Paper

In order of cost, paper is the second most expensive material needed, right after toner. Now there are a series of arguments and preferences that go into the paper you want. In the end, it comes down to how much money you want to spend. I will start by offering the opinion of book printing professional, and then add my own opinion on the topic. There are two main details.

First, it is recommended that book pages be off-white. This apparently gives the book higher aesthetic value, and is rumoured to be easier on the eyes. They argue that having the contrast of black text on white paper is difficult to look at. I never really noticed much difference, but I suppose the logic is sound. My opinion says otherwise. People read text from plain white paper all the time. I believe off-white paper to be an unnecessary luxury. Yet no matter what published book you look at, the pages will be off-white, so maybe the majority of people disagree.

Second, they say the pages should be decently thick. Now I doubt all books follow this rule anyway. It is apparently so you cannot see the words on the other side of the pages. I have never seen this to be a problem. Now if you insist on having these two appeals when choosing your book’s paper, then what you are looking for is something called ‘book stock’. If there are any local printing places, give them a call and see if they have it. Rest assured, they will sell it to you. Yet, read on to my argument against doing this before making a decision.

Like I mentioned earlier, paper is the second most costly material. When I first started printing books, I used cream paper. It was a good colour, and reasonably cheap. Though as time went on, I needed to start buying materials in bulk. This is the math. For 5,000 sheets of cream paper, roughly $70. For 5,000 sheets of book stock, roughly $85 (from the printing place I called). For 5,000 of plain twenty pound white paper, $44. In case you didn’t catch the heavy implication, yes, I use plain white paper. I get it at 92 brightness, which is the darkest I could find. Trust me, it works perfectly fine (professional printers are probably shouting blasphemy by now). If you would like some re-assurance, pick up…any modern copy of the bible, really. You will find that using plain white paper will be darker and thicker than the pages in that bible.

There is an interesting fact that goes alone with using plain white paper. If you took my recommendation of lowering the darkness level of toner you use (mentioned in an easier post) then the contrast of black and white isn’t nearly as hard on the eyes. Just like that, your paper costs are half that of printing companies!