Printing a hard cover book.
 

Has anyone utilized the services of a vanity press publisher to print your book? I was reading it isn't unusual to pay $20,000 up front before getting the books printed.

I may have found a way to cut the costs significantly and still get hard cover, glossy paper books.

I don't know who the printer was, but my grandma wrote a book of our family history. Ended up being over 800 pages. When she had them printed, she had to order in lots of 100, if I remember correctly. Hardback books, heavy paperweight pages. Her cost was somewhere around $25 each.

Would you be willing to use a service like Create Space, which is a branch of Amazon, to do this? IDK if they do hardcovers; I do know that they will print trade paperbacks. They only print on demand, so you're not stuck paying a lot of money for a bunch of books.

How many copies are you looking to have bound?

I'm looking at this as a business idea. I found a company in another country that's an award winning printer. They have all the facilities in house to print and bind hardbound books. I've seen their work and it's top notch. They do all of the layout and design in house and can provide a quick turn around.

Because of their location their costs are very low.

I noticed some time ago that a lot of the large coffee table type books are printed in other countries. I expect that's done to lower costs. Shipping costs can be minimized with the right contacts.

I'm wondering if enough business could be generated in this country to make it worthwhile to get involved as an agent. They haven't asked me to do that. It's something that occurred to me.

I'm looking for smaller run opportunities like the family genealogy books that would be accessible via advertising in a few places and not require a large amount to advertise.

I've spent the majority of my career working as a print broker.

Yes, the profits can be rewarding, but their are some pretty outstanding liabilities too. You better have a good relationship with the printer/binder, because you will need it some day.

What happens when a book goes to press, is bound, and the customer realizes that they put the wrong pictures on page 87? They paid $25,000 down to get the project printed, and still owe $42,000 on completion, but are now telling you that they are not paying until you fix their mistake.

What happens when the printer/binder fails to print the second signature in the book? You paid them $14,500 to get it to press, and they won't make it right for you.

What happens when your customer has a book started, you print it, but now doesn't want the rest of the order?

I know an author that thought he could beat the prices of US printers, and self published a full 4/4 book, hard bound. The digital files were sent, and he flopped down about $30,000 for the book. The color was terrible...and I mean AWFUL, plus, the printer "lost" one of the signatures in the book, and bound it with 192 pages instead of the 200 that it was laid out with. The printer agreed to 'fix it' for another $15,000, blaming him for the lost files. Can you deal with a mess like that? Or take the financial hit?

I'd suggest that you spend at least a year working with a local American perfect binder, or even a print house locally with in-house bindery operations before becoming an agent for a company 9,000 miles away, and the owner speaks English as a second language.

If you can pull off 10 or 12 jobs flawlessly, you might be able to buy a new Cadillac. You might also get lucky and pull off one big job, and put $100,000 in your pocket.

But, this is a highly detailed business producing custom products, and the risks are tremendous. You need to know what you are doing before you even broker 1,000 1/0 copies, let alone 1,000 hard bound books.

Sorry to be a Debbie Downer, but this is real life as a broker:

I know someone in the biz that had an order for 500 tote bags, printed 5/1. Her cost locally was about $7.

She went to a trade show, and met a company who had Americans working the booth, and sweet talked her and impressed her with low prices.

Their price was $4.25 a bag. They printed the order for her in the US using imported bags.

I tried like the dickens to warn her of this company.

The bags came in, and were printed right. She delivered them to the customer who would pay in 15 days, invoiced at $10 a bag.

As the customer gave out the bags to the students, they found out that when the bags got wet in the rain, both the ink used in printing and the color of fabric in the gussets bled and ran.

The school bounced the order, and refused to pay. Someone even threatened to sue because ink bled onto their home carpet.

Somewhere in a landfill, lay about 450 bags that couldn't be used.

And the broker was out for about $2500, plus shipping and art.

Funny thing...All the American employees that were at the trade show were no longer employed there, and no one at the low cost bag company spoke English when there was a problem.

