It’s no secret that regardless of size, most publishers choose to purchase some prepress services from specialists. But before we tell you why you should choose Matrix for these services, we wanted to remind you why purchasing prepress services from specialized vendors makes sense:

• Capital expenditures: The costs of current technologies, equipment, upgrades, and maintenance, are high and ongoing.
• Personnel: The cost of hiring, training and maintaining staff to be proficient and current with the latest technological efficiencies are increasingly prohibitive. Additionally, upgraded software often necessitates new operating systems, which virtually guarantees conflicts. These conflicts and glitches are disruptive and require significant time, energy and expertise to overcome.
• Overhead: Space and related expenses add to overhead.
• Fluctuating needs: Publishers need different specialized services at various times of the year. Staffing and equipping to accommodate 100% of these fluctuating needs is unnecessary.
• Cross training: Multitasked employees are valuable and desired assets. Specialists however, achieve maximum efficiencies.
• Accommodating growth: As publishers grow, the requisite services reach thresholds at different rates.
• Flexibility: Publishers may use specialists for only some of their projects. It is never an all or nothing decision.

We’ve thought long and hard about why a company should consider sending prepress work to us. But ultimately, the reasons for choosing Matrix couldn’t be boiled down to one or two simple factors. Rather, we’ve come to realize that a holistic approach to superior service is the best approach to developing successful, long-term relationships. Here’s what that means to you:

• Performance: Our focus on performance is fundamental to our success: Performance is the building block of future work. Our motivation to perform at the highest level on every job is for consideration on the next one. Because we feel strongly about this, we would encourage you to support (continue to send work to) any vendor who is providing great service to you as long as they remain competitive.
• Integrity: We are proactive in our open and honest approach. In more specific terms, we believe this translates to the following:

• Dependability — Whatever we commit to, we deliver.
• Attentiveness — We are attentive to both our customer's needs and our own responsibilities.
• Design — When asked, we suggest equally effective but less costly alternatives.
• Castoffs — Using art, manuscript, and design we accurately determine the expected length of a book.
• Estimates — Our invoices match our estimates, which allow our customers to strictly adhere to their budgets.
• Sample pages — The proper use of sampling helps control alteration costs.
• Art evaluations — Our evaluations help ensure early detection of potential art problems.
• Printer tests — We recommend sending test files to the designated printer to anticipate and limit printing problems.
• Customer requests — Any instructions that will incur significant costs are immediately brought to the customer’s attention.

• Relationships: We add value by nurturing and developing relationships. We accomplish this by understanding our customers’ priorities:
• Learn our customer’s unique needs and adapt to meet them.
• Identify strengths and weakness and adjust to take advantage of, or accommodate them.
• Ascertain the preferred forms of communication (e-mail, phone, fax, web site postings).
• Determine the optimum times of the day and week for questions and consultations.
• Understand the hierarchy of personnel to ensure proper protocol.
• Earn their trust through care & consistency.

• Prepress expertise: Merely possessing the latest bells and whistles will not provide expertise. Our staff of 24 full-time employees have an average of 22 years experience per person, servicing dozens of publishers. We have done thousands of one, two and four color books and journals; We are experts at taking manuscript, art and design parameters and producing well constructed pages.
• Publishing expertise: We know and understand the processes of publishing. Using Matrix provides your staff with significant resources. We offer tangible benefits by anticipating needs, knowing what questions to ask, and generally helping your staff in the performance of their duties. The value of these benefits cannot be overstated.
• Speed and accuracy: We are fast (schedules are paramount) and accurate (we get it right the first time). We usually perform prepress services faster than our customers can do them in-house.
• Cost: We usually perform these services at a lower cost than publishers can perform them in-house or purchase elsewhere.
• Careful: We take the time “up front” to anticipate problems and ask questions for clarification before proceeding. It’s not surprising, but experience has taught us that this unequivocally saves time and money.
• Flexible: Accommodating for variables: During the production of any project, publishers experience unforeseen issues that are out of the control of their production department. We are used to this and have equipped ourselves to cope with such situations.
• Proficient: At any point in time, we are working on one or more books or journals for many of our customers. Our staff handles hundreds of books and journals throughout the year.
• Personalized work: Books and journals are not just an accumulation of words and pictures. Rather, each one is the unique result of craftsmanship. We take pride in the quality of our work.

All of us at Matrix care about our craft, and we care about our customers. Our assertion that we add significant value to your publishing process is easy to demonstrate. We welcome you to contact us and give us the opportunity to prove it.