The Most Important Thing You Can Do …
Update March 28, 2011:
Ka-Blam no longer provides a low resolution digital proof with invoices. If you would like a printed proof then simply reduce your order quantity to “1″ copy.
March 9, 2011
The Most Important Thing You Can Do to speed your order through our process!
We’ve talked about this a LOT before, but it bears repeating … a LOT.
The ONE thing that you can do — beyond ANYTHING else — to speed your order effortlessly through our process is to provide PRINT READY files at the time your order is placed.
“Print Ready” means … well, ready to be printed. It means that your files have not only been submitted in complete compliance with our technical specifications, but it also means — and this is the really, truly important part that many fail to fully appreciate — that you have thoroughly proofed your pages for errors. You’ve read them forwards and backwards correcting all typos and misspellings. It means that you’ve got the page files you want intuitively named and properly paginated. Print Ready means that you are absolutely certain that your files are good to go and ready for press.
It is your responsibility to do all the pre-press work to get your job ready for print.
We understand that mistakes happen. We’re comics creators ourselves and we’ve all had the experience of being sure that our book was finished and then finding a big glaring mistake on the first page. But this should be the exception, not the rule. We get requests for page substitutions on at least half of the new orders we receive AFTER the files have been sent. That means that half of the new orders we receive are NOT print ready and have not been properly proofed before they were submitted. Nothing — and I mean nothing — slows down the process more than having to substitute pages AFTER we’ve already built the printable document.
So if you want to insure that your ship-by date is met then the most important thing that you can do is thoroughly proof your pages and be absolutely certain BEFORE the order is submitted that your pages are PRINT READY.
*is absolutely guilty of making this mistake*
At least you guys are so patient with us Ka-Blam noobs. :D
I looked over my mini-comic a million and one times and I’m still worried that there might be some sort of obvious mistake in there somewhere when I get it, haha.
But yes, good and sound advice. It’s never wise to send files you aren’t sure are correct.
I proofed the hell out ot mine. I was SOOOOO sure I found every last error.
I looked over the proof. I approved it and paid. I sent a pdf out to a comic news site for review.
“You now there’s a typo in the foreword…”
D’OH!!
But, I’m SURE the posting of this little hint on the same day you guys fixed mine is purely coincidental! LOL
Thanks! Sorry!
And now I’ve typoed in my message about catching typos.
Go me.
:)
A couple of things that might help …
Always, always, always have someone else — preferable several someone elses — proof the pages also. It’s easy for the creator — who’s been staring at the pages for weeks and knows how it’s supposed to read — to overlook a simple mistake, whereas someone who doesn’t know what it’s supposed to say is more likely to notice when something is amiss or just reads oddly.
Also, if the program you’re using for text has a spell check and a grammar check … turn them on. If the program doesn’t have a grammar check, then find one that does. Don’t over-rely on them, but they’re an asset you shouldn’t ignore.
And here’s another pretty effective method for catching mistakes — read everything backwards. I’m serious. Start at the bottom of the page and read your sentences word by word, right to left. We’re conditioned to read top to bottom, left to right … so when we know how something is supposed to read sometimes our eyes skip ahead and we overlook minor errors. Reading backwards forces you to look at the words out of sequence and reassemble them. Often the mistake that was easy to overlook when reading normally is glaring when read backwards.
It’s at times like these I’m glad I live with a professional editor xD
Trust me, I have made my share of typos. We are not perfect creatures.
LOL
Was wondering, do you have to keep it in a certain editing type file (photoshop) or do you have to save it as a regular picture file like jpg in order for the files to be “printable”?
-Jenna
Was definitely guilty of this early on. Hopefully learning from those mistakes improved my proofing (knock on wood as I place my new order).
Of course, the day I find mistakes in my proof copy of my comic is the day I see this article and wince. Seriously guys, I’m SO SORRY. It feels like I’ve made an error in EACH project I’ve done with you! I think I HAVE, actually! Sorry sorry sorry.
Tiff files please.