Custom Printing: Entrepreneurial Digital Printing

As a commercial printing broker, I look for trends. I’m always studying. Always observing all things related to custom printing. And over the last several years I’ve been noticing that the majority of my clients have been entrepreneurs. I think that’s rather exciting.

Here’s a rundown:

1. 1. I have one client with whom I’ve been periodically discussing a reprint of a public domain book located solely online. It is a book about the space program. She thinks she can sell it as a print book.

 

1. 1. I have another client who produces color books for fashion. She is a “fashionista.” Her print books are like small