Custom Publishing:
Design, Printing and Fine Hand-binding of Books
from
any* digital text.
Buckram Grove Press, the private press of
Michael Keller - Bookbinding, will turn any* electronic
text into a beautifully hand-crafted, finely bound book
suitable as a Gift or Presentation Copy.
"WHAT WILL THE FINISHED BOOK LOOK LIKE ?"
Physically, the standard book produced by Buckram Grove Press measures apx. 6 x 9 " (15 x 23 mm.). Thickness is dependant on the number of pages. Usually printed in 14pt. - 18pt. black on a computer printer. Soft cover is hand-sewn and typically covered with traditional printed paper wrappers. Hard cover copies are hand-sewn onto cloth tapes and bound in boards with a variety of leathers, cloths, and decorative papers. A short title is hand-set and hot-stamped on either the cover or a spine label. Pages are usually printed on an off-white 24 lb. stock paper; somewhat thicker than a standard 20 lb. printer paper..
(making a book at the press - illustrated) also see below: traditional layout & bibliographic description
How a Fine Press Book differs from an adhesive bound, etc.
In the Western World, books evolved into a structure which, if done properly and with high quality materials, will last indefinitely. Briefly, multiple pages are printed on a single sheet of paper, folded and sewn through the fold, thus allowing the pages to open flat with minimum stress on the structure. Common modern publication techniques, such as ring binders, adhesive binding and 'spiral-bound' variations all rely on single sheet pages held together at the spine.
"Can I print my own pages ?"
To print pages for a 'real' book requires that they be juxtaposed in such a way as to form folded sections ("signatures") which will then be sewn together through the fold. There are a number of methods and computer programs currently available for this purpose, but, like any new program, they all require some time and effort to master. I regret I cannot be a source of advice on these matters. However, should you produce suitable printed signatures yourself, any competent hand-binder will be capable of sewing and binding them into a 'real' book.
You may even consider learning to hand-sew signatures yourself and DIY. After all, it ain't rocket science.
Fine Press embellishments
Buckram Grove Press offers a variety of design 'extras' typical of fine presswork; e.g. hundreds of fonts, 'dingbats and 'printer's devices', decorative Initials at the beginning of chapters ('dropcaps'); a Frontispiece (usually author's portrait facing the title page), and use of other graphics, hand-tinting, Customized Presentation page(s) usually in a dated 'colophon' at the end of the book.
View sample pages
This section contains images of various pages from a recent commission. For this work, the client left all matters of taste and design to our judgement. Click on any thumbnail image to view enlargement.
See other sample pages from our fine press 'unique copies'.
Binding styles and materials
Typically, the book will be divided up into 16 page 'signatures' and printed as such; hand-sewn onto re-enforced cloth tapes; rounded (if size permits) and backed with unbleached cotton & kraft paper; fore-edge trimmed; unsewn headbands (if spine thickness permits); and bound into single or split boards. The book is then covered in either:
Quarter Cloth (spine only) re-enforced unbleached cotton (traditional) / or your choice of light-weight binding cloth [10 colours]; boards covered with hand-made decorative paste-papers, hand-marbled paper, or a coloured art stock; or,
Half-Leather (spine and corners). Calf - usually 15 to 20 colours to choose from; boards covered with hand-made decorative paste-papers, hand-marbled paper, or a coloured art stock.
Other binding options and materials may be possible (e.g. a Family Tartan provided by the client).
Unbound printed sheets are also available.
Fonts
The Press has several hundreds of fonts (from antiquarian to modern - from traditional to whimsical), or you may provide your own [TrueType] font if you have a preference which is not represented in our collection.
Choices and options available
The client may simply "leave everything to us", in which case we will endeavor to match all matters of design and taste with the book's content, always keeping within traditional standards of practice (client references available upon request). Or, the client may specify any or all of the following: binding materials and colours; font choice & size; Layout progression; Embellishments and extra graphics. In addition, as already mentioned, it is often possible to incorporate special materials (supplied by the client) into the binding or body of the book itself.
Typical bibliographic description and layout
Bibliographic & Binding Information for Thomas Paine's Common Sense
[taken from the Prospectus]
viii, 76 pp., [ 6 x 16 pp. signatures ]
apx.: 15 x 23 mm. / 6 x 9 in.
frontispiece: hand-tinted reproduction of T.Paine's engraved portrait.
title-page design based on the Revised Edition of 1791 ( W. & T. Bradford, Philadelphia, 1791 )
hand-tinted decorative initials designed specifically for this work.
Hand-sewn onto reinforced cloth tapes; backed with cotton cloth; sewn-in endpapers; headbands; spine label or short title on cover, hand-set with Romanesque caps and hot-stamped in gold (foil).
Bindings available:
- Half leather case binding; calf spine and corners; hollow back; hand-made decorative paste-papers in Colonial style.
- Quarter cloth case binding; reinforced unbleached cotton cloth spine; hand-made decorative paste-papers in Colonial style.
- Unbound sheets also available.
[all volumes dated and signed on day of production.]
TRADITIONAL LAYOUT PROGRESSION (order of pages) of finished book:
Page # - Description
1/2 ---- front pastedown (blank)
3/4 ---- front flyleaf (blank)
5/6 ---- half-title page (short title only)
7/8 ---- frontispiece (illustration prior to title-page)
9/10 --- title page
11/12 -- contents page(s) [list of illustrations; author's introduction; preface, etc.]
13/14 -- text body [actual page numbering begins]
-------- colophon (info. on printing: i.e. fonts, no. of copies, etc.)
