The Printing Process
What may not be readily apparent from our website is that we’re, first and foremost, a printed newspaper publication. Ever wonder what it takes get the finished product?
The Books Come In
We receive, on average, about 150 books a week to our office in downtown Sacramento. They come from publicists/publishers from across the country. We also get quite a few books from self-published authors. This is a typical load representing approximately 3-days-worth.
Receiving the Books
We have a web-based database that keeps track all of the the books — from the time we order them from a publisher to the lists we send out to our book reviewers of available books sorted by category, to what books each reviewer has selected, when we mailed it to him/her, and, finally, when review is uploaded into the same database and edited.
Out to the Reviewers
We typically send out available list books about every 2 weeks and do a huge shipment to our reviewers. This is what it looks like when that happens. Each book gets a bookmark with the issue that review is slotted for and when the review is due for editing.
Laying the Publications Out
It’s sort of like a “Gentlemen, start your engines” feeling we get every third Saturday of the month. It’s the beginning of controlled chaos. And, you’re getting a peek into it here. The process starts, obviously, with the reviews being submitted by their deadline (which is always the third Saturday of the month). The next day, the copy editors start editing any reviews they haven’t already edited. As human nature has it, the bulk of the reviews come in the evening of the deadline day.
The copy editors have 2-3 days to edit 300+ reviews that cover both the Sacramento and San Francisco publications. While that is going on, we’re busy gathering 300+ images of the cover art, sizing it, and creating black and white versions, too. While our assistants are doing that, Ross and Heidi begin the process of deciding which reviews will go into which publications. We do that by evenly distributing books by publisher and then by book reviewer. Everyone gets some love. The excess that don’t make it into a publication either bump to the website-only or (depending on release date) to the next issue.
Laying out the publications takes about two full days each. It’s a lot of late nights….and best done while drinking wine. heh
Off to the Press!
This is our favorite part. I don’t think we’ll ever cease to be amazed at how it leaves our computers, prints overnight, and we pick up the finished products in the morning. We print on a web press, and the publications are bundled in counts of 50 for the drivers to deliver.
This is just half of the Sacramento load in the van
Voila! In the Book Stores, Coffee Shops & Libraries
Our distribution facilities deliver the final product to local book stores, coffee shops, and libraries around Sacramento. Sometimes, the book stores will create a specific display of books that we feature inside an issue.
Look like Fun to You?
If this looks like a lot of fun …. it IS! Did you know we license the paper out for other [City] Book Review publications? We currently have San Antonio Book Review, San Francisco Book Review, and Fresno Book Review. If you’re interested in starting one up in your major metropolitan city, get in touch with us at info@1776productions.com.
