Printing my own 36 page booklets - advice needed

[JH]

Hi all,

We release a magazine/booklet on a monthly basis. We sell around 850
issues per release. The booklets have a full colour cover (front and
back) on glossy paper, with the inside of the booklets being black and
white. The booklets are A5 size & 36 pages, which is essentially 9
sheets of A4 paper with printing on both sides, folded and then stapled
down the spine.

The booklets are sold at £1 each, and to have 850 issues printed as
described above we pay £300.

We are now looking at doing the printing ourselves. We are not a
company (this is a hobby) and profits generated are moderate. But we
can afford to buy some printing equipment if its not massively expensive
and will save us money in the long run.

I'm looking for adive on whether people think this is worth doing, and
what equipment you'd recommend.

Many thanks
JH

 

[BruceM]

Probably best to just continue doing what you are doing but if it's fun &
self satisfaction you're after, see if you can find a cheapish Tektronix 850
solid ink printer.
You get a duplex (both sides) printer (colour) & free black ink FOR
EVER...........
So as long as it doesn't break down, you'll only be paying for a little
colour & the electricity.
The colour finish is very good & is comparable to a glossy weekly magazine
on ORDINARY paper.
Depending on the sort of mag it is you could go with a little thicker paper
for outside sheet but not glossy. (not needed for this printer!)
To make your finished job look professional, you will also need a GOOD
guillotine to trim the opening edge.
Hope that gives you some ideas?
BruceM

 

[Alan]

Hi all,

We release a magazine/booklet on a monthly basis. We sell around 850
issues per release. The booklets have a full colour cover (front and
back) on glossy paper, with the inside of the booklets being black and
white. The booklets are A5 size & 36 pages, which is essentially 9
sheets of A4 paper with printing on both sides, folded and then stapled
down the spine.

The booklets are sold at £1 each, and to have 850 issues printed as
described above we pay £300.

We are now looking at doing the printing ourselves. We are not a
company (this is a hobby) and profits generated are moderate. But we
can afford to buy some printing equipment if its not massively expensive
and will save us money in the long run.

I'm looking for adive on whether people think this is worth doing, and
what equipment you'd recommend.

Generally for this quantity I'd say stick with a commercial printer.
Shop around, ask small orgnisations, churches, etc who they use. If
you want to cut costs and have some free labout, you could just get
the covers printed professionally and do the interiors yourself on a
b/w laser; fold, collate and staple yourself.

 

[Arthur Entlich]

It is possible is could be worthwhile to print the inside pages and
allow the color cover to still be produced for you. You don't give a
breakdown of your costs.

Black printing is best done on a laser printer. The prices have come
down quite a bit on the printers. The other option is a photocopier,
making one master and then printing the copies "off glass" from it. It
somewhat depends on how dense your copy is. If you use a lot of black
area, it could use up a lot of toner.

A 5% coverage print (in black) probably costs you between 1 and 2 cents
US in toner, plus paper cost of about another cent.

Using 9 pages of paper inside, and 18 printed sides, I get about $300 US
as cost to print the black inside only, assuming no great expanses of
black toner and cost of 1.5 cents per side in toner and one cent paper.

Costs could be cheaper if you buy paper in large wholesale amounts and
if you buy a more costly laser printer or copier which will have a
higher initial outlay, but consumables tend to be less.

Based upon the general situation, I would say your printer is giving you
a reasonable price, at 35p each, considering the color page on glossy
stock. It also saves you the time, and the cost of purchasing and
maintaining the printers, and cost of any errors which you'd have to pay
for, rather than the printer being responsible for printing mistakes.

I suspect you are best off staying with your printer for now.

Art

 

[SteveG]

Hi JH,

Been there ... done that. I used to edit a car club magazine (quarterly,
28 pages, A4, full colour throughout). When we first started and had a
print run of about 50copies I printed them myself on an Epson inkjet. As
the club grew and the numbers of copies increased we spread the load of
printing around several of the committee members but by the time we got
to 800 copies we realised doing it ourselves was a) very time consuming
and b) too costly.

We bit the bullet and went to a commercial printer and I'd never want to
revert to a DIY situation. My advice would be to stay commercial but
shop around for lower costs. Try your local college, high school or even
prison to see if they can do the job. As someone else said try to find
out where your local parish magazine is printed too - they don't like
spending money any more than we do.

Good luck with the magazine

Regards
Steve G

 

[JH]

Thanks for the reply.

