Printing and rule book design questions

I'll take a shot at some of these...

1) This is going to depend very much on the printer. Sorry for the vague answer, but I've found a huge variance between printers and price differentials.

2) My theory on the rule book is that unless your game will require the players to frequently refer back to the rules (like in an RPG or a miniatures game with lots of tables), you want the rules to be simple and straightforward. Yes, put some flavor in there, but the primary goal is communicating quickly and efficiently. Odds are good that only one player per game will read the rules anyway.

3) I have not encountered a printer that charges based on coverage for black and white. Or if they did, they didn't tell me about it.

4) I have a tough time with InDesign myself. It seems like a good product, but I just always run into difficulties. As for formatting, most of the printers that I have worked with have requested a properly formatted pdf file for the rules. This means that each page should be a sized according to one page of your booklet, and they have to be ordered so that when they're printed they come out in the proper order. That's the toughest part.

5) The advantage to "bleeding" is that the end product can look better. With instructions, IMHO, it's rarely worth the cost to pay for the extra paper. Here's the way I understand it: printers (the machines, not the companies) don't print all the way to the edge of the page. If you want color (or text) all the way to the edge of printed page, the printer has to print to a larger piece of paper, and then trim the page to the size desired. With instructions, having some white space around the edge of the page is actually desirable because it makes them easier to read. Just design your instructions with a 0.25" margin and you should be fine.

Those are my best answers, at any rate. Maybe someone else has a better explanation of bleeding?

What I understand with printing is that you choose black and white (and any combination there-of) or color. The amount of black or the amount of white shouldn't be a concern.

As far as the booklet itself, you have to find out which binding methods are available as well. Chances are you'll want a center-staple binding, but a glue-bound booklet may be even cheaper.

Speaking from a book printing background (not commercial work) – I can tell you that we prefer to have .pdf files supplied as well, and that single pages work best for us. Granted, we have to drop pages into our imposition program when we make plates, because we print 64 pages at a time - then fold down and trim. A smaller printer may need you to set things up differently, so my advice is to find out what their preferred method is, and go from there - because it really depends on how they are going to produce your piece (what equipment they have). I can’t begin to tell you how much it helps to have a customer ask first, for both parties involved.

As far as pricing, the best approach is to tell them what you’re envisioning the final piece to be, and they can tell you if it fits their capabilities. Then also be open to letting them offer alternatives if something they can do would be close, and which they know may save you a bit of money. This leads to the standard size issue – many printers will have “stock” paper sizes they use for most of their jobs. Since they buy these in bulk, its their lowest cost stock. Formatting to a size they are used to running will go a long way toward keeping your costs down. Most printers can and will order special lots/sizes, if you can afford it (watch out for ‘minimum order’ charges too, as the printer may have to buy a specific amount of a special stock, and they will include that in their price to you). Get a quote up front of course!

Binding – many printers can offer saddle-stitching (staples down the center) and adhesive binding. Costs may vary here too – but should not be too far apart. You can always ask to see some samples of jobs they’ve done in the past. My feeling is that, unless you are going to add a separate cover to your booklet, saddle-stitching should be fine. Adhesive would probably be overkill for such a small page count, and may not even be an option if there’s nothing to glue the pages to (some printers may offer a paper tape that wraps around the spine).

Anytime ink goes to the edge of the printed piece, its called a bleed, regardless if its background or not. Some printers will vary in their trimming, so don’t bleed off anything you can’t stand to see get a smidge smaller when all’s done. And yes, that will require a bigger sheet of paper per page – and paper is the bulk of a printing job’s cost.

Most printers I know of do not care about the coverage on a page, within an individual ink color. Multiple colors on a page would be more, of course. You may want to ask if there will be any charges for screens or halftones (if you have any). If you provide final .pdf files though, there shouldn’t be, as you’ve done the work yourself. Back in the ‘old days’ artwork normally came in as shooting copy…

The advantage you have, from what I can tell, is that you don’t have your heart set on a specific final outcome for the piece. That leaves you with many more possibilities – and the more flexible you can be, chances are the better price you can find.

Hope that helps some!