1,000 to 1,500 premium thread-sewn hardbacks

A UK-based author and international publisher needed a premium UK production run to support a launch and marketing campaign: 1,000 copies of a 324-page hardback, with a possible increase to 1,500.

The book was to be built properly: a premium natural text paper, a cloth case with gold foil, coloured endpapers, head and tail bands and a finished dust jacket, delivered in the UK.

• 1,000 copies, with a possible increase to 1,500
• 229 × 152mm, 324 pages
• Hardback with a dust jacket
• Premium natural text paper
• Cloth case with gold foil
• Coloured endpapers
• Head and tail bands
• Premium construction throughout
• UK delivery

A sewn cloth hardback with a jacket has more components than most books: text paper, press time, sewing, case-making, casing-in, the jacket and its finishing, the endpaper stock and the bands. At 1,000 copies each of those is a production question in its own right.

The task was a price that works for a launch at this quantity, with nothing taken out of the book.

We built the production route around the actual manufacturing requirement, planned line by line for how this book is made at 1,000 copies:

1. Actual paper consumption at 1,000 copies
2. Press time
3. Sewing time
4. Case-making throughput
5. Casing-in speed
6. Foil, spot UV and lamination
7. Sourcing the through-coloured endpaper stock
8. Head and tail bands
9. One long run rather than several short ones

Every element of the brief is in the final specification.

Every element of the brief is in the specification:

• Thread sewing
• 2.75mm boards
• Wibalin cloth
• Premium Munken text paper
• Through-coloured Fedrigoni endpapers
• Foil blocking
• Head and tail bands
• Matt laminated jacket with spot UV

80gsm Munken Premium Cream 17.5 for the text, with Munken Premium White offered as the alternative. 2,750 micron board for the case, covered in Wibalin. 140gsm Fedrigoni Woodstock Giallo for the endpapers. A 150gsm stock for the jacket.

The printed sheets are folded into sections and each section is sewn through its fold on our Meccanotecnica Universe. The sewn block is cased in: glued into a rigid case of 2.75mm board covered in Wibalin, with head and tail bands at the spine. At this quantity the cases are made on the Kolbus DA-36 and the books cased in on the EMP line, our route for runs of 150 copies and more.

Gold foil blocked on the spine of the cloth case. A 150gsm jacket, matt laminated, with spot UV.

A printed proof at £65: the full interior printed and bound as a plain-covered paperback, with a physical sample of the case cloth and the jacket material. Foil and spot UV are not on the sample.

UK delivery, included.

• Thread-sewn binding →
• Case binding, step by step →
• Foil blocking →
• Dust jackets →
• Hardback books →