Sarah Bryant of Big Jump Press has some wonderful advice on making edition books. Even if you, like me, don't do editions, her approach to streamlining the process is well worth reading as the basic principles can be applied to many kinds of work.
Here's an excerpt:
Rule #1 Save every measurement
If you are making seventy-five identical books, there is no reason to take the same measurements seventy-five times. Taking measurements is a painstakingly slow part of binding a book. I cut extra components for each mockup that I make and set them aside just in case that mockup is successful and I’ll need to replicate the measurements. Once I determine that a mockup is working well enough to be the final version of the binding, I label and keep master components and measurements.
When it comes time to produce a round of ten or fifteen books, I use these masters to cut all of the pieces. If I were to use an unlabeled extra piece from an earlier round of binding, there would be no way to know if it was cut slightly off square, or cut to a slightly different size. Any mistakes generated by a bad round of cuts could multiply if I used another of these pieces for a subsequent round of books. This would cost me hours of work and valuable materials.
Coming tomorrow—a recycled project for the season.
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