Hello Friends,
I have some exciting news to share with you. As you may know by now, we hold ourselves to a high standard when it comes to the quality of the books that we publish. One of the biggest challenges I have encountered in this journey is the limited control we have when it comes to outsourcing the bookbinding.
We have had to be very selective when sourcing bookbinders to work on our books, and although we maintain certain bookmaking standards, there are times when imperfections creep in, and/or deadlines are missed. For several years now, I have wanted to have my own in-house bookbindery where we control the binding.
Several months ago, an opportunity presented itself, and I jumped at it. Through the years, we have utilized many different binderies for our books. One in particular has always impressed us in the excellence of their craftsmanship. This bindery has consistently produced a quality product that we and our customers have loved. When I learned that the bindery was shutting down, I stepped in and hired their four key bookmakers and purchased the equipment needed to assist in the binding process.
After months of planning, I am delighted to announce that we now have our own in-house bookbindery. The Suntup Editions bindery is comprised of a dream team of bookmakers with 20-30 years of experience in their field. Some of the books this team have made for Suntup Editions over the years include the Numbered editions of Misery, The Handmaid’s Tale, Horns and Blackwater, as well as the Lettered editions of Red Dragon, The Lottery, Neuromancer, 1984 and A Scanner Darkly, just to name a few.
I have made this move because of my commitment to you, our customer, to do everything in my power to publish the best quality books that I can, given the inherent challenges in bookmaking. The Suntup Editions bindery is as close to a “silver bullet” as you can get in terms of reducing the occurrence of binding defects or imperfections and to deliver the highest quality product that we can.
Aside from having more control over quality, we also anticipate improvements in turnaround times which will get our books into the hands of customers that much faster, and it will also allow us to provide certain upgrades at no extra cost.
Of course, nothing I can do will eliminate imperfections or defects entirely. In my opinion, that is impossible. Bookmaking is an error ridden art. But what this will do for us is greatly reduce the occurrence of such imperfections. Further, it’s important to know that not every book we publish will pass through our bindery. We will still spread the workload to our team of artisan bookbinders, where quality issues are less of a concern. Supporting these craftspeople is important to me, and that will continue. But we will handle as many editions as we can through our bindery while maintaining a high level of quality.
I am very excited about this new chapter, and our bindery is already at work on several editions, some of which we have not yet even announced.
I thank you for your continued support of Suntup Editions, from the bottom of my heart. I appreciate you all.
Paul Suntup