Preparing Your Book For Printing

To Prepare Your Cover For Printing:

• Provide a copy of your full-color cover, either a computer printout (inkjet, wax thermal, color photocopy, or dye sub, etc.) or a hand-colored piece (watercolor, acrylic, or markers, etc.) as a wraparound at the actual size it will print, with the back cover on the left, the spine in the middle (if any), and the front cover on the right. Provide 1/8" of bleed on each side of your cover. Place crop marks on the four edges of the cover and tick marks above and below the right and left edges of the spine.
• For books that will have squarebound spines (64+ pages), figure out the width of the spine by dividing your page count by 426 and adding .02. This gives you what fraction of an inch your spine will be (for example, 152 pages divided by 426 = .36 +.02 = .38 inches spine width). No type or logos may print on the spine unless your book is 108 pages or more.
• If possible, provide the cover without pasted-on elements. If you are hand-coloring a black and white original that has some text and logo pasteup on it, first photocopy the pasted-up cover onto a single 11 x 17" sheet of paper or bristol. Then color the copy. In this way you'll avoid the shadows and lines that would otherwise appear around the pasted-on elements. If you must construct your cover from two pieces due to the size limitations of a color printer, print the front cover and spine on one 8 1/2 x 11" sheet and the back cover on a separate 8 1/2 x 11" sheet. Paste the two pieces together at the left edge of the spine.

The interior pages of your book are printed on sturdy, bright white 60# paper stock. You don't see this quality of paper in comic books very often!

To Prepare Your Interior Pages:

Simply photocopy (or print out) each page at the size it will actually print on standard 8 1/2 x 11" sheets of paper. Each page should be on its own sheet (do not send as double-sided copies). Any book over 32 pages must have page numbers printed on each page, with the possible exception of front matter pages (title page, table of contents, etc.). All pages without page numbers printing must have the page numbers marked lightly in pencil in the middle of the back of each sheet. For standard nonbleeding pages, the image area should be approximately 6 x 9". If you simply want your nonbleeding pages to be centered on the final printed page, there is no need to add crop marks to your sheets or for the pages to be centered on the 8 1/2 x 11" sheets you provide. For pages with bleed, provide crop marks and allow 1/8" bleed beyond the edges of the final printed page (6 7/8 x 10 1/2" total image size for a 6 5/8 x 10 1/4" book). If you have graytones they must be provided prescreened. Most people use a standard black and white laser printer to accomplish this. Do not use inkjets or digital copiers for pages with grays. They will reproduce poorly, because the offset printing plates and presses can not reproduce the type of dots these machines reproduce. I can print up to a 133 line screen. For absolutely top-notch computer-generated grays, I recommend RC paper output. Please call me or email me for tips on the least expensive way to get RC paper printouts.

For a print sample, please send $5 (refundable with your first print order). Please call before sending an order. Full payment must accompany your order. Call for shipping rates. Make check or money order payable to Acredale Media, Inc. Turnaround time is approximately 4 weeks from the time I receive your complete materials. We ship via FedEx Ground. Shipments to more than one place are and additional $5 per location over the base shipping costs. We are a friendly, full-service print service provider with a love for the medium of comics and will be happy to answer your questions and walk you through the process of producing the best book at the best prices possible. We can help you pick the format that will be most successful and profitable for you. Whether you are a first-timer or an established publisher with hundreds of titles under your belt, We're happy to meet your needs.