That's exactly the input I need. I know the designer who handles that part of the job. I haven't broached the subject to them because of my ignorance. I expect your post is barely an intro to what can go wrong.

I hadn't thought about representing the company until I saw their equipment and some of their books. I know the designer is anal about getting the color correct. Obviously I have a lot of homework to do before going further.

You are right, these are just a few small things that can go wrong.

And even if the designer or typesetter is all about getting the color right, the proof might be perfect...but a bad pressman can run 30,000 signatures with the most awful color you've ever seen. Believe me when I say "It does happen" on jobs like this every day.

I once had an order for 1,000 hats. That was a big order for me, and I stood to make some jack on the order.

I bought the hats, costing me about $3,000. The order was placed with the owner of the embroidery shop. Some dude on their third shift ran the entire order in the wrong shade of blue. "It was the closest I could find" he said, adding "it'll work. It's blue, right?".

That third shift dude cost me that account. The customer paid, and was kind about it, but I knew that they weren't happy. Months later, I learned that they were buying from someone else.

I almost lost $3,000 on that order, just because an out of work part timer decided it was okay to run the hats in the wrong color. I even offered to eat all the hats for the customer, even though it would have been a devastating blow at the time.

I'm telling you...it all looks perfect from the outside, but in reality, you could be getting in over your head...in a BIG way.

I wouldn't broker a book job for love nor money. I don't have the money to loose. It's hard enough to run 2,000 envelopes, and make a profit worth the risk of a total loss.

Word to the wise: Become a part time rep for the designer for 2 or 3 years, and if you want, do it on your own after that. Let them take the liability. You are risking tons of money on the hope that someone doesn't misspell the word "Ford Mustang" on page 183, or put the words " '73 Chevelle Malibu" under the '65 Ford Galaxy picture.

I really hadn't thought of getting anything printed other than hardback books. It was more from the point of helping the designer and printer. I once found a book on compressed air at a used book dealer. He had almost a pallet full. All of them had been bound upside down. Someone got a nasty surprise. I can see that in any situation if you have to rely on someone else's eyes you could have a real problem.

Obviously I have lots more to think about. Thanks much!

Being someone who has had dealings with printers, I gotta tell you to take clovis seriously. As part of my business, I have offered customized advertising on movie tickets, generally two color to keep the costs in line on the small runs (ten to twenty cases). The problems that get thrown at you are so stupid and bizarre they would be funny if money wasn't involved.

I would prep for finished print files, only to find "Oh, we can't handle your PDFs, we only use Quark." or "We need you to have the screen" and then "We can't use the screen, can you break out the screened areas?" We finally compromised on uncompressed TIFF files. I would include the registration targets, and they would add their own (often misregistered). With color, I would specify a precise Pantone color only to get the product back with a tint of that color because the pressman had set the press wrong. Sometimes, like clovis mentions, they would substitute. Ever seen a Pepsi logo in pink and sky blue instead of the dark red and blue? I have. I've had companies substitute a cheaper lighter weight stock that tore, set broken perf bars that wouldn't make proper perfs, and delay rush jobs by two months.

It used to be even worse dealing with newspapers and placing ads. Even with camera ready copy, they would find some way to screw it up. With one of the Gannett papers I tried everything from bribing the guys in the back with bottles of good scotch to screaming at the ad rep. It literally got to the point that I had to set my own showtimes and make xeroxes for proof. When they tried screwing me over, I would post the copy at the boxoffice for the disgruntled customers to see, and refuse to pay for the insertion.

As newspapers have become smaller, those same passive-aggressive union employees have migrated to the jobs printers to make life miserable there.

Unless you have a discount on Mallox and no heart issues, you are best avoiding the industry.

I understand. The local paper screws up too even with something as simple as getting the copy right when it's emailed. It's obvious I need to dig a lot deeper. At least there wouldn't be a union involved.

