The first proof of Lords of Bute Town II looked wrong to Steve at 103 Books. In the double page view, every picture seemed to have slipped one place to the left, splitting pairs of photographs that were meant to face each other. For a book built on spreads, that mattered. Reid Allen's photographs of Cardiff skaters run in pairs and across the fold. A grinning lad by a bollard faces a skater sailing over it, and later a swimmer flies flat out over green water beneath a rock face. Artwork from three illustrators runs through it too, including giant pink cartoon hands reaching across a black and white skate shot. The finished zine is A5 and perfect bound, silk from front to back: 300gsm board under matt lamination outside, 170gsm for the 86 inside pages, and a 7mm spine squaring it all off.
Too many pages for staples
Steve's first reply to our quote came within three minutes: "Thank you for your speedy response! Would you be able to do this saddle stapled or is there too many pages?" Harriet's answer was no. Reid's first issue had been a slim 36 page zine, and this sequel runs to 90 pages with its cover, well past the 72 page ceiling for staples. Perfect binding was the answer, and at this extent it earns a proper 7mm spine and a book that sits square on a shelf.
Choosing silk without a dummy
Steve wanted to hold something before he committed. A made up proof sat outside the budget, so Harriet raided our shelves for finished books from other jobs and posted those instead. Steve's brief for the parcel was "Whatever we can get our hands on to make a decision on weights, finish, etc!" Two zines won him over: Anthra, perfect bound on a textured 150gsm uncoated sheet, and What to do today, on silk throughout.
He chose silk, and the content backs him up. Lords of Bute Town II swings from high contrast monochrome street shots to warm flash portraits of skaters holding their decks against brick, and one spread is a hand drawn skatepark complete with a Welsh dragon. Uncoated paper would have softened the blacks and dulled that fine drawn detail. Our house Galerie Silk holds both, and 170gsm gives the full bleed pages enough body that nothing ghosts through. Steve even asked for the paper's name so he could print it, and our name, inside the book; the finished colophon credits us as printer.
Why the proof looked one page out
The artwork landed just before one on a Thursday morning, eight days after the first quote. Mike's first line back was "This is a quality zine!! Feels like ages since we've printed a good, solid skate zine." He attached our cover template, its 7mm spine already drawn in, and requested every interior page as its own PDF page, in reading order, with 3mm of bleed. Steve's worry was the gutter: "The bleeds of the one page into the next are scaring me!" A second pass pushed the artwork past the trim and, by lunchtime, the files were ready. That afternoon came the proof, and Steve's message: "On the double page spread view it puts all of the pages one to the left."
Nothing had moved. Our proof viewer opens on the outside of the cover, then the inside of the cover. Next comes the title page, sitting by itself as a recto, and only then do pages pair up, 4 with 5, 6 with 7, and so on. Every printed book works this way: page 1 always sits on the right, so a true spread always couples an even number with the odd number after it. Mike explained it that evening, and Steve's reply was honest: "God books are so confusing via email!" If you are laying out your own zine, switch on facing pages in InDesign, let the document begin on the right, and check your pairs in that view before you export.
Signed off before dinner
Steve used the pause to tweak the back cover text, and the second proof, sent the next day, came back before dinner: "Looks good to me!"
For a stapled take on the genre, see Matt Joseph's Skateism zine. Our guide to preparing a perfect bound file covers page order and spine widths, and the zine printing page will price yours in seconds. Bring us your crew and your city, and we'll help you turn them into spreads that line up first time.
PaperbacksA5, 44 pages, perfect bound£246for 100
Product cataloguesA5, 28 pages, stapled£166for 100
