Post
by polymath » December 14th, 2010, 10:30 am
Kinkos is now FedEx Office. They have full service printing and a range of other services, like online POD book manufacturing comparable to Lulu and CreateSpace. A writer without a printer nor a nearby office services business can upload a print job to the FedEx Office site and have it delivered printed as quickly as overnight. Costly though.
My el-cheapo printer costs me about $0.10 per full page of text duplex printed. I've noted a cost tradeoff in ink and paper. Compressing or condensing printing onto fewer leaves of paper increases ink consumption per page. I prefer hardcopy editing at full Standard Manuscript Format size, Courier New typeface, double line space so there's plenty of white space for markup.
By the way, the practice of one-sided printing began because typing papers weren't fully opaque back in the mid Twentieth century. Photocopying reproduced both sides. The idea was saving postage costs from two-sided printing and using light weight onion skin paper, about 12 pound, darned near transparent to a photocopier.
I'm not inclined toward binding a copyedit copy, even spiral binding, for cost and hassle reasons. Spiral binding is a relatively inexpensive binding method compared to perfection binding. Stitch stapling is less expensive but limited by book block thickness. I prefer loose leaves in a plain manila folder stuffed into a reused document envelope like the ones FedEx, UPS, and USPS letter packages come in. For shipping, a standard letter-sized paper shipping box available at office supply stores. The boxes come in several sizes, 100-page, half ream, full ream.
Office bindery services offer several other binding styles: presentation cover and board cover. Theses are usually bound in presentation covers and business plans in board covers.
Though I have a homemade home shop bindery I use when I do want to bind small quantities of books. When I want to bind just one copy I use two small boards as a padding press and C-clamps to hold the book block and press boards together during gluing. The boards have notches spaced a quarter-inch apart for letting a backsaw scuff and cut the binding edge to receive glue for perfection binding. I use white glue and lay it on thick in several brushed coats. I also have a bindery stapler, a book trimmer, an antique book press, a homemade padding press, and a cover laminator. Books from my home bindery shop are comparable to those done by POD manufacturers in quality and cost. Anymore, the hassle and cost lean me toward going with a POD company except for one or a few copy output.
I prefer recycled paper for more than environmentally conscious reasons. It's cheaper first of all. I prefer the coarser finish, the antique, bamboo white finish of recycled paper for less eyes strain than the slick bright white papers' garish day-glo glare, which are best for graphics and color printing. Frankly, I don't see the value in ever whiter paper for text printing any more than I see the value in ever whiter baking flour chemically stripped of its nutritional value. When I read from paper I like a light newsprint brown paper and an 8 to 9 on a 10 gray scale ink because that combination is easy on my eyes, about like book printing, in fact.
Spread the love of written word.