Pricing a Short Run: Where the Minutes Go

A short run of case bindings is priced from the minutes it takes, and the minutes do not sit where a newcomer expects. Folding and sewing look like the work and take a share of it, but the time that decides whether the job earns anything is spent on measuring, on the press, and on the two handling steps that are easy to leave out of an estimate: collating and drying.

What the minutes in a case binding actually are

Take a run of twenty copies of a 160 page book, sewn on tapes, quarter bound in cloth with printed paper sides. The bench work divides roughly like this: folding and collating the sections, 20 per cent; sewing, 20 per cent; spine lining and pressing, 10 per cent; cutting boards and covering material, 15 per cent; casing in, 20 per cent; final pressing and inspection, 15 per cent. Those proportions are the shape of a hand bench, not a law: a sewing frame and a nipping press move the middle of that list, and a guillotine moves the board cutting.

The first thing the percentages hide is the setting up. Folding jigs, the sewing frame, the paste, the board gauge and the press are set once for the run, and on twenty copies the setting up is a larger share of the total than on two hundred. That is the honest reason a short run costs more per copy, and it is a reason the customer can act on: raise the number of copies and the fixed minutes spread.

Which step dominates a run of twenty

Casing in. Each book has to be squared, the boards positioned so they project by the same amount at head and tail, the joints opened, the pasted endpaper worked down with a bone folder, and the whole thing put in the press before the adhesive grabs. Ten minutes a copy is not unusual for a first run of a new format, and six is a good working figure once the bench has the jig.

The second cost in that step is the wait. Paste and PVA both need time under weight, and the books cannot be moved until they have had it. Twenty copies will not fit in one press, so the run is cut into press loads, and the load that waits for the press is the load that is not earning. A run priced without the waiting time is a run priced at a loss.

Where a short run loses money

Two places, and both are invisible on a rate card. The first is grain and making: a stock delivered the wrong way round forces the folding and the board cutting to be redone, and the rework is charged at the same rate as the good work. Test the delivered stock before the run starts, not after the first book is cased in.

The second is collation. Every copy of a 160 page book has ten sections, and those ten have to be in the right order in every copy. A dropped section found at the end of the run means opening the book, resewing or repairing, and re-casing in. The five minutes a copy that collating costs when it is done properly is the cheapest insurance in the shop.

How to write the estimate

Price the bench minutes per copy, then add the setting up once, then add the press loads and the drying time as a line of their own. Name the materials beside the labour: paper, board, cloth, thread, adhesive, and the waste allowance for folding and trimming. Quote the trim and the grain as specifications, because they are what the customer is buying and what the price rests on.

Where a run is too small to carry its setting up, say so and offer the alternative: a smaller format, a different binding method, or a larger number of copies. A price built on the bench minutes and the press loads is a price the shop can defend, and it is the number a customer can compare.

Sources consulted for this folio: ISO 11800 on the requirements for binding materials and methods, and the bench timings recorded on this desk for a quarter bound book on tapes, 160 pages, 90 gsm.