What happens when you send your book off to be printed?
Last week I had the honour of watching my book being printed (watch the full process). I am honoured to be the first Bloomsbury Education author to see their book be printed.
The printing process from start to finish
As a design technology teacher, I have often taught pupils the printing and engineering processes at GCSE and A-Level. It all becomes real when it is your own product. This post shares my experiences of being a teacher-author and watching your book come to life!
Thank you to the staff at CPI Books UK for showing me around the printing production process from start to finish. On the day, 6,000 copies were printed on 8th August 2019 and are likely to go out of stock by 5th September – all produced from a roll of paper measuring 8kms long! Below, Spencer (MD) is explaining how the binding process (to the spine cover) of the book is produced in sections of 8 for the book. In this case, no stitching process is used, only glue.
A carefully constructed process …
Another interesting aspect of the printing process was how carefully the book is constructed. The pages are constructed in 8 fold-together sections, then appear in the correct order and are folded, then glued in batches of two before reaching the guillotine stage. At this point, the pages are trimmed and both copies are separated before packaging. Every decision is based on cost margins and scale. The pictures below show:
- The IT scheduled print run.
- One of the packaging team ‘having a laugh’ with me asking if it is worthy to be sent out to the public
- Holding a pre-cut copy of the book; printed in batches of two.
- The glue pellets used for the cover.
The production timeline
In September 2017, I spent 6 months not wanting to write a book after just completing Mark Plan Teach. Then, after 3 months of negotiations, I agreed on a new contract of work. In April 2018, I spent another 3 months thinking about the book and its content and not doing much else. At ever, this was naturally followed by 3 months of detailed planning (if you would like to see this process behind the scenes, please email) when time starting to pass me by…
When time became very precious, in September 2018 I spent 3 months visiting schools, conducting my research. From that point onwards, once the data was collected, I spent 9 months of writing/editing the content up until July 2019. I was literally proofreading the final contributing parts on my mobile phone, on a campsite in France!
Here is the moment it all sinks in…
Order online
You can order a copy with Bloomsbury and receive a goodie pack or with shop directly with Amazon. There will be an Audible version out soon and the book is published on 5th September 2019. If you want a copy before anyone else, my recommendation is to purchase directly from the publishers.
I would like to thank the team at Bloomsbury Education for their support with the whole book process from start to finish. If you want to be a teacher-author, you can do it!