Cost Of Printing A Catalogue

[Khandro]

Don't know where to put this. I've had all the layout done, it will be about 70 pages of coloured pictures and texts, and it is now in pdf form. How much might it cost to get say, 200 copies printed with a stiff cover (I don't mean hard) and a glued spine please?

[Khandro]

btw. It's A4 width cropped in height to 25cm.

[Kidas]

How long is a piece of string?

It'll depend on the quality of the paper, as well as the number of colours and the type of printing; double-sided or single-sided, and how quickly you need it done.

If you can accept a laser print, then it will be (roughly) 50p per A4 sheet. You can get 5 x25mm sheets from a single A4 sheet,so you'd be looking at about £8-£10 per booklet for printing plus binding costs.

If you want letter press (higher quality) , it will be more. That will depend on the printer you use, and how busy they are.

Also, for a printing press, most of the cost is in the set-up. The cost of the prints is (almost) incidental, so you may find (for example) that a 500-run is only a few pounds more than a 200-run.

If you do send the PDF to a printer, be sure it set up as 4-colour separations, rather than many spot colours (usually PDF-X is best). Also, be sure it has all fonts and images embedded.

Finally, the best approach is to look for local print shops and give them a ring to discuss it.

Good luck!

[bookbinder]

I don't know about the cost, but you should specify your desired binding style as follows:
paper cover drawn on
cut flush.
70 pages, with paper cover drawn on [otherwise known as paper backed] could be fairly expensive. It might pay you to consider having the binding style as follows:
70 pages, saddle stitched, 2 wires, cut flush.
Such a binding style could save you money over the cover drawn on style.

[Khandro]

My thanks to you both, I was wondering if it would be an advantage, price-wise to consider what it would cost in another EU country such as Poland, (I'm in Germany) any ideas about that?
I've been given a rough quote here of €15. a piece, which amounts to €3,000. I can't recoup my cost from sales as they will be given away free.

[Kidas]

Sometimes it's cheaper to print overseas. There are bureaux in China who will do it for you at half the price or less. You have to add the time delay for shipping, and the lack of come-back if something goes wrong. So it's best to know what you are doing. If you need some hand-holding, then best to pay the extra and use a local printer.

I had a business a few years ago (now sold) where we would print a 24- or 32-page mag every couple of months. For full-colour, 32 pages of A4 saddle-stitched (so 16 pages of A3 folded) on 80gsm paper, self-covered, it was about GBP5000 for a 6000 print run, as I recall, That was regular business, so we had some big printers competing.

For a sales brochure you might want 100gsm or 120 gsm (grams.sq. m - higher is stiffer and better and has less show-through from one page to the next)

There are some technical terms you might need:

"Perfect bound" is like some of the bigger magazines you see out there with a more or less square spine. Usually used n publications of 64-ish pages upwards

Saddle Stitched is where a pile of sheets are folded in the middle and then stapled or sewn together. It results in a rounded spine, and usually is used for 64 pages or less.

1-up; 2-up etc means the number of identical pages per sheet. So if you present the PDF to the printer as a 5-up, it means you have put 5 identical; pages onto a single sheet (which can save cost).

Bleed: no printer can position the page images perfectly on the sheet. You need to add a bleed around the edges so that if things move by a couple of millimetres, it still looks good.

4-colour / spot colour. Printers work in 4-colour separations (CMYK = cyan, magenta, yellow, black). If there are any spot colours for a specific Pantone colour, then it will add cost, making it a 5-colour or more job.

Self-covered means the same paper stock is used for the cover as the main print run.

For the paper you can get matt, silk or gloss, or varnished and it can be FSC or recycled..... You have a lot of choices.

And so on. Feel free to do a search on those terms , or ask further.

[Khandro]

Thanks again Kidas, I'm printing out your answer.
6 proof copies have been made as you call 'saddle stitched' for reference, but the rounded spine doesn't really cut the mustard, 'perfect bound' looks so much better - I may have to bite the bullet.