How long it takes to print a book, and where the time goes
Printing is not a shelf product. Between your files and a pallet of finished books there is a chain of machines, each of which has to be set up, and a few points where the job is left alone on purpose — glue reaching full strength, ink drying into the paper. Wherever two operations can run at the same time, they do. What cannot be compressed is the queue in front of a machine.
The chart below shows the same book on three routes. Look at the orange bars first: those are the days that belong to you.
Three routes, same book
Pick one to see it in full. The bars are production only — from your approved proof to books on a pallet, without your own decision time and without the road.
This is one book title, in a straightforward specification. Anything added to that is another operation with its own set-up and its own place in the queue, and it adds time: a slipcase, a ribbon, a printed endpaper, a die-cut, spot varnish, a personalised or customised run, or several titles moving through together. Other products behave differently again. These are indicative ranges, not a promise — your quotation carries the dates that apply to your book.
If you are working towards a launch date, a fair, or a Christmas delivery, say so in the enquiry rather than after the proof. Working backwards from a date is a different conversation from working forwards from a file, and it often changes the route we would recommend.
Before you get this far: our guide to specifying a book, preparing your files for print and checking a proof before you approve it.