For those anticipating the need - I've been online for the past few days looking for people who do thesis binding... The best price I came across so far (and I dropped off mine today), was $20 per copy. That price included lettering on the spine and the cover, and there is no minimum order for that price (I'm having 4 made). I forget the web address, but they are called Library Binding, and they are in Waco, Texas. A simple google will find them. brad
Why take upon yourself the hassle of doing this? Is there no person in your school that handles that?
Re: Re: Thesis binding... I forget the type of cover...but it is the basic that everyone offers it is not the fake leather or real leather...it is that hardboard that is standard... I printed the pages myself - all they do is binding - mine happened to be 133 pages (1.5 spacing), Front only, 8.5 x 11.
Re: Re: Thesis binding... I don't think that SATS offers such a service...in fact most schools just send it off to a bindery anyway, so I figured that if I took care of it myself it would be handled more quickly. I dropped mine of in Waco yesterday, and they said it should just be a few days (other on-line services said a few weeks - as did webpages for university libraries that sent them off for their students)... When I get them back I will post again on the turnaround time, and the quality...
OK - got the call today that they are finished with the binding - that's a 3 day turnaround...pretty impressed so far. But alas, they are in Waco, so I will have to wait until Monday to drive down and pick them up. Will post on the quality monday night!
Publishing/Binding - Part 1 of 2 Thesis and dissertation binding has, of course, been around pretty much forever; and now the Web is rife with online binding services of one type or another, some of which will simply bind whatever you print, and some of which will go the whole nine yards and will take your manuscript, typeset it, proof read it, bind it, etc. The phenomenon of publishing-on-demand is changing things. Just like the XEROX commercial says, with today's technology, virtually anyone can publish their work and bind it pretty much any way they want... even one copy at a time. Traditional publishers who already own traditional binding equipment which normally isn't cost effective to operate to bind one copy at a time may now purchase add-ons and upgrades for such equipment that lets them do precisely that. Then they purchase equipment like this to read PDF files that contain all the pages already laid-out (usually having been prepared using either deskotp publishing software, or the pseudo-desktop-publishing features of high-end word processing software) exactly like they should appear in the book and, voila, from the time the PDF file is received electronically over the Internet until the finished hardcover, perfect bound, o-ring wirebound, or saddlestiched book is ready to ship -- including custom cover printing -- can be just minutes... actually less than five to, at the most, 15 minutes in the big, well-run shops. If those same shops had to do a run of.. oh... let's say 100 or more copies, then the net average time to produce each copy could drop down to just seconds. And all for less than -- sometimes only a fraction of -- the cost of doing it the old-fashioned way. Prices per page for printing/duplication can range from $.02 to usually not more than around $.08 per page; preparation of read-to-print front/back cover and spine art for a flat fee of maybe $1 to usually no more than $5; and binding fees can range from as low as a flat $3 to usually no more than $12 per manuscript. And remember that this process makes it easier to print on both the front and the back of each sheet of paper, thereby cutting in half (or thereabouts) the number of physical sheets of paper required. For example, the 133-page thesis that is the subject of this thread could have been printed, front-and-back, on as few as 67 sheets of paper (though, considering that some sheets are printed only on one side on purpose, the actual number could be as many as 10 pages more for a total of... oh... let's call it 75 pages, just to round it off. This would have opened the door to much less expensive (though perhaps not sufficiently formal and, therefore, not appropriate) bindings like the wire o-ring type that are more appropriate for under-100-sheet manuscripts. Assuming, just for example, that the wire o-ring type of binding would have been okay for this 75-sheet (133-page) thesis; and assuming some nice, not-garish or fancy but, rather, conservative and totally appropriate lettering (maybe gold-colored Times Roman and Arial font on a dark blue background, for example) was used on the front and back covers, and the binding, then, under those conditons, a PDF file containing the book pages themselves already laid-out precisely as they should appear in print, and a set of graphic files containing the cover and spine artwork, could have been sent electronically to one of the publish-on-demand companies and in probably less than an hour the first