Outsider Publishing
How to enhance your books with low cost colour illustrations
One of the minor disadvantages with some Print on Demand services like those at Lulu.com is the fact that if you want to have colour illustrations, the whole of the book is produced at an expensive “colour” price rate, even if only want one of the books illustrations, like the frontispiece, in colour. Colour illustrations do enhance a book and instead of giving up on the idea, you should look at this as an opportunity. Here is to how to improve your book as well as make it stand out from the others.
This is not a new problem but in the past other artists and writers found ways of getting around it. One way was the use of “Tipped - in” colour illustrations. After the book was printed out-workers would glue in by hand, the colour pictures in the right places.
So here is a variation of that idea that you could use in conjunction with producing that special limited edition run. Have the book illustrated in black and white but make sure that the pictures you are going to replace, are surrounded by a narrow white border. Now you can enhance a number of your edition, by printing colour illustrations, you can even get away with using a decent home computer printer, as long as you use quality paper. Then cut them to size and stick them over the selected black and white pictures. All you need to do to “tip” them in, is put a dab of paper glue near the top and bottom of the back of the colour picture and press it neatly into the white frame that surrounds your black and white illustration. You could even glue in a protective tissue guard. If you are unsure about how to do this neatly leave a comment. If enough people show interest, I will put an article with “how -to -pictures” on the main site next month.
Another method you could use is hand colouring your book illustrations. In the early days of book production colour was sadly lacking from book pages. Gradually books with hand coloured pictures that were tinted in watercolour paint after the books were printed began to appear. Then around 1800, pictures were printed separately and hand coloured by an assembly line of younger workers, sometimes children. They would each sit around a table with a different colour on their brush and quickly pass the engraving amongst them, each adding a different colour in turn. These coloured engraving were then glued into the books before they left the printers. The quality of the colouring in these examples can transcend from muddy blotches to exquisite masterpieces.
I am not suggesting that you do this to every one of your books! But you can use it as a sales pitch. Not only do you have a general run of uncoloured books for sale but you also have that premium limited edition of special books with the pictures hand coloured by the artist. This would be great to offer at book signings. I know which one I would choose
This is just one more way of enhancing your book and I hope it has given you some inspiration and ideas.
T