The Best Workplace in the Americas program was started 12 years ago by the Printing Industries of America.  It is designed to honor printing companies that create a superior work environment through exceptional human resource practices.  A panel of human resource professionals with experience in the graphic arts industry comb through questionnaires that are submitted by candidates for the award.  Companies receive the designation of best workplace when they can show that they care about employee goals, work environment, development and other factors.  Criteria that candidates are judged on include training and/or development opportunities, financial and workplace health, work-life balance and wellness programs.

“We are pleased to be named to the list for the eleventh year in a row,” said John Edwards, President and CEO of Edwards Brothers Malloy in an article for a2journal.com.  “[The company] is a fourth-generation family business.  Once employees come to work here, they tend to stick around and recruit other family members and friends to work here.  It’s very gratifying to see that kind of continuity in a company founded by my great-grandfather and his brothers almost 120 years ago.”

The former Malloy Incorporated has also received the prestigious award.  In 2005 and 2006, Malloy was designated as Best Workplace in the Americas and from 2007 to 2010 it won Best of the Best Workplace awards for its human resource practices.

Edwards Brothers Inc. recently merged with Malloy Incorporated in Ann Arbor in February of 2012 to form Edwards Brothers Malloy.  The two companies have over 900 employees, 3 offset printing locations in Ann Arbor and Lillington NC and 11 digital print centers located throughout the U.S., Canada and the UK.  You can learn more about Edwards Brothers Malloy and its capabilities by visiting www.malloy.com or www.edwardsbrothers.com.

Getting your book ready to go to the printer

At Edwards Brothers Malloy we appreciate the time, effort, and work that goes into your book before we get the chance to become involved. Here are some topics that we often get questions about and where to find the answers:

If you have not already had a quotation prepared on your title, this would be the time to have one done. If your specifications are not firm yet, we can still quote on your tentative specifications and offer prices for alternative specifications as well. Go to our website and the Quote Request page.

ISBN’s and bar codes – We have a Fact Sheet dedicated solely to this topic.

Preparing print-ready files – The digital file formats that we support at our facilities are most likely the same formats most other book printers support. We prefer PDF files for the text and native application and PDF files for the color component (cover, dust jacket, color insert, etc.).  You can find more information about print ready files here. For in- depth information please contact a sales or customer service representative.

Design and production for your book – Working with a designer or production person can make the job of transforming your manuscript or Word document to book much easier. If you need help preparing print-ready files, your Sales Rep can refer you to a design or production professional.

Building the specifications for your book:

In order to make your book the way you want it, the printer has to know many details about your book. A few examples of specifications are: what it looks like, trim size and number of pages, what kind of paper the text and cover will be printed on, if you want to see and approve proofs, where you want the books shipped, and how you want them shipped.

Our order form contains a place for you to enter most of the specifications that we will follow as we manufacture your book. It may seem like a lot of detail but it is all necessary information to insure that the final product is what you want, when you want it, and where you want it.

Your book is ready, now what?

When your book is ready to go to the printer, the following is important information to have and instructions to follow on how to get “the ball rolling”.

Quantity: We must have your firm quantity to get underway. When your quantity is firm, we can proceed with ordering paper and any other necessary materials for your title. Our order form includes a place for you to enter your firm quantity or you can include it in your purchase order.

Schedule: Our normal schedules are 3 weeks for soft cover books and 4 weeks for adhesive casebound books, from receipt of trouble-free files to bound books and includes time for proofs for approval with a 3 day turnaround. During certain times of the year schedules may be shorter or longer. The best policy is to have us schedule your title in our system as far in advance as is practical, to insure that you get the best possible schedule. Work with your Sales Rep to get the schedule that fits your needs.

Sending your title to Edwards Brothers Malloy: You can send your files to us on a disk or electronically. We recommend using our InSite portal, a secure high speed Internet connection from you to us. We offer our customers greater security with your unique account that transmits your files directly to our Prepress server. Contact your Sales or Customer Service Rep if you do not already have access to our InSite portal. We also request that when you transmit your PDF files to us, you send us pagination for the entire text. If you are sending us native application files, we require that hard copy accompany your title. If hard copy does not accompany your files, we cannot be responsible for content incorporated in the file, whether desired or undesired.

Getting your book into the marketplace once it is complete:

Your books are done and in the Edwards Brothers Malloy shipping department ready to ship. There are still decisions to be made that we can assist with.

