Great care is necessary in issuing and following up orders for printing; every detail must be watched closely if satisfactory results are to be secured. In the majority of offices the advertising manager, or a man under him, attends to all details of ordering printing. Large concerns find that it pays to employ an experienced man for this work alone. To a concern whose printing bills amount to several hundred dollars a month, a man who will give close attention to every detail of the work, from seeing that he gets the stock specified to checking bills for overcharges, can make his services worth a good salary.
In printing, as in everything else, the personality of the house should stand out--a typographical style should be established. This is accomplished much more quickly if every detail of the printing is in the hands of one man.
There are concerns in which publicity and sales work must be subdivided to such an extent that the sales manager has all printed matter prepared under his direct supervision; while the advertising manager is responsible for the preparation and placing of the copy. In one such concern, which has come under the writer's observation, copy for printing is turned over to a man entirely outside of the sales division. The theory is that the outside man will watch the interest of the house, in the matter of price, more closely than the man who prepares, and perhaps is to use, the copy.
This theory may have some foundation in certain quarters; probably there are some otherwise competent advertising men who are occasionally outwitted by the printer; but it is also true that the buyer of printing, who places his orders on the basis of price alone, frequently loses more in quality than he saves in cost. The man who is to use a booklet or folder is really the best judge of its worth--what he can _afford_ to pay for the kind of work he wants; he knows best its possible value as a revenue producer. He should be competent to supervise the placing of the orders, but without exception _all_ printing orders should be placed by the same man.
No matter by whom placed, the printing order should specify every detail; or if it is not on the order blank, there should be a specification sheet. The specifications would be something like those shown in the order form, Fig. 9.