16 June 2012

Book du jour - editioning "Seepage"

After laying out and collating the pages of Seepage, I found they made 10 copies of 9 pages each, and hung them up so the ink could get really dry -
The spare pages are of varying quality - indeed, some of the pages in the books are less good than I would have liked. Perhaps the edition will end up smaller than 10. Perhaps I'll be sloppy and leave those pages in - you know how it is when you're fed up with a project, you just want it done -
So far, I've learnt a lot in producing this book - about systematic tidiness (so the ink doesn't transfer to somewhere it's not wanted); about inking up (to get nice dark prints); about proofing till it's perfect; about getting lines of type to behave (not always possible if you're printing their underneath); about being careful and patient and letting the ink dry (too many pages had the interleaved newsprint stuck to them because they were forgotten overnight, squished in my bag). Primarily, I've learnt not to use tracing paper again!

Next steps, next week (after reconsidering edition size):  stack the pages, carefully aligned;  trim;  stitch (a line of machine stitch on the left).

And then - make the sleeve. It will need some further typesetting and printing. Ideally it will be tracing paper - beautifully printed! - but there is the problem that glue will make the paper buckle, and tape will be visible -- and I don't want to use stitch on the sleeve.  Or ...? Whether to use stitch might be worth reconsidering ...

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