Shipping and handling: We have an experienced shipping department that will arrange to have your book shipped via your preferred method to their destination. Edwards Brothers Malloy has one of the largest digital footprints in the United States. Using our Print Local^TM service, you books will be printed as close to their final destination as possible, saving you time and money on shipping.

Fulfillment: Skip the hassle of storing and distributing your books and let us do it for you. Edwards Brothers Malloy features fulfillment services for our customers. We have thousands of square feet of storage space and can ship books to your customers quickly and easily. For more information on our fulfillment services, contact your sales or customer service representative.

Scott Luci presents John Edwards with an American flag that was flown over Afghanistan on a combat mission.

We often take for granted the simple things in life like being with the people we love.  It can be difficult when we lose the ability to connect with our families.  Recently, a member of the Edwards Brothers Malloy team realized this difficulty when he was deployed 6 months early to Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan in September of 2011.  Scott Luci, a Fabrication Analyst and member of the 127th Maintenance Squadron at Selfridge ANGB in Mt. Clemens, MI, knew he would be leaving however unforeseen events with over-seas U.S. affairs caused his unit to be deployed early.  Scott would miss several important holidays with his family.

Jim Kinner, Scott’s supervisor, asked if Scott could be afforded a laptop to communicate with his family in Michigan.  John Edwards, President and CEO of Edwards Brothers Malloy thought it was a great idea.  John also sent Scott’s wife and children a card offering support during his time over seas.  Scott says that “Having an employer that showed support for me and my family when I’m half a world away, where nothing is normal, and always worrying about things back home was sincerely appreciated.”

To show his appreciation, Scott presented John with an American flag. The flag is encased in a wooden frame with a certificate. The certificate, provided by the United States Air Force, details how the flag was flown on a combat mission over the skies of Afghanistan in an A-10 Warthog

We are glad you made it home safely Scott and thank you for your sacrifice in order to serve our country.

About Edwards Brothers Malloy

Specialists in short-run manufacturing, Edwards Brothers Malloy has one of the largest digital print operations in the industry, with 11 locations in North America and the United Kingdom. For longer runs, we have the largest fleet of Timsons web presses in the United States and numerous sheetfed presses. We also offer distribution services for smaller publishers as well as global printing and distribution through our gps Global Print Solutions^TM partnership. Combined, Edwards Brothers Malloy offers publishers a single print supply chain solution.

“We’re pleased to support the efforts of such an ambitious project that promotes a love of books and reading,” said John Edwards, President and CEO of Edwards Brothers Malloy.  “The fact that volunteers will be attempting to reach new or light readers, who might be encouraged to go on to become lifelong lovers of books, is an especially important aspect of the program.  We have long supported literacy efforts in our community and are pleased to be a part of this initiative.”

World Book Night was introduced in 2011 in the United Kingdom and Ireland to bring attention to books for adult readers, and is being launched in the United States this year.  The books were chosen by a panel of booksellers and librarians through several rounds of voting.  Members of the public were invited to apply to be one of the thousands of volunteers who will be passing out books to those who may be reluctant readers or who are part of an underserved community with limited access to books.  The half million donated books were provided and distributed through coordinated donations from book manufacturers like Edwards Brothers Malloy, and from publishers, authors, and distributors.

So if the internet is responsible for less people reading traditional books, why are so many reporting the opposite?  Did they not understand the question?  Are people reading books on a computer screen and calling it a novel or a book?  The article in The Atlantic points out another very interesting phenomenon.  In the past decade it has become exponentially easier for authors, talented or not, to distribute their content to thousands or even millions of readers.  New channels of communication have broken down the barriers between content creators and the gate keepers of mass distribution, namely publishers.  Social media, on demand book printing, and a wealth of free information from industry players that can be found online has made it easier than ever before for content to move from its source to the end user.

Whatever the cause for the increase in readership, the internet doesn’t seem to be killing literary desires.  In fact, thanks to advancements in printing and computer technology, more people than ever before are able to realize their dream of professional authorship.  Edwards Brothers Malloy helps content creators and publishers of all sizes print as few as one book all the way up to hundreds of thousands.  Thanks to streamlined internet enabled technologies, authors are able to send print ready files to our facilities instantaneously.  We have loads of information on printing capabilities, ebook conversion services, and book fulfillment that people can utilize right away.

With the InSite Prepress Portal, Edwards Brothers Malloy can receive customer files directly into the Kodak Prinergy workflow.  This user-friendly tool provides secure web access to customers, prepress operators, and service reps to submit jobs, track progress, and much more.  With no need for added hardware or software, customers can access jobs anywhere, anytime from a web connected computer.

