Lightning Source, the print-on-demand company used by OneBookShelf (OBS), will discontinue saddle-stitch printing on the 1st of March.
Saddle-stitch is a conventional bookbinding process that is often used on slender books, perhaps under 70 pages. Folded pages are gathered together in a bundle and then bound with staples through the fold.
Currently, DriveThruRPG and OBS’ other sites offering print-on-demand are believed to automatically treat premium colour book under 40 pages as saddle-stitch projects.
As a result, the OBS sites need to be updated, and publishers will need to convert their print-on-demand titles to perfect-bound. Perfect binding uses strong glue to attach pages to a spine.
Some RPG titles may also need to have blank pages added as the smallest book Lightning Source can perfect bind is 18-pages.
In an email to publishers, OneBookShelf has said that they have voiced their concerns to Lightning Source, especially at short notice but note that the printers cannot profitably saddle-stitch and cannot support the service.
It’s not been an easy start of the year for DriveThruRPG. In the first week of January, the site had to add a Brexit warning about costs to their checkout. European customers ordering print-on-demand books get those shipments from the UK.
Image credit: Pierre Barmin.
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