too glitzy.
Fran
Lavolta Press
http://www.lavoltapress.com
What do you think?
Sg
----- Original Message -----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Historical Costume<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2006 11:35 AM
Subject: [h-cost] iron corset
Emma
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