The Prepress Portal also helps to manage the proofing, correction and approval process so that it is more efficient.  The second a job is submitted, preflight and refining can begin automatically.  The system checks for problems and, if necessary, alerts the customer and/or our prepress staff so corrected pages can be uploaded.

Some of the features of the InSite Prepress Portal include:

• Submit jobs, track progress, collaborate on changes, proof and approve work, all before your schedule starts.
• Provide multiple users with access and specific roles in the process.
• Submit components of jobs as they are completed.
• Run an automatic preflight check on each file and load corrected pages quickly to keep jobs on track.
• Use Smart Review to view page proofs using high-resolution post RIP (Raster Image Processing) and a variety of convenient tools that allow you to pan, zoom, measure sizes, check color and annotate changes.
• Track all activity including change requests, approvals and rejections with automated email notices sent to anyone you designate.
• Reduce errors, speed up cycle time and reduce costs.

The InSite Prepress Portal allows our customers to streamline the prepress process from file submission to proofing and final approval.  For more information on the Portal, contact your customer service representative.

Growth In Book Printing Despite Adverse Times

After about five decades and one great depression, the company emerged strong and had grown to 150 employees.  It was around this time in 1948 that Jim Malloy had left Edwards Brothers to start his own printing company.  About 12 years later Jim had since sold his interest in the company he started and founded Malloy Incorporated.  Edwards Brothers continued on at its new location on John Street in Ann Arbor.  By 1952, sales had topped 2 million annually and the company broke ground on its current headquarters at 2500 South State Street in Ann Arbor.

Over the next several decades, numerous acquisitions were made in order to enhance the service offerings and competitive advantage of the organization.  In the 1980’s Edwards Brothers North Carolina was moved to Lillington and overall sales had topped 21 million.  One of the most notable advancements for the company was the innovative strategy of installing digital book centers in customer locations which proliferated after the turn of the millennium.

Today Edwards Brothers Malloy is a combination of centuries of book manufacturing experience.  Not only does the company make books, it is a unified print supply chain solution enabling publishers of all sizes to print quality books closer to their final destination.

• A print-ready file is a PDF file for the text or cover of your book.  The PDF can be saved or exported from a native file format, ideally Quark Xpress or InDesign.

• All fonts and graphics used in a native file format must be embedded in the print-ready PDF file.

• Graphics (i.e. photos, artwork, etc.) should be at least 200 dpi resolution for print production.

• If your text or cover file includes bleed elements (images, color or type that extend right to the edge of the page or cover), choose “include the bleed and add the printer’s marks” when exporting to PDF.  We require that the image extend one eighth of an inch beyond the document size.

Text Preparation for Your Book Printer:

• The page size must be at the proper trim size or the same as the trim size for the finished book

• Consider the right hand/left hand page sequence (the first page will be a right hand page).

• If you intend to have blank pages in your book, make sure to include blank pages in your native file where you want them.  For example, if page 106 is to be blank in the final book, page 106 should be blank in your file.

• If your text is two color, the second color should be consistently called out in the file.  Example: if “PMS 285U” is the second color, then “PMS 285” or “blue” are not recognized as the same color.

• When saving your text file to PDF, save it in a the single page format, not spreads, with the pages running in page order sequence (consecutive pages).

Book Cover Maker (or any color components)

• If the cover is full color, the PDF must be set up as CMYK, not RGB

• Edwards Brothers Malloy will always supply a cover design template to be followed when building your cover file.  The template is to be used as a guideline in the exact size of your cover.  The exact size is determined by the trim size of the book, the number of pages, and the ppi (pages per inch) of the paper that the book is being printed on.

• Spine bulk is the thickness of the book.

• Bleed allowance – if an image goes to the edge of the book, the image mist be extended one eighth of an inch beyond the trim so that when we trim the book, there is a clean edge with the image, not white space.  This becomes particularly important when images run to the edge of the page.

• Crop marks—they show the trim edges on the top, bottom and front of the book.

The most challenging step in getting your book printed is pushing your files through Preflight.  This is where we check to make sure the files are built correctly and contain all the necessary elements.  Following the guidelines above will be your key to a fast and accurate print job.  Once your files have passed through Preflight, the rest of the process is easy.

While the basic format for PDF’s is the same no matter which facility you are having your books printed at, Edwards Brothers Malloy is still in the process of merging these systems at its various locations.  For specific information on a particular facility’s pre-press requirements, contact your customer service representative.

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