Digital proofs are output and we send one entire set to you for your approval.
Digital proofs and press proofs are available. So, what is the difference?
Digital Proofs are from output devices.
Digital proofs will be output from a digital output device … no printing on offset press. Digital means there is toner on paper. One round of full color digital book proofs comes with your printing quote. If you need additional sets, or another round of proofs because of changes you make, there is an additional charge. Most often, the color you will see in these digital book proofs will be close, but not exactly like the book will be in print form.
Nancy Starkman
Book Printing is more Art than Science. Book binding is more science than art. We do it all well.
Press proofs are from offset printing presses.
Press proofs or wet proofs may be required instead of digital proofs.
Full color press proofs are made when we set-up the press to print only one copy of the book. Actually, two copies of the entire book will print, because when we have an approval to print form on hand, we need a copy for the press person. After printing, the job is broken down and the press is set-up for another title to print.
Printing a single copy of a book is very costly. We only do press proofs for very high-end books where color must be as close to an exact match as possible.
In either case, you get to keep the full set of color proofs.
Return the approval form. You need to send us back the form with your signature approval. We include a print-out with the proofs or in an eamial, but if you misplace it, here is another copy: Book Approval form.
We’ll advise you about color and your options.
Frankly, we have expertise working in color houses before desktop publishing even came about, and this is expertise is not typically known by on-demand publishers, or those printing only black and white books. In fact, most printing sales reps don’t understand color, but we do. Our digital proofs are fairly accurate too.
Pleasing color versus exact match
We feel we are a valuable resource for those who are not content with ‘pleasing color’, but need ‘exact match’. We will also tell you when you are being unreasonable! Yes, really. We work for you; not any of our printing partners. We side with the client 99 percent of the time, but because high-quality color book printing is an art, you can expect minor imperfections or deviation. And, I stress ‘minor’.
As a side note, on-demand books most often are output digitally, a page at a time. We print our books on commercial printing presses, and often print in 8-page, 12-page, or 16-page signatures. Most often, we do digital proofs.
On-demand won’t do
Star Print Brokers goes to such lengths to print high-quality books. On-demand will just not do for coffee table books, art books, photography books, cookbooks, or any book of quality.
We only print the best books! Most often, our digital proofs are the proof we use for a book to go on press.
If you are designing your book, please use InDesign. A novel can be in Microsoft Word or one of several software programs for writers. However, make sure that if there are any images, that they are the correction resolution and dimension sizes.