I thought about your idea quite a bit today, since I too, was picking up a brokered job and delivering it to a customer.

1. As a general rule, the family history people will drive you insane. Not a one of them knows how to typeset, lay out signatures, or set gripper margins.

1a. Because they researched it and wrote it or typed into a computer, they expect you to fix all the problems and reset it for free. They have free time...so your time should be free too.

1b. Most of them are shocked by the true cost of 100 hard backed books. They just bought a book at Walmart for $5, so you should be able to match that.

1c. Everyone that owns a $300 computer thinks they are a typesetter and a world class graphic designer ready to accept job offers from the world's top publications.

1d. Learn how to cover your tail. Proofs with full sign offs for every job!!!!!!

1e. Be ready to become a teacher. A family history person thinks they can type something into Word, and will expect you to convert it to a book, free of charge.

1f. The deadlines and additions to the book might cause you to go crazy. You finally got it almost to press, and Aunt Janet will want you to add another 3 pages about Uncle Hozart from Czechoslovakia who owned a one eyed mule and moved to Montana when he was 16.

2. Despite what 99% of the world thinks, the printing world is Mac based. Anyone that knows how to do something in this biz is already on Mac, and has a degree in it. If you meet a 'graphic designer' who uses Windows, run like mad from them. Your first weed-out question should be "Tell me about your Mac". The second one should be "can you set a standard gripper margin?" If they can answer that, you might ask them if they know the difference between spot and process, but the gripper margin question gets 99.999999999999999999999% of the wanna-be's.

I can hear the howls now about Macs and printers. What matters is that you not waste your life with wanna-be's, and they are on every corner. I use a gal that charges me $35 an hour, she is cheap, and very good. I NEVER have to call her back...the art is ready to run, separated correctly the first time, and ready for the press. Trust me on this. Get a good Mac based designer/artist that knows their job, and live a stress free life. I spent too many hours jacking around with wanna be artists who took one class at a community college, and wants to be a designer because they own a laptop.

3. There is still decent money to be made in the printing world. Get some decent jobs, and you could make a fine living.

4. As the print world shrinks, many shops are now doing short runs. Maybe have the book set overseas, and print it here. Your control is much greater. More than once I have demanded to be present when the job went to press, and I watched it roll off. How would you do that if it was printed in China?????

Around here, the union shops were the best shops.

Real grown ups, working an exacting trade, and doing it with perfection. These guys were true masters at the art of the printing, and knew the trade better than anyone.

All the union shops that I dealt with had true craftsmen working their trade. Skilled men and women who could see a problem before it went to press.

The problem was that they were so covered up in work that it would take weeks to get a job. Prices were high because demand for their work was so great...it was hard to afford some of them.

Those shops had all the big work because the big firms wanted the job done right the first time.

I find it a bit sad that those days are over around here. Real, skilled tradesmen with 30 years experience making a living wage...just watching them run 200,000 impressions on a 4 color press with an aqueous coating, and not ever break a sweat.

Clovis - Oxmoor Ave in Bham. Printers who were world class. The problem with some of their output was my drool all over it. Move a few hundred miles north and you discover the world has edges. Move up to Canada and there are ticket printers that are insanely good. Tried doing process once with some of the printers who made my tix. Once was enough.

Harry,

Have you ever seen the pressmen run a windmill press? They were before my time, but I used one shop that still operated two of them.

I think I could watch a windmill press run all day.

I understand somewhat about the mAc systems as compared to windows. That's another red flag. The designer uses a windows system.

The Mac and Windows are getting closer all the time.

Maybe what I said isn't as true today as it was 10 years ago, but Mac still leads the graphics art world.

When you get into this business, you will meet people who want to design for you, but have no idea of how to set up the type or art for a press. Run like mad from those folks. They will waste your time and make your life miserable.

Stay with proven, results oriented designers and layout people who know how to create press ready work. Good ones cost money, but they are worth it in the long run.

