Reward for Capability

It is standard practice that whenever a book is given to a printing press to be printed, the proofs of the book are shown to the person concerned before it finally goes to print. Generally the proofs are printed on large sized ordinary pages and handed over unbound to the author. Such proofs may show any mistakes in the setting and design, pagewise, but they do not give a clear picture of what the book will look like in its final form after printing and binding.

When the owner of a certain printing press in Delhi received a book for printing for the first time from a New Delhi embassy, he felt he must make a good impression and to this end, he devised a new way of printing the proofs for the embassy staff members concerned. Using good quality paper, he printed the pages on both sides and bound them in book form.

These proofs that he offered were like an advance sample of the book. The embassy people were so pleased with this very professional presentation that they decided to give him all of their future orders for printing.

Sometime later, the owner of another printing press told the embassy people that the press they had been patronizing was overcharging them. Taking what he said at face value, the embassy people assigned some printing work to him on a trial basis with the promise that it would cost them less. In due course the proofs were prepared. They were done in the old way on very ordinary paper and without binding. When the embassy people examined this work, not being able to imagine what the final form of the book would be like, they judged it to be totally substandard. They therefore rejected it and cancelled their order. They then requested their former printer to resume doing their work.

Events show, that if you have some special capability, you will in the end be suitably rewarded for it.