I'm way out of my league here with tech questions, and really don't know alot about this field. I'm getting out of the Army soon, and while in Iraq, I kept reading silly reprints of historical works that drove me insane, limited commentary, poor cover designs, and so on. I stared at the books for a good while, and figured I could make them, at least the paperbacks. I hit up the Library of Congress for research while on leave, have a plethora of research material, am currently making maps, and even started making a few audiobooks. This is turning into a great hobby, and now that my date for leaving the army is leaving, I'm going to need a printing machine. I can print the pages I want easily enough on cheap printers black and white, they look good, and figure a standard wood cutting machine can cut the paper itself for shaping it. I looked at several books, and have a few good glues that look similar. I got photos and art work as well. All I really need is a printer capable of printing paperback covers.
This has been a nightmare in figuring out. Printers seem to jump from US $600 (cheap, useless ones) to $1500 up to $30,000, and the more likely it seems to be able to print out the covers, the more insanely expensive it becomes, if they even bother to list the price. More often than not, they instead list how progressive their management and business plan is, and not tell me how much to expect it to be. And if I get a sales rep, they get confused, and offer me something completely unnecessarily. I'm expecting to make maybe 200-400 covers a month, IF THAT. I do not need to buy a 50,000 dollar machine with rollers and assembly lines. I'm not even certain if I want to start a For-Profit company, may just make library editions for a few years as a hobby. I want something for a small room, to be stored next to a kayak and a bicycle. And under 7000 dollars.
I thought about internet web 2 print, but for my personality, it's out of the question. I have ideas that pester me in the middle of the night, if I have an idea, I want to test it out, then and there. I try to be innovative. I want twenty prototypes of a edition (a edition who's final run may only be 40 books) to lay out, one next to the other, and have creative control over as much as possible. Web 2 Print just can't do this, unless the business was next door, and if it was next door, I would likely just work for them, experimenting on my off time.
There are two printers I zeroed in on, but given my ignorance of printing, I feel I may be way off. One is the Docucolor 242. It has 2400 X 2400 DPI, and is designed for making booklets and brouchers. It says it can fold, but I got a feeling it won't fold a paperback cover, and probably wouldn't even bother it with it, afraid it would mess it up, and would fold it myself. I can't decide if it's going to be able to handle the paper though. I'm not worried about pages per minute or how many a month, for as I said before, this is to be used for paperback covers, and will be a very low quantity at that. However, I do want quality. I don't want to be embarrassed with the finial product.
The other one is DOCUCOLOR 12 COPIER. Why I want this, I really don't know. Looks like a useless office copier to me in all honesty, but it has a fiery and is somewhat similar to a Docucolor 242, and more importantly, I've been able to get a price on it (Xerox keeps demanding a company before they give me a pricing for the 242, I don't have a company yet, and won't until I own one of these, and experiment for a while, deciding then if I want to go the profit or non-profit route)
It has 600 x 600 DPI, which is well below the 242. I do not know what a book cover needs, but I figure the more, the better, unless your picture for the cover is crappy, then it will be shown as extraordinarily crappy..... at least, that's what I figure.
I like the bigger I Gens, but they are way to expensive, and too big. They are like a 18 wheeler designed to haul heavy freight on a daily basis, I'm just looking for a small pick-up. Small is good. Affordable is good to. Straight forewardness is good too, nobody has given me this.
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I visited a few paper manufacturers as well. Any recommendations on who to buy from. I'll be staying in the Pittsburg, PA to Columbus, Ohio area for a while before moving elsewhere (haven't decided yet) so pretty much anything in the lower 48 would be good.
This has been a nightmare in figuring out. Printers seem to jump from US $600 (cheap, useless ones) to $1500 up to $30,000, and the more likely it seems to be able to print out the covers, the more insanely expensive it becomes, if they even bother to list the price. More often than not, they instead list how progressive their management and business plan is, and not tell me how much to expect it to be. And if I get a sales rep, they get confused, and offer me something completely unnecessarily. I'm expecting to make maybe 200-400 covers a month, IF THAT. I do not need to buy a 50,000 dollar machine with rollers and assembly lines. I'm not even certain if I want to start a For-Profit company, may just make library editions for a few years as a hobby. I want something for a small room, to be stored next to a kayak and a bicycle. And under 7000 dollars.
I thought about internet web 2 print, but for my personality, it's out of the question. I have ideas that pester me in the middle of the night, if I have an idea, I want to test it out, then and there. I try to be innovative. I want twenty prototypes of a edition (a edition who's final run may only be 40 books) to lay out, one next to the other, and have creative control over as much as possible. Web 2 Print just can't do this, unless the business was next door, and if it was next door, I would likely just work for them, experimenting on my off time.
There are two printers I zeroed in on, but given my ignorance of printing, I feel I may be way off. One is the Docucolor 242. It has 2400 X 2400 DPI, and is designed for making booklets and brouchers. It says it can fold, but I got a feeling it won't fold a paperback cover, and probably wouldn't even bother it with it, afraid it would mess it up, and would fold it myself. I can't decide if it's going to be able to handle the paper though. I'm not worried about pages per minute or how many a month, for as I said before, this is to be used for paperback covers, and will be a very low quantity at that. However, I do want quality. I don't want to be embarrassed with the finial product.
The other one is DOCUCOLOR 12 COPIER. Why I want this, I really don't know. Looks like a useless office copier to me in all honesty, but it has a fiery and is somewhat similar to a Docucolor 242, and more importantly, I've been able to get a price on it (Xerox keeps demanding a company before they give me a pricing for the 242, I don't have a company yet, and won't until I own one of these, and experiment for a while, deciding then if I want to go the profit or non-profit route)
It has 600 x 600 DPI, which is well below the 242. I do not know what a book cover needs, but I figure the more, the better, unless your picture for the cover is crappy, then it will be shown as extraordinarily crappy..... at least, that's what I figure.
I like the bigger I Gens, but they are way to expensive, and too big. They are like a 18 wheeler designed to haul heavy freight on a daily basis, I'm just looking for a small pick-up. Small is good. Affordable is good to. Straight forewardness is good too, nobody has given me this.
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I visited a few paper manufacturers as well. Any recommendations on who to buy from. I'll be staying in the Pittsburg, PA to Columbus, Ohio area for a while before moving elsewhere (haven't decided yet) so pretty much anything in the lower 48 would be good.