-------- rear flyleaf (blank)
-------- rear pastedown (blank)
"WHAT DO I NEED TO DO ?"
Before contacting us, it would be very helpful to read all the information on this webpage, in particular the points listed below.
If the text and or graphics, etc. you would like custom published is not your own work, you must consider the question of copyright.
Full contact information is available at
CONTACT, e-mail of course, is preferred.
Doing it all via e-mail
If the text/material you wish to have made into a book exists on your computer or floppy disk, it should be a relatively easy matter to compress the file(s) and send it to the Press via e-mail attachment, along with other relevant information as listed below.
What to include in your initial contact
NAME; GENERAL LOCATION; NUMBER OF WORDS IN TEXT DOCUMENT; PREFERENCES (see above); IS THERE A COMPLETION TIME CONSIDERATION ?; THE EXACT WORDING OF COVER TITLE AND ANY DEDICATION OR PRESENTATION TEXT; and of course, any questions you may have which have not been already covered in this webpage. After all points have been mutually agreed upon, you will then be free to send the digital text/material via e-mail or, if necessary, on disk via surface post.
While the Press can translate text/graphics from paper to digital data, it would greatly add to the time required for the project, and so greatly increase the expense.
TEXT FORMATS
With the large number of word processing programs and text editors in use today; each using more or less their own individual system of encoding information, there is no guarantee that any word processor can recognize and convert a document created by another program.
To get around this problem, the document file must be in one of several 'lowest common denominator' formats [see below]. This is usually done quite easily by the "SaveAs" feature found on most word processors and text editors. This function should give the user a variety of text formats to save a text file in. This new file should have no effect on the main file it is made from.
All of the following basic formats are recognized by our programs, and therefore would be appropriate files to send to the Press:
ASCII [file extension: .txt ; .asc ; .dos; etc.]
By far the most basic and universally recognized, however, as it only contains keyboard characters (incl. spaces) it will save only words, sentences and paragraphs. This is usually not that much of a short-coming, given that all established margins, tabs, page breaks, etc. are normally re-done whan laying out the text as a book page. However, all text emphasis [font changes, italics, bold] will be lost.
Rich Text Format / RTF [file extension: .rtf]
Most word processors in use today have the ability to convert to this universal standard. This conversion *should* have the capacity to save all text AND much of the original layout information including most text enhancements.
HTML (HyperText MetaLanguage) [file extension: .htm ; .html]
The format of the internet. This format retains information similar to RTF [see above].
WordPerfect - *version 6 or earlier* [file extension: .wpd ; .wp_ ]
This particular word processor format is mentioned only because it is the program used by the Press for design and layout. Obviously in this case ALL text enhancement information would be retained.
Other Formats
If for some reason conversion to any of the above formats is not possible, let us know what specific word processor your document was created with and we will attempt to convert it ourselves.
NOTE: The Press does NOT use PDF [POSTSCRIPT] formats.
Compression of files
When sending large e-mail attachments, it is always polite to compress the file using a compression utility (such as WinZip or any of several dozen other programs) and advise the recipient of the compression type used (e.g. .zip, etc.). The advantage is speed of sending and retrieval over the internet. This also applies to all graphic files [see below].
Graphics Files
A list of Graphic formats which the Press can recognize would be too long to include here. Among the most common are:
.GIF ; .JPEG ; .BMP ; .TIFF ; .PCX ; etc., etc.
If you have any doubt about the graphic format, almost all Graphics Programs have the ability to convert files to one or more of the above formats - usually through the 'SaveAs' function (similar to word processors and editors - see above).
For aesthetic purposes, it is normal for the press to adjust raw graphics to make them appropriate for use within a book. These adjustments typically could include conversion to grayscale, cropping, sharpening detail, etc.
NOTE: head and shoulder portraits have traditionally been popular as frontispieces for books. On the other hand, particularly 'busy' images such as group photos usually loose too much detail and effectiveness in a necessarily smaller size.
"HOW MUCH WILL IT COST ?"
This 'publishing' option is probably the most expensive
Assuming standard materials are used throughout; the Design and Layout of a typical 30,000 word document with all of the usual embellishments listed above will normally run into more than several days of design, printing and binding.
The design element is obviously a one-time charge (i.e. subsequent copies would require only printing and binding - and be priced accordingly).
The Printing / Binding cost would be dependant on style and materials chosen.
- UNBOUND PRINTED SHEETS -
- SOFT COVER (traditionally with 'printed wrappers')
- QUARTER CLOTH BINDING -
- HALF LEATHER -
Factors affecting price
Other than the relatively small percentage required for the cost of materials & equipment, the price of a book is simply a reflection of the time required by the Press and Bindery for each commission. In other words, it is based on an hourly rate. Therefore, the fewer challenges, encumbrances and special considerations, the fewer hours / days required...
NOTE: A document in a language other than English usually requires special characters or a non-Roman alphabet font (preferably supplied by the client); and usually requires extra setup time.
NOTE: The Press normally assumes absolutely NO editing, grammer or spell-checking responsibilities. It is assumed that the text will appear 'as is' in the finished book.
SHIPPING AND HANDLING: Usual shipment is by surface mail.
Billing Policy
Once all terms are mutually agreed upon, work will commence upon receipt of the digital file(s) and a minimum deposit of half the total invoice estimate. The balance due upon receipt of the finished book.
Personal Cheques or Money Orders ONLY. Payable to: " MICHAEL KELLER / BOOKBINDER "
"How long will it take to complete ?"
Unless otherwise stated, the client may assume a maximum of 30 days between commencement of work and final shipment.