The new book on the floor of the printer's shop waiting to be bound. Each stack is a set of pages. — Book waiting to be bound. You can see both the front and back cover of the book printed on one piece of paper called card stock. Those stacks of interior pages are called "signatures." In offset printing, interior pages are printed on large sheets of paper. They can print as many as 32 pages on one piece of paper. The pages are then folded into a group called a “signature.” This is the reason that the number of pages in a book are always divisible by four. Then all the signatures are combined and the cover are combined, glued together and trimmed.

By Scott Stoll
Published: November 16, 2011
Updated: 3 months ago

The new book at the printer

Here is my new book on the floor of the print shop waiting to be bound. It’s the Spanish edition of the kid’s book. “Cayendo Hacia Arriba.” I needed to hover over the guys at the shop because it just wasn’t getting done on schedule. Grr!

Would you believe they printed enough for 250 extra books just in case there is a mistake in binding?

In the beginning of the video below, you can see the book at the printer as it is being made.