Asylum: Three Weeks On Press in China

Have you ever wondered how books are printed and bound?  Chris Payne was was kind enough to share his first-hand experience at Everbest, where he supervised the production of his new book, Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals. 

Not long after we had finished my second book, Asylum, I received a call from my agent-editor-book designer, Scott-Martin Kosofsky, whose first words were: “ I hope your passport’s in order because you’re going to China next week”.  The printing company, Everbest, needed me “on press” to OK final proofs.  Given the number of photographs in my book, I was not surprised.  I was not disappointed either: seeing my work finally printed would be a dream come true.

This was my first time being on press and also my first trip in China. The headquarters of Everbest are in Hong Kong, but the printing plant is located in Nansha, on the mainland just across the border. The plant looks like every other factory in the area: boxy, built of concrete, and clad entirely in the same small ceramic tiles used in bathrooms.  Despite its drab appearance, the interior is a beehive of activity.  Unlike many printing companies, Everbest binds their books on site, so every aspect of book making is contained under one roof. They even have their own power plant.  

Everbest employs close to 1,000 workers, most of whom have migrated from rural villages to work here for higher wages.  They are predominantly young, in their 20s, and work 12 hour shifts, six days a week.  To save money, almost everyone lives in the dormitory next to the factory, where they share meals in a communal canteen.  Their schedule seems grueling, but I was told that given the opportunity, these people would gladly work overtime. 

 

There are many areas of the factory, each integral to the making of a book, but the heart of the plant is the press room floor, a cavernous space spanning the length of the building, filled with twenty or more offset presses.  It is a frenzied but orderly environment: sirens wail and warning lights flash as the pressmen tend to their machines like race car mechanics at a pit stop, adding ink, changing plates, cleaning the cylinders, loading paper, and constantly making small adjustments to insure that all 5000 or so sheets printed in a one hour press run look the same.  The entire plant operates twenty-four hours a day—except during lunch and dinner breaks—when all the equipment, lights, and even air conditioning are turned off and the entire place becomes eerily dark and silent.

I worked closely with two young men who were in charge of producing my book.  They spoke English well enough to serve as my interpreters on press, since the pressmen spoke Chinese only.  Reviewing the proofs could take anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours, depending on how many images were on a sheet. Needless to say, after 72 checks I became good friends with these guys as we chatted into the wee hours of night, awaiting the next round of proofs. Whatever frustration I encountered due to the language barrier was compensated for by their tireless devotion to my book.

The advantage of being on press is that one can make last minute adjustments.  In my case, we ended up printing the black and white images somewhat differently than was originally planned.  We were using a very advanced form of screening, one that doesn’t lend itself to making accurate digital proofs, so it was inevitable that there would be some trial and error. The extra month Scott built into the schedule was used in full—all to the advantage of the book. Thanks to cheap phone rates and high-speed internet connection, Scott and I were able to resolve issues on the spot, talking through the particulars as he sat at his monitor in Massachusetts and I stood on the pressroom floor in China—almost as if we were in different parts of the same building. With new files uploaded almost instantaneously, new plates could be made, mounted on the press, and the print run resumed within a couple of hours.  A decade ago, this streamlined “computer to plate” process was not possible.  The twelve hour time difference was not a huge inconvenience either: for big changes, Scott would work on files while we slept, and by morning, they would be waiting for us on Everbest’s FTP site. 

As the schedule intensified, I moved from a resort hotel on the outskirts of town to a modest hotel downtown and finally, to the factory itself, staying in a suite at the workers’ dormitory so I could be “on call” around the clock.  We met our deadline, and by the end of my stay—almost three weeks—I felt very much a part of the place, and I was sad to leave.  However, I know I will return again, whether it’s for another book or the second printing of this one! 

(The book is printed, bound, and on it's way to our warehouse. You can see the beautiful results of Chris' hard work at your local bookstore in September).