Nope, never saw one of those. My best friend's dad used to run presses in a local "Sir Speedy" type of shop, but I don't recall ever seeing anything like that. Pretty neat action on the YT video. Part of it reminded me of steam locomotive linkage.

This thread is a valuable eye-opener for me. The designer has been at this for eight or ten years. Many of the words you've used are the nuts and bolts jargon I need to learn.

I went to a college that offered a printing management course and knew many of the students. None of it rubbed off on me. Any recommendations of books or other materials I can use to understand the details?

Any trade associations that have educational resources?

If you are capable of doing all your own layout and cover work, just go to Lighningsource and have them print the books. Very straightforward and you can get your pricing right off the website.

They are not very inclined to hold your hand, so you need to learn all about layout and stuff yourself, but once your book is in the system you can order in any quantity.

I think you wind up paying about $75 per title to get it set up, and after that you are good to go.

I did NOT find it very rewarding to let them market my titles to other book stores, because other online stores would sell them without buying any beforehand, having LS drop ship them to customers, marking them down to a couple of bucks profit and undercutting my retail price, making me, as the author and publisher, the most expensive price out there. After seeing my $18 book on sale at other places for $11, I told Lightningsource I ddid not want to sell to other booksellers at wholesale prices any more.

LS will also drop ship to your customers if you want them to at reasonable prices. It takes a lot of study to understand their whole program and decide what you want from them, and I only use them for printing at this point, but they have a lot of services available for reasonable costs and I think a lot of publishers make a living just doing the editing and having LS do the printing for authors.......Joe

Thanks Joe. I think I can beat lightingsources and most others prices for hard bound books. I need to understand the technical aspects of printing first.

The National Business Forms Association used to have some pretty excellent books on printing. I used to have a few of them. Mostly dealing with forms, but also very good info on other types of printing.

Question for Darren: In an ideal word, what is it exactly that you are wanting to do??? Who is your ideal customer? What kind of quantities are you hoping to run?

There is good money to be made with family history books. Often, the re-orders can be lucrative because the per unit profit is so high, and it is easy to re-run.

My very strong suggestion is this: Start out with your friend helping you, and find a good high speed copy shop that caters "to the trade".

Find out who the good perfect binders in your area are.

Start offering perfect bound books that you and your friend set and lay out.

A perfect bound book might cost you $8 to $13 each with a 4/0 cover, but they easily retail for $25+ each if you have a nice product.

You also need to try to get distribution rights on the book. Sell it on ebay. I sold 2 family history books, both copies with tape bindings, on ebay for $99 each, and sold them too cheap. Both books went to people in different states with the same last name!

I'm telling you, unless you are printing thousands of copies, high speed copies on 60# stock are the way to go.

And I have a trade copy shop in Indianapolis that does tons of family history work every year. You could email him the files, have him print a dummy, mail it to you, proof it, and have him ship the job when ready.

I've been dealing with him for 17 years, and he prints about 80% of my work, but only because he can't print some of the orders I have.

You can also call me if you ever want to chat about the business, or ask questions.

Here are a few links I found in a 2 minute Google search for "trade association hardbound books":

http://www.bmibook.org/about/

http://www.npes.org/

There are a ton of trade groups...finding a few of them will help you immensely!!!!

I'm at the stage where I don't come close to knowing what I don't know. I appreciate the offer greatly. I'm going to noodle this around and get some more info from the designer. I've seen copies of their books. I was impressed. But what do I know. I don't envision doing thousands of copies. I know the shop isn't overloaded. For some reason they're usually busiest at the end of the year.

But what is it exactly what you want to do??

Family histories? Coffee table books?

Who is your customer? How much will they buy per order?

I am also wondering why you are not open to perfect bound books printed here in the States?

I'm trying to find work for a foreign printer. I'm considering whether relocating and working as an agent might be a perfect fit. Other than possibly teaching English which is competitive and not very well paid, work for an expat is not easy to come by.