Inside Publishing: a day at the printers
Author Paul Cooper and Duckworth’s Publicity Officer, Josie Cassaglia, visited Clays, the printers, to sign copies of Paul’s highly anticipated new book, Fall of Civilizations.
By Josie Cassaglia
11 April 2024
The Fall of Civilizations podcast has over 100 million downloads and over 1 million subscribers – plenty of people who would be interested in receiving a special signed edition!
However, setting up those editions is not the simplest thing to do. There are many steps involved in getting signed copies out to the public.
There are many steps involved in getting signed copies out to the public
First it was essential to set up separate ISBNs for the signed and non-signed editions. An ISBN is a unique numeric identifier. Pick up the book you are reading and check out the the number running below the book’s barcode – that is the ISBN unique to that book.
Then we had to decide on how many copies should be signed. After looking at pre-order numbers we decided to sign 1500 copies.
seperate ISBN and be signed by the author
Now comes the process of getting all 1500 copies physically signed by the author. We got in touch with the printers, Clays, to arrange for Paul and myself to visit their operation in Bungay, Suffolk.
I believe most would be shocked by how many people it takes to get all these books signed and packed away
I believe most would be shocked by how many people it takes to get all these books signed and packed away. I was told by the team at Clays that authors usually take four hours to get through 1500 books…
Fortunately, Paul has a short signature! Still, all four hours were needed to get through the stock. It required a dedicated team: Paul signing and me passing books and two lovely ladies packing up the stock.
Everything runs like a well-oiled machine at the printers as they are used to having authors over to sign books. Sometimes authors can be signing up to 4000 books which can take a several days of signing in a row to get through them all.
Everything runs like a well-oiled machine at the printers
Heading to the printers was a great opportunity for me as the Publicity Officer to get some good social media content, as you rarely get to see so many of our books all in one place.
I took some lovely photos with the books (and with Paul, of course) and later shared them on our socials as reminder for people that signed copies are available.
Paul also thought it would be a fun idea to create ten special copies with a hand drawn Carthaginian column and a number, e.g. 1/10. Those who receive one of these unique copies will win a special prize: a bespoke Fall of Civilizations mug and a fetching Duckworth tote bag. Keep your eyes out!
It was a lovely experience, and worth the trip up to Bungay. It was interesting to see all the steps that it takes to get a signed book into customers hands. If you’d like to get your hands on a signed copy, head over to Paul’s Linktree to find out more.
