Every year, dozens of schools, startups, and first-time publishers call us after a printer somewhere else has gone wrong. The order was late. The paper was wrong. The binding came apart in the first week of term. Sometimes the press simply stopped answering the phone.
We can’t fix those orders retroactively. But we can help you avoid the next one. This is the checklist we wish every buyer had before they signed their first purchase order. Written by a press that has seen every way this can go wrong over forty-seven years.
1. Ask for a physical sample before you pay a deposit
A digital proof on a PDF is not a sample. A photo on WhatsApp is not a sample. A sample is a printed, bound, finished copy of something close to what you are ordering. Paper weight, colour reproduction, binding method, and all. Hold it. Flex the spine. Run your fingernail across the cover. See if the ink smudges.
Any serious printer will send you a sample for free, or at cost if the specification is unusual. If a vendor refuses, or keeps stalling, that is your answer.
2. Understand paper, and make the printer specify it in writing
Paper is where most disputes start. A textbook on 55gsm offset paper is a different product from the same textbook on 70gsm. One will survive a school year; the other will tear at the margin by October. Yet many buyers only ask about price per unit, and never about what paper that price assumes.
Ask for:
- The grammage (GSM) of the text paper. For textbooks, 70gsm minimum
- The brightness and opacity. brighter paper reads better, more opaque paper hides print from the other side
- The cover stock. 250gsm card minimum for softcover, 300gsm+ for heavier use
- Whether the paper is imported or local, and from which mill
Get this in the quotation, on paper, signed. If the final product uses different paper, you have a contractual basis to refuse the consignment.
3. Know the binding types and choose deliberately
Binding is the second biggest source of disputes. A book that falls apart after fifty opens is not the binder’s fault if the buyer specified the wrong binding for the use case. Here is a blunt reference:
- Saddle-stitch. cheap, fast, limited to 60 or 70 pages. Fine for brochures. Wrong for textbooks.
- Perfect-bound. glue-bound, the standard for trade paperbacks. Acceptable for textbooks used for one year.
- Section-sewn. signatures are sewn together, then glued into the cover. The gold standard for textbooks meant to last several years.
- Spiral or wire-O. lies flat, durable, but the wire can catch on things. Good for notebooks and journals.
- Case-bound (hardcover). the most durable and the most expensive. Reserve for prestige editions.
If your books will live in children’s bags for more than one academic year, pay for section-sewn. Everything else is false economy.
4. Insist on a written timeline with milestone checkpoints
The phrase “we will deliver in three weeks” is meaningless without a schedule. A proper printing schedule has checkpoints: design approval by a certain date, prepress by another, sample off-press by another, full-run off-press by another, packaging and dispatch by another.
If your printer cannot produce a schedule broken out by stage, they are flying by feel. That usually works until it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t, your order slips.
5. Verify quality control happens at three stages, not one
Final inspection is too late. A single bad reel of paper, or one press making a colour drift, can contaminate thousands of books before the problem is caught. Proper quality control happens at three stages:
- Pre-press: a proof off the actual paper stock, approved by the client
- Mid-run: a random pull from the press, checked against the approved proof
- Post-binding: a full sample set from the finished run, inspected for print and binding defects
Ask your printer to describe their QC process. If they can’t describe three stages, they have one.
6. The three questions most vendors hope you never ask
These are the questions that separate a serious press from a broker reselling press time:
- “Do you own your own press, or do you outsource the printing?”. If the answer is “we coordinate with partner presses,” you are dealing with a middleman. That is not always bad, but it is always worth knowing.
- “Can I tour your facility, in person or over video?”. A printer proud of their facility will say yes in the next sentence. A printer who hedges is hiding something. A back-alley setup, borrowed equipment, or worse.
- “What is your policy if the delivered product does not match the approved sample?”. A serious printer has a clear policy: reprint, refund, or credit note. An amateur will dodge the question.
7. Price is the last thing, not the first
If two printers quote you the same book at radically different prices, the cheaper one is cutting something. It might be paper grammage. It might be number of colours. It might be binding method. It might be labour conditions.
A good rule: get three quotations from three vendors, specify the exact same paper, binding, colour, and quantity to all three, and then compare. If one is much cheaper than the others on identical specifications, ask where the difference comes from. They will either have a real answer. A bulk paper contract, idle press time. Or they will not. You will learn a lot from the pause.
In short
Choosing a printer is a relationship decision disguised as a procurement decision. The right press will answer your questions, send you a sample without being chased, specify everything in writing, and tell you honestly when a job is not the right fit for them.
Wahab Publications has been printing books in Lahore since 1978. If you would like to discuss a project. A textbook run, a private-label notebook line, a government tender. We would be glad to send you a physical sample and walk you through a quotation. No obligation, no broker fees.
