Reply To: Good offset printer

David, thanks for the Ripon tip, we hadn't come across their name before but will investigate based on your recommendation and their helpful web site.

Shawn, thanks for your tip also, which we'll also look into asap. Our book is very large (600 pages), required a lot of editing and presented a lot of design challenges, but is now perfectly standard in terms of press-ready PDFs etc.

I'd be curious to know the larger publisher distributing your smaller publisher's work. If you wanted to share this information you could post the name here or send it to me in a personal message if you prefer. If you thought your own publisher might share, privately and confidentially, a few things like the terms they negotiated we would be very grateful to be put in touch with them.

In regard to your question, what I simply meant was that the publisher who is also the translator of the book has spent a lot of time working on its actual content. The book is already ready and laid out. The only thing lacking is the printer.

Marina, thanks for the aeonix list, which we found, but if we hadn't your tip would have been a lifesaver. Here's one in return in case you're interested, a smaller list of mostly smaller printers for mostly art books:

The funny thing about the aeonix list, though, is that the sense of stumbling on the Count of Monte Cristo's treasure fades a bit when some of the quotes start coming in: a few grossly inflated, a few people kind enough to write and say they aren't equipped for your job, a few who clearly aren't but quote you anyway, a few who don't reply, etc. Also, companies are merging, closing down, noving to China, losing business to China.

Not just paper samples but printing samples and a thorough understanding of the process and any hidden costs are a couple of things people like us should watch out for. Some printers will clearly say anything; on the topic of sheet vs web printing alone, for example, I've been told this week that “sheet fed is only for art books” and “sheet fed will double your cost”; etc. By web printers, obviously.

We're on the east coast so probably looking at different printers than you, so good luck. (100 lb paper for the entire book?)