The making of a book

I recently had the opportunity to visit book printers, Clays, to watch the printing and casing of my second book, Sleeper: The Red Storm. It was an extraordinary experience - one I can liken to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory with books in place of chocolate. In a nutshell, it begins with the pages of the manuscript fixed in reverse to dozens of large sheets of aluminium. These are used to print on enormous rolls of paper which is then cut and folded and cut again into the size of a coverless book. These books are then fed through another machine, which heats the glue on the spine and attaches the hard cover before it finishes up on the dust jacket machine. The mind boggles! It takes a long time to write a book, but had no idea of the mammoth effort it takes to create a run of books. The amount of machinery, computers and manpower needed is staggering. Makes me question why books are so damn cheap. Anyway, the whole process was fascinating and here is a very short video summing up the day. Hope you enjoy and please share it if you do.

Thank you.

JD.