How A Book Is Produced
The purpose of this section is not to train readers as production people, but rather to orient them in the various phases of the production process of a book. Within the limitations of this chapter, however we will present some basics.
Typesetting
For more than four hundred years after Gutenberg's invention of movable type, all type was set by hand, a tedious process. Each letter or character was a separate piece, made at first of wood and later of metal. In 1886, typesetting was revolutionized by Ottmar Mergenthaler's invention of the Linotype. Now, for the first time, a full "line of type," in one piece of metal, or "slug," could be set by machine.
In the Linotype system, which held sway for newspapers, magazines, and books until the 1950s, the operator typed out the copy on a keyboard. The machine arranged matrices (individual type molds) into a line of words. When a line was completed, the machine delivered the metal slugs. For books that were typeset on the Linotype, these metal slugs were collected on a metal tray, called a galley, which was then inked to pull galley proofs.
There are hundreds of different typefaces, divided into two basic styles: roman (straight up and down) and italic (slanted). Most faces come in both roman and italic. Type is further classified by its breakdown into serif (letters that have fine lines finishing off the main strokes) and sans serif (letters with no such fine lines). Type is further delineated between bold, medium, or light face. Many typefaces that were designed more than two hundred years ago are still in use today.
Typefaces are designed to serve the imagination of the designer or art director who may choose from a wide variety of available faces.
Today, the somewhat primitive Linotype has given way to photo-typesetting. Modern computer technology produces about fifteen hundred characters a minute, or ninety thousand characters an hour, without sacrificing quality. Desktop computers are used in page layout and proofing, as well as for typesetting.
Printing
There are three printing systems in use today: letterpress, gravure, and offset. Letterpress is the oldest, dating from eleventh-century China.
In letterpress, printing is by the raised, or relief, method. For short runs, sheet-fed presses are used, for longer runs, web-fed rotary presses print from rolls.
Gravure uses a sunken, or depressed, surface for the image. When gravure printing is done on a rotary press, the process is called rotogravure. Gravure printing offers a greater variety of shadings from light to dark than is possible with the other two printing systems. However, this system is seldom used in book printing, since its economy is only effected in very large runs.
Offset lithography is a method of printing from a flat surface. It is the most-used process for book printing. There are offset presses for short, medium, and long runs. Both sheets and rolls are used, depending on the capability of the presses.
The major advantage of the offset process is the simplicity of preparation, since no expensive molded or cast plates are required.
The Desktop Revolution
Computerized desktop equipment at a publishing house allows for high speed in the typesetting process. It also affords the designer the opportunity of experimenting with dozens of typefaces in a variety of sizes on his or her desktop. Type can be bent, expanded, toned, even placed on curves.
For books that involve color photographs or illustrations, desk-top equipment like the Macintosh, a color scanner, and software separate the subjects into four-color film negatives. This work may be done inexpensively in-house, or farmed out to service bureaus. Color correcting is also done electronically before the pages go to press.
Most design schools are emphasizing desktop publishing (DTP) training. Their graduates have a head start in entering the field, needing only on-the-job training on specific functions.
Paper
Paper for book production comes in different weights, shades, degrees of opacity, and texture. For mass-market paperbacks, publishers use inexpensive, ground wood paper, which is off-white in color, and is usually supplied in rolls designed for high-speed offset presses.
For limited-run trade, technical, or textbook publishing, the more expensive "free" (free of ground wood) papers are used. These papers are generally bulkier than ground wood, and are bleached to ensure permanency. The quality of a book's paper is an important factor in its overall presentation.
Most hardbound books have coated, or "slick" paper dust- covers, which have display value and also serve as protective jackets or wrappers.
Binding
Binding refers to the finishing process after a book is printed. Some printers have their own binderies, other binders are located separately.
There are two basic binding processes used in book production: Smyth sewing and perfect. The printer may supply the unfolded sheets to the binder as they come off the press, or fold the sheets into eight-, sixteen-, or thirty-two-page "signatures," or sections, as part of the printing press's operation. The signatures are then gathered together, along with the covers, and bound.
In Smyth-sewing, an expensive process, a special sewing machine threads the pages of each signature, and all the signatures together, in preparation for receiving the cover.
If the book is to be "case-bound," the cover is composed of a leather, leatherette, or plastic fabric wrapped around stiff boards. Endpapers are then attached to the insides of the cover and adhered to the first and last pages of the body of the book.
Many books, especially mass-market paperbacks, are "perfect- bound." In this process the sections are held together by a flexible adhesive. The cover is glued on to the body, and the backbone is square, giving a neat, attractive appearance to the book.
Copyediting, design, and production offer challenging careers. All three of these areas are creative and make an important contribution to the book publishing process.