I've had a look at these printers and agree that they offer excellent
value for money. The entire mag works out at around 15000 A4 sheets.
The roller on these printers needs replacing every 45000 sheets, but
that expense is manageable.

The only thing that worries me slightly is the cost of printing all the
front covers in full colour. The colour ink refills aren't that
expensive but how quickly will they run out if I'm printing a full side
of colour? They're supposed to last for over 1000 pages, but that stat
is for 5% coverage I believe. Do you have any experience printing large
numbers of colour print outs on this printer or similar, and do you know
how long I can realitically expect the colour cartridges to last?

Thanks

JH

 

[JH]

Thanks for your reply

We used to have a 2 colour cover only. 850 issues was £200. Since we
went full colour cover it is now £300. Thats the best break down I can
give.

I agree it will be quite a lot of hard work to do it ourselves, but if I
can halve the price then I am willing to do it. There's several of us
who would pull together to do it.

The thing that worries me the most is how much colour ink I'd go through
if we were to do that ourselves.

JH

 

[JH]

Hi Steve, thanks for your response.

We also started DIY when we were printing 200 or so copies. Back then
though we didn't have a colour cover, and we used an old tempermental
photocopier. Not a situation I'd go back to!

Recently though with going full colour cover our costs have increased
significantly. Going back to doing it ourselves but in a more
professional way is something I'd consider as we do have the man power.

Cheers
JH

 

[BruceM]

No, I'm sorry but I don't have the knowledge about full colour printing
numbers of copies.
I actually have the 360 model (no duplex) & I sourced a 850DP for a friend.
The 850 is much quicker & of course hers is the duplex.
I was sure that the rate was around 2300 @ 5% cover but I might be wrong.
It setup you have three choices of the "density" of colour which if used to
your advantage as well as trying to reduce a bit of colour if you can, might
make it a workable proposition.
I honestly think that whatever type of colour printer you use, you must
expect it to be the major cost of your booklet.
A colour laser would most likely be cheaper for the colour page but then
you're up for the cost of the black & for better paper as well.
Incidently be careful if you look at the Tektronix 8500. Black ISN'T free
for these!!
I have often wondered about how many pages at 5% that manufactureres quote.
If you get 1000 pages @ 5% of blue.
Then I guess if you are using all 4 colours @ 5% then you actually get 4000
pages for a "set" of solid ink blocks?
I found a source of blocks here (in Aust) for $15 a block & black of course
free. So from that I reckon on $45 for 4000 pages @ 5% cover.
I can't say for your front cover but with a little editing you might be able
to reduce it to 45%? The back half (or back page) wouldn't need a lot?
Remember that anything white just stays as plain paper. Have a bit of a look
around your local newsagent's magazine stand & see how they cunningly reduse
printing costs without being too obvious?
Hope I maybe gave you a little to think about. Basically colour is
costly.......... no way around it I'm afraid.
BruceM

 

[Arthur Entlich]

I usually figure a color image uses between 30-60% cover per color if
the image is pretty much covering the full area and doesn't have a lot
of white or very light areas. Based upon that, you can figure the
number of pages you will get per set of ink blocks (CMY) (if you are
considering the solid color ink printers) is cut from 1000 to between
about 150 to 80 pages If you are using spot color and lots of white,
the number of pages would, of course, be greater.

Don't forget to amortize the cost of the printer itself and any other
consumables that might be involved. I have also been told that the
solid color machines tend to waste a goodly amount of the wax ink on
start up from cold, so if you can run your print run in as few sessions
as possible, that will also help.

One other consideration... the wax/solid ink printers literally use a
heavy dye "crayon" to print. This color will smear and scratch and can
even peel off or crack if abused. They have improved the adhesion of
the inks over the years, but they still are wax based. Over time, some
of the ink seems to bleed through the paper as well.

Try to get some samples from Xerox and abuse them a bit and see if they
hold up well enough for your needs.

Art

 

[Arthur Entlich]

I have often wondered about how many pages at 5% that manufactureres quote.
If you get 1000 pages @ 5% of blue.
Then I guess if you are using all 4 colours @ 5% then you actually get 4000
pages for a "set" of solid ink blocks?

Your assumption is correct if you only are using one color at %5 on each
page. However, full color usually means using all 4 colors (CMYK) and
you will be also overlapping some colors to make the secondary colors.
Of course, lighter colors and white reduce the amount of ink used.

When they say 5% color makes 1000 pages (if that is the case, I didn't
check that out) they assume coverage of 5% per color. That's not a lot
of coverage. Even assume no overlap, that would be 15-20% (if you
include black).

Art