The Making Publics Press is a book making studio, which has all the equipment you will need to design, print, bind and trim your own books and publications. If you have a publication idea and want to test and self-publish your own book, come along to one of our monthly open days to find out more! At the open day you will learn how to use the equipment and we can help answer any questions you may have.
The main purpose of the space is to support the making of small runs of creative book projects, quickly and cheaply – getting books out into the world and across Skye, Raasay and Lochalsh.
We see our book making studio as a space for conversation and community building. We hope to see you here soon!
Open Days Winter Hours - How to come along
The MPP is open to anyone to come along and have an induction in using the MPP in the ATLAS Office.
Drop us a line if you hope to come along. It's helpful if you already have a rough idea for your book project – then we can help answer questions and even test things out during your induction. Feel free to bring any images or text you’d like to print as an experiment.
On the day you’ll learn how to use each piece of equipment on your own, so that when your design is ready you can book a time to come into the space to print, crease, trim and bind the book yourself.
We are a small team so the open days help us welcome people to the press. However, if you can’t make one of our open days get in touch to arrange your induction.
Open days - Out and about
From time to time the open days will take place in different venues across Skye, Raasay and Lochalsh. Upcoming dates and locations will be posted here and on social media.
Cost
The space operates on a pay what you can basis – with donations covering the annual maintenance of the machines, printing costs, and free access to the space for the non-waged.
Making Publics Press is open to anyone and works on a non profit basis. We are asking folk to pay what they can to help us cover printing costs (which are charged to us at 0.35p per single side B&W, and 3.5p per single side colour). To give a rough estimate, an A5 50 page book printed colour and double sided with a colour cover would cost ATLAS around £4.
We can provide paper and card for test use during an induction, but for any run of books exceeding 5 copies it would be advisable to bring your own paper if possible. A run of books exceeding 10 copies might also be better suited printed professionally at STRATH Print (opens in a new tab).
If you are able, you can also leave a copy of your book for the ATLAS library.
You can make a donation to the press here.
