On Friday evening, I uploaded Ardmore Endings to Amazon/Kindle. On Saturday morning, I had a notification that the formatting was correct and the book was now available.
I immediately ordered several copies for friends and for myself.
My copy was delivered just after 1200 on Sunday.
Never mind that this was the weekend, it was less than 48 hours from uploading a pdf to receiving a 330-page, 6 x 9-inch book with a colour cover.
Poor Gutenberg had to reset the Bible four times before he was able to print it. Then again, he didn't have to write it.
If anyone doubts digital printing (and allegedly, Amazon uses HP Indigo presses), examples such as this should dispel all doubts. The binding is sound, the ink is black (not the grey one too often finds in cheap paperbacks), and the edges are sharply cut.
This is not just the digital press, but the result of a whole automated production workflow.
My pdf file went to a Cloud server and a notification was sent to the printer nearest the addresses the books were to be sent to. In addition to my own, I ordered one for an address "up North," and another for the southern counties as well as one for the US (which won't arrive until Thursday, I am told. Well, it is going below the Mason-Dixon Line, so these delays are to be expected.)
Anyway, once notified, the printer downloads the file and it goes into his workflow. Somewhere along the line, a bar code is appended to the job that says how many copies are to be printed and what size. Ardmore Endings will have been ganged up with other books of the same format. Most likely, the cover will have been sent to a different digital press that could handle colour. Those that print text only are able to handle colour, but probably have black ink in the slots for the colour cartridges.
The text will probably be printed on a B2 press that can print four A4 pages, and more 6 x 9-inch pages, depending how they're imposed.
The cover will have its own bar code, ensuring that Ardmore Endings doesn't arrive with a cover for a transgender vegan cookbook. After the cover has been printed, it will have received a matt varnish, while other covers printed on the same press may receive a gloss finish.
The bar code will ensure that my text and my cover are united at the binding machine which will apply the glue to the trimmed back edge of the text, then wrap the cover around it (right way up) and send it for trimming.
The bar code also has my address which will be printed on the shipping label and stuck (via a self-adhesive label, automatically applied) to the carton board mailing envelope, which will be automatically sealed and - with or without human intervention - dumped into a mail sack which miraculously appears at my door at the hands of a charming young lady who has no idea that she has just met one of the country's leading undiscovered novelists.
I immediately ordered several copies for friends and for myself.
My copy was delivered just after 1200 on Sunday.
Never mind that this was the weekend, it was less than 48 hours from uploading a pdf to receiving a 330-page, 6 x 9-inch book with a colour cover.
Poor Gutenberg had to reset the Bible four times before he was able to print it. Then again, he didn't have to write it.
If anyone doubts digital printing (and allegedly, Amazon uses HP Indigo presses), examples such as this should dispel all doubts. The binding is sound, the ink is black (not the grey one too often finds in cheap paperbacks), and the edges are sharply cut.
This is not just the digital press, but the result of a whole automated production workflow.
My pdf file went to a Cloud server and a notification was sent to the printer nearest the addresses the books were to be sent to. In addition to my own, I ordered one for an address "up North," and another for the southern counties as well as one for the US (which won't arrive until Thursday, I am told. Well, it is going below the Mason-Dixon Line, so these delays are to be expected.)
Anyway, once notified, the printer downloads the file and it goes into his workflow. Somewhere along the line, a bar code is appended to the job that says how many copies are to be printed and what size. Ardmore Endings will have been ganged up with other books of the same format. Most likely, the cover will have been sent to a different digital press that could handle colour. Those that print text only are able to handle colour, but probably have black ink in the slots for the colour cartridges.
The text will probably be printed on a B2 press that can print four A4 pages, and more 6 x 9-inch pages, depending how they're imposed.
The cover will have its own bar code, ensuring that Ardmore Endings doesn't arrive with a cover for a transgender vegan cookbook. After the cover has been printed, it will have received a matt varnish, while other covers printed on the same press may receive a gloss finish.
The bar code will ensure that my text and my cover are united at the binding machine which will apply the glue to the trimmed back edge of the text, then wrap the cover around it (right way up) and send it for trimming.
The bar code also has my address which will be printed on the shipping label and stuck (via a self-adhesive label, automatically applied) to the carton board mailing envelope, which will be automatically sealed and - with or without human intervention - dumped into a mail sack which miraculously appears at my door at the hands of a charming young lady who has no idea that she has just met one of the country's leading undiscovered novelists.
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