How to cut down the cost of books is the problem that every publication worker hopes.The graphic art worker should be skilled in plate making,printing technology and the cost of printing standard of books.They also must understand paper requirement,performance and the capacity of each relevant printing factory.During the work, they could arrange the printing technology of making plate and choose paper material reasonably according to the capacity of printing factory in order to cut down the cost of books.
　 Each book need to be designed integrally by designers. The designer designed based on content, characteristic, picture writing amount and reader. The difference in degree of books cost is the important factor in books market competition. Now let's talk about how to cut down the cost of book through preprint design.
　 1 、 The requirement of paper
　 It will increase the rim of paper and decrease efficiently using area of paper if the requirement of paper is not reasonable. For example,it can save paper if we use 36mo with long shape.
　 2、The material of paper
　 The cost of paper possesses great proportion for more than 40%. Therefore it is a important how to choose optimum paper to cut down the cost of books.
The common books such as document compilation, study material,literature and art reading and etc.
The paper-cover binding book uses 52g/m2 letter press paper,and the rich binding book uses offset paper of 60g/m2 or 70g/m2.
　 The reading about song and the child can use the paper of 60g/m2, the color one may use offset paper of 80g/m2.
　 As textbook, usually adopt the relief printing paper of 49-60g/m2.The paper-cover binding reference book uses the paper of 52g/m2, and the rich binding reference book uses offset paper of 40g/m2.Accroding to general technical standard,it can use the offset paper of 80-120g/m2.
　 Generally,picture and album use the offset paper of 80-120 or the coated paper of 100-128g/m2.We can choose the offset paper or coated paper with different g weight according to requirement and quality of album. New Year pictures and poster can use the single surface offset paper of 50g/m2 , comic book can use relief printing paper of 50-52g/m2, and the high quality picture blocks can use the glass board of 256g/m2.
　 The magazine usually use the paper of 50-52g/m2.The non-colored one uses writing paper or offset paper of 60g/m2 and the colored one uses double surface offset paper of 80g/m2.
For the magazine,cover uses the paper of 100-150g/m2 within 200 pages and uses 120-180g/m2 when it has more than 200 pages. The inner leaf uses the paper of 80-150g/m2.And the end leafLgenerally use the paper of 80-150g/m2.
　 For the same kind paper,the price is accordingly higher and the thickness of back bone is accordingly thicker when the g weight increases.Sometimes, we must adjust the g weight and requirement of cover paper , so it has a serial of relationship, as has increased the cost of paper.
　 We should choose the paper material conscientiously , but should not cut down material or use inferior material .For example,it is waste of money to print high quality diamond knurled with commen paper,as can make book face blur.For another example,it can use newspaper for common reading while it is too easy to be airslaked to use for conserveing in long term.
　 3、 The page number of the books
　 We should avoid as far as possible to arise single page when we imposing multiple page. Because it still has the 4 cover , title page, foreword, catalog and copyright page etc. And it is possible that every part uses different paper.Thus it is not difficult to make number of all pages to be multiple of 4.
　 4、 The bookbinding style and the book face designing
　 The style of bookbinding are saddle binding, flat stitching , thread stitching and sticks stitching etc.It will make the print area bigger across the gutter because the gutter space takes 5mm if we adopt the style of flat stitching.While other style could make the print area smaller.
　 When we design the text copy ,all the factor are relevant to the cost of the book inclding size of character font, the density of interline,the width of the rim,the inerlinear taking and interlinear space of title etc.For 32mo book,it is arranged number 5 font in the horizontal row.Every page has 25 rows and every row has 26 Chinese characters,meanwhile the interlinear space is 5/8 standard interlinear space.So there are 650 Chinese characters in one page.If there are 240,000 Chinese characters in all,it will be arrenged for 370 pages. If we make every page has 27 rows and every row has 26 Chinese characters,meanwhile the interlinear space is 1/2 standard interlinear space, it will be arrenged for 342 pages,which has 28 pages fewer than the former.We can cut down the cost of the book from number of plates,paper selecting,binding etc.But it not means it is better that the book face is arrenged more compactly.The children reading should not be applied so small font and narrow interlinear space.Thus when we want to cut down the cost of the book,we should first consider the content of the book and the need of the reader.
　 5、 How to fix the dimension of book cover reasonably
　 When we design the book cover , we must consider the dimension of the finished book,the thickness of the back bone and the size of the flap.The flap can be made more than 30mm if it not results waste of paper.But some cover designer specify the dimension of the flap without considering the requirement of the paper and the function of printing machine,as is waste of printing material and increases the cost of laminating that a lot of books need ultimatly.
　 For instance, a set of books inclding the first volume and the second volume which are 32mo,each has about 600 pages applied the paper of 52g/m2 and the thickness of the back bone is 22mm.The book cover applied offset printing.Each volume is printed for 20000 and the cover need be laminated.Because designer do not know paper requirement, the flap is designed for 65mm, which is so big to apply the paper of 1/16 of 787×1092mm.If we designe the flap for 40mm,it could apply the paper of 1/8 of 787×1092mm.As the cost is 4000 yuan fewer than the former for cost of printing,paper and laminating.Thus the designer must understand the requirement of paper to cut down the cost of the book to avoid unnecessary loss.
　 6、 Printing technology
　 For 32mo or 16mo books with single or two-colors books are general arranged rotary machine to print if they are more than 50000. Because rotary machine prints quickly and it fold the books automatically with lower price.But on the other hand, if number of the printing books is less than 50000,we have several selection to apply.If we apply the typesetting method,we should use the B – B offset perfector,which is reserved for the use of books and periodcals and charged by number of paper ream weight.The single side machine such as 01 version and 08 version,as is charged by number of paper ream weight and colors.But the former's printing speed is faster than the latter.We usually adopt the two-color offset press or four-color offset press to fulfill the work when the picture book need to be high quality.While we adopt the one-color offset press to print the New Year picture with big solid area and book with end leaf because of its better quality.
　 The printing worker should understand the performance of press and calculating standard of industry price. Otherwise we may adopt the unreasonable printing technology with high cost .