How a book is made

[Nate the great]

I just came across this infographic by Funnel Inc. Funnel made this image for a book printer so the printer could show their customers all the steps involved in making a book. If you have a morning to spare, click through to Funnel’s website and check out their portfolio. It’s a lot of fun.

crossposted from The Digital Reader

[AJ Starr]

Great description. But did you notice the copyright date: 2005. Prior to ebooks being as prevalent as they are now.

Wonder if anyone has created one of these pictograms for the production of ebooks......

Are you listening - - - PUBLISHERS. (how many steps can you cut out?)

AJ

[WillAdams]

The problem is, that infographic doesn't show the steps involved in designing and typesetting a book.

While not quite as vivid, here's a poster which shows what should (and should not) be done at what steps in a book production process:

http://www.unc.edu/~jbrady/Studio/Timeline_card.pdf

William

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by WillAdams

The problem is, that infographic doesn't show the steps involved in designing and typesetting a book.

While not quite as vivid, here's a poster which shows what should (and should not) be done at what steps in a book production process:

http://www.unc.edu/~jbrady/Studio/Timeline_card.pdf

William

Isn't typesetting done by the publisher before giving the book to the printer?

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by AJ Starr

Great description. But did you notice the copyright date: 2005. Prior to ebooks being as prevalent as they are now.

Wonder if anyone has created one of these pictograms for the production of ebooks......

Are you listening - - - PUBLISHERS. (how many steps can you cut out?)

AJ

I think that was the copyright date for the site, not this infographic.

[LDBoblo]

And for ebooks...

OK OK it's just a joke, don't get up in my grill about it
Missed cloning out some, but it'll do for the purpose intended

I suppose if I had more time, I'd add a yoga studio and basketball court, seeing how there's room and all...

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

And for ebooks...

OK OK it's just a joke, don't get up in my grill about it
Missed cloning out some, but it'll do for the purpose intended

I suppose if I had more time, I'd add a yoga studio and basketball court, seeing how there's room and all...

That's awesome!

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

That's awesome!

What's really sad is that I could remove half of the remaining computer folks there (prepress group) without losing anything from the ebook process. I left them on to substitute for tech support and uploading.

[ChrisC333]

Originally Posted by AJ Starr

Are you listening - - - PUBLISHERS. (how many steps can you cut out?)

AJ

Good question, but maybe not as many steps as we might initially think. I Googled the cost of printing and, for a run in the thousands rather than the hundreds, I'm seeing figures as low as a dollar per book quoted. Even if you allow closer to $2 that doesn't make or break a deal for me.

Publishers tell us that printing is only a small part of what they organise. They say that their business revolves around the wider job of developing the careers of their authors. That includes paying author advances (some of which never get recouped from sales) providing good editing (which is a very noticeable lack in many self published ebooks), doing a range of tasks with the design of the book (most of which don't disappear with an e-book - up to and including a cover design) , arranging the all important publicity, and generally being available to hold the author's hand and help them get through the long and often stressful business of getting through the writing. That doesn't sound unrealistic to me. Lumping everything under the blanket heading of "Publishers" also overlooks all the other steps in the chain. For instance, there's a substantial price jump from wholesaler to retailer.


My guess is that the savings are more likely to be made not so much in publishing, but in retailing. Online stores aren't cost free to set up and run, but they certainly should be able to provide a service for less than a traditional bookshop. But there will be up and down sides to that too. I certainly want to pay less for an e-book - because, apart from anything else I'm limited to how I can use it compared to a pbook - but I'm not going to get too upset if the saving isn't always as big as I might like. Ultimately, getting the content is usually more important to me than fretting about the price. Not everybody would agree of course.

Cheers,

Chris

OOPS... P.S. Good chart Nate.

[K-Thom]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

And for ebooks...

OK OK it's just a joke, don't get up in my grill about it
Missed cloning out some, but it'll do for the purpose intended

I suppose if I had more time, I'd add a yoga studio and basketball court, seeing how there's room and all...

Well, at least finally enough storage room for all those unused AOL-CDs ...

[mrkarl]

it always amazes me how the binding process is discribed.......it's actually not that easy to see that thousands of books come out with the pages in the right order, the page numbers haven't been cut off and all that.