Newbie looking for printer advice to print photo books

[ccameron121]

Hi,

I'm new to the printing business but am looking to buy a printer to do primarily photo books with. The runs would be one to two prints of the book. I would like a high quality print so the photos come out looking good. Volume wise we are planning to be in the 300 - 400 per month range. I don't have a budget established yet, I'm trying to figure out what the ballpark costs would be to establish a budget. So please provide if you know.

Thanks for your help!!

 

[oxburger]

What size paper do you need to run? Will the books be imposed? If so, you may need something that will run bigger sheets. What thickness paper do you want? You'll need to take that into consideration as well as some printers have trouble with thicker stock? You'll also have to take into consideration if the paper will be coated or uncoated. If coated, you may run into problems with the color picking or fuser problems if it's a laser vs. an inkjet. Will they saddle stitch? Some printers have the ability to stitch as they print.....

Just some questions you may want to address before committing.

 

[gordo]

What will be the sell price of the books? Will that be sufficient to cover the cost of printing the book (materials, equipment, office space etc.) plus provide a profit? Is there an actual 150 to 300 volume per month market size at that sell price?

best gordon p

 

[ccameron121]

Re: Newbie looking for printer advice to print photo books Reply to Thread

Re: Newbie looking for printer advice to print photo books Reply to Thread

Those are great questions, I'm thinking we will use lighter stock, probably want a 12" x 18" sheet that we then fold and trim. Of course the less work we have to do after printing the better so a printer that does the saddle stitch would be nice. I would say uncoated paper if that's simpler, but again I'm really new at this so I'd look for recommendations. We haven't fully established price, but were thinking of having a book around $19 - $24 and then one at around $34 - $39. These may not be realistic at covering cost, but that's why I'm asking the experts. I want the finished book to either have a stiffer soft cover or a hard cover. The quality of the print doesn't have to be extremely high.

Thanks!

 

[gordo]

Projected sell price and volume is important because it helps determine your budget.
In very/overly simple terms, for example, if you believe there is a market to sell 300 books a month at a sell price at $30 each then you have $9000 a month coming in. What is the profit margin you want to make? Let's say it's 5%. That means you'll put $450 a month in your pocket and have $8550 a month to cover all your manufacturing costs, taxes, leasing of equipment, etc. Is that really worth the effort? What are the consumables costs per month? What is left over to pay for equipment and space and utilities, etc. What kind of equipment can be leased for that amount of money. Will the equipment that can be leased deliver the quality necessary that customers would be happy to pay $30 a unit for?

BTW you originally wrote "I would like a high quality print so the photos come out looking good." now you're saying: "The quality of the print doesn't have to be extremely high."

You will need to work out exactly what quality level at the sell price you wish to deliver, because that will help determine your costs as well as the potential market.
Basically you need to work out the financials first because that will tell you what you can realistically afford and whether it will support the market you are targeting.

We might all like to have a Ferrari to drive to the office with, but there is no use discussing what options and colors are available until we determine whether we have the budget for a Ferrari and whether it will survive the gravel road that goes to the office.

best, gordon p

 

[oxburger]

What's the approximate page count of the book? You may want to look at print on demand printers online and have them do the printing, mark it up accordingly so that you make a nice profit, and sell it to the consumer without the consumer knowing how you printed it. (In essence, you'd be a print broker handling all the leg work of getting the job printed for the client while still making a little for yourself.)

My wife and I decided to go through a print on demand supplier. We were able to get a 116 page black and white book, inserted into a binder and have 8 cd's duplicated, printed on and inserted into the binder all for about $50 (and that price includes the fulfillment). Of course we're selling them for $459 so we have a little.......ok, a lot, of "wiggle room".

 

[gordo]

My wife and I decided to go through a print on demand supplier. We were able to get a 116 page black and white book, inserted into a binder and have 8 cd's duplicated, printed on and inserted into the binder all for about $50 (and that price includes the fulfillment). Of course we're selling them for $459 so we have a little.......ok, a lot, of "wiggle room".

Oxburger! I certainly hope you apologized to your parents and reimbursed them accordingly.

best, gordon p

 

[X33]

in terms of equiment, you can start with a Xerox DocuColor 242; probaly around $30k (just a guess) with a Fiery bustled controller.

I would recommend a CREO controller though (fully loaded with spectrophotometer, color management tools, etc); since you'll be working a lot with skin tones and will probably need to do imposition. I personally like it better for photo books. Maybe about $45k (just another guess)

 

[ccameron121]

Great information, your right we do need to noodle the financials better. We have a rough idea of what we think the book will sell for, just no idea of the costs. I would like a high quality print, but we do have some wiggle room there, that's why I waiver on the quality requirement. Cost of course will dictate.

So that we can narrow it down, let's say it's a 32 page book at a decent almost photographic quality (I realize this is subjective) and full color throughout. Ideally we would like it to be hard bound, but a stiffer paper soft bound may be an option as well. What I'm hoping the experts on here can tell me is what would it cost to print a book like that. Each one would be a custom, one-off print.

 

[TWinqvist]

I would recommend You to take contact to MGI. They have Meteor DP20 photo book solution that is worth of look. One machine that does everything, one software and one price for all. I don't know what are the costs for a book but it should be very competitive?

Meteor DP20 is an 4 in 1 machine that is printing, laminating, cuting and creasing in just one pass. MGI has created a specially designed and patented binding method using a metallic channel ensuring the printed pages firmly bind to the cover.

PhotoWork Shop is MGI's design and order software. Customers can create their photo books at the photo shop using the touch-screen kiosk, or they can buy a USB key with encrypted pre-loaded software from you and allowing them to create photo books on their own computers. Once their book is created, they return the USB key containing their finished photo book file to the shop for printing and binding.

More information from MGI impression numérique

 

[postnetnc133]

I was at our annual convention where one of the reps teaming up with Xerox had a book building machine. It would produce hard bound books. You print, trim to size and then use this machine offline to produce the hard cover and then glue the pages to the book. According to the brochures our costs for a rough 25-30 page book was around $10 and they retail for $35-45 per book.

Now I cant see my customers paying that (Im in the quick printing industry) so before you jump in who is your target market and what are they willing to pay and order and how often?

 

[JimRoshan]

Contact us if you're still interested in printing the photo books. That is what we do! We have several pricing structures depending on where you fall and you sound like you would fall in our lowest price category!

We are a pro level photo lab that has a press division that prints with the Xerox iGen4 digital press. We make custom (one-off) image wrapped, hard cover books up to 11'x13" or perfect bound or saddle stitched soft cover books.

I can be reached at [email protected] or 270-781-3315

 

[Miss Marple]

Photo Books

Photo Books

Hi there
In my experience, you should try Taopix (www.tapoix.com), or M-Photo (Color correction tools,photo books). Good luck!

 

[edwinb]

lulu.com has an interesting offering
edwin