copy would have been coming out of the binding machine, ready to ship... and for a total cost per copy of maybe, on the high side, around $12... probably less. For wire o-ring binding, figure a consumer price of about $.03 or $.04 or so per page for printing, and $3 to $7 for cover art sizing/printing and actual binding. The wire o-ring binding method is good for from 1 to, at the absolute most, 500 pages (though 500 is really too much for wire o-ring binding, and may half that is more appropriate). Still, if the wire o-ring -- even with the aforementioned nice, conservative, completely appropriate cover/spine design -- is simply not good enough, but if classic hardcover is maybe too much, then there's the "perfect binding" method... which is the classic method used to bind paperback books using a heavy paper -- almost card -- stock cover that wraps around the stack of pages and is hot-glued at the spine. The "perfect binding" or "perfect bound" method is good for from maybe 50 pages to, at the most, around 600 pages. Many thesis and dissertation papers are bound this way. If a similar cover design as mentioned earlier -- or something equally conservative but with... oh... let's say dark blue letters on a light gray background -- is used, you'd actually be looking at a lower cost to print and prepare each page because only cutting (or maybe not cutting at all, depending on the press equipment used), and not also punching (to make holes for the wire o-rings), would be required. But, the binding cost is usually a little bit higher, so the overall cost to perfect bind could actually be a little bit more. At any rate, a perfect bound version of that same 75-sheet (133-page) thesis would run around, again on the high side, maybe $15 or thereabouts. For perfect binding, figure about $.02 to $.03 per page, and $5 to $9 for cover art sizing/printing and actual binding. One could argue, "Well, shoot... the hardcover version, doing it the old-fashioned way, is only around $20... just five bucks more," as mentioned in this thread. But remember that that didn't include printing of the pages themselves. Using the publishing-on-demand technology that is the subject of my post, here, a hardcover version (not leather, but a traditional cloth/fiber) could be had for right around $20 to maybe $22; and a fake leather (vinyl) for only a $1 or $2 more; and a real leather for from under $30 to maybe $35 at the most. And remember, we're talking about the whole enchilada: Both covers/spine (including custom art), and printing all the innerds. But makes it even cooler is that you can have all that, and can then order them from that point on in any quantities you want -- including onesey/twosey -- by just sending an email or going to a web page; and they're printed that day (or, at worst, the next) and shipped the same day they're printed. This means you could finish your paper, bind it and present it to the university and then get your degree; but then, afterward, if you wanted to create a web page through which people could provide their credit card number and make the purchase, anyone for years to come could get a copy almost overnight. Mark it up five bucks and make a little pocket change every time they do. Heck, some on-demand publishers will even help you get an ISBN number and a bar code and will get your manuscript into distribution so it will show-up in a search on (and can be purchased from) the Amazon or Barnes and Noble web sites (and shipped within five business day, to boot)! Continued in next post...
Publishing/Binding - Part 2 of 2 ...continued from previous post. All that's required of any student (or, really, anyone wanting to self-publish pretty much anything) is a willingness to purchase and then learn how to use some kind of desktop publishing software, and a copy of Adobe Acrobat (or, if not the full-blown Acrobat software, then at least a printer driver that will let you "print" a desktop publishing document to a PDF file). Indeed, high-end desktop publishing packages like Adobe PageMaker and Quark Express are probably too much to ask a mere mortal grad student to master just to publish one silly thesis or dissertation. But a lower-end (but still unbelievably powerful for its price), and highly user-friendly desktop publisher like Microsoft Publisher is a breeze to learn and will get the job done nicely. For the cover/spine artwork, one would simply use most any painting/graphics program. Of course Adobe Photoshop is the "gold standard" in that product area, but I actually like PaintShop Pro better; and there are any number of completely free but highly functional (certainly functional enough for our purposes here) graphics software products out there that are very functional for these purposes, and are easy to learn. All one would have to do (honestly... it's all alot easier than it may seem) is: Type one's paper into Microsoft Word and therein get all the heavy-duty writing, editing, re-writing, footnoting, spell-checking, etc. done. Then go into Microsoft Publisher and set up a template page that meets the on-demand publisher's specifications for such things as margin sizes, page numbering methods, etc. (really... I promise... it's easy). And then one would simply import the Word document (the finished/edited manuscript text) into the template, where all the text would flow onto however many pages it would take, all numbered and with margins exactly right, etc. Then one would simply go through the new desktop publishing document and make sure the layout and appearance on screen is exactly as one will want it to look when printed to paper, making little changes and tweaks here and there as necessary. Then one would simply "print" the manuscript from the desktop publishing software to a PDF file (not to paper, but to a file). Then view the file (to make sure everything came out alright) using the free Adobe Acrobat Reader or the Acrobat software itself, if that's what one used to create the PDF file in the first place. Assuming everything's okay, then the PDF file is ready to email (or upload via a web interface) to the on-demand publisher. But, wait... there's cover... To design the cover, one would simply use the aforementioned graphics software -- which could be anything from the high-end and expensive Adobe Photoshop to the somewhat more reasonable (and nearly equally capable) Paintshop Pro, to one of the plethora of free paint/graphics software products that may be downloaded from numerous places the web. Just create a graphics file (usually a .BMP or a .TIF or, preferably, a .PNG format graphics file) set to a resolution of maybe 150 to, at most, 300 dpi; and sized so that, at that resolution, its display/print size is physically the same as the covers and spine (allowing for bleed areas around the edges). Then just ZIP-up the PDF and the PNG files into a single ZIP file and either email 'em or upload 'em using a web interface on the on-demand publisher's web site. That same day (or, at worst, the next day) it's printed and shipped, wham, bam, thankyou m'aam. Once it's been done the first time for your own copy(copies), then ordering additional copies -- whether just one, or hundreds, even thousands, at a time -- can be done via email, over the phone or on the web. Forever. The book will never go "out of print," and you don't have to keep 5,000 copies in your garage because buying that many in advance was the only way to get a good price. There are any number of self-publishing and publishing-on-demand providers out there now. They're everywhere... on the Web, at least. And there are now thesis/dissertation binding companies that use the publish-on-demand techniques and technologies. Just do a Google search using terms like "thesis binding" and "publish on demand" or "publishing on demand" and that sort of thing. You'll stumble onto them. If you don't want to search far and wide and high and low for a good on-demand publisher that's user friendly and makes things easy even for people who don't already know alot about this kinda' stuff, I strongly recommend that you simply go get a free "seller" account on the CafePress web site; and then learn everything there is to know about its self-publish/publish-on-demand product... making sure to read every last bit of information in CafePress's Publishing Learning Center. Even if you don't end-up using CafePress as a publisher, you can learn alot about preparing your manuscript for publishing (what's called, in the industry, "pre-press") from that learning center. Oh, sure, self-publishing through CafePress may be a little more expensive than some others, but it's turnkey. You can even use your custom store on the CafePress web site to sell your book. Heck, you can even design some promotional artwork and you can sell companion mugs, t-shirts, mousepads and all kinds of other crap! Just imagine the look on your thesis advisor's face when s/he gets not only a bound copy of your paper, but a cool companion mug and t-shirt, too! (just kidding) I'm not saying CafePress is actually the way to go. In fact, I can think of many reasons why it shouldn't be. I'm just pointing everyone to it as an example of but one of the many self-publishing options out there... in this case, a particularly consumer-friendly, turnkey (and, therefore, slightly more expensive and maybe wholly inappropriate) options. Again, a good Google search will turn-up more professional (though less consumer friendly and turnkey), and both more and less expensive, on-demand publishers and thesis/dissertation binders and publisher/binders. But even if you end-up using one of them, anyone interesting in doing this sort of thing should still read CafePress's Publishing Learning Center web pages just to get a feel for how it all works. And, of courrse, I'm perfectly happy to answer questions if anyone wants to ask. Hope that helps!!!
Thanks for all that info DesElms...it just may come in handy down the road a bit... Just picked up my theses today, and I am thrilled with the product. I had reviewed some at a local seminary when I was finding out who did theirs, and I think mine look a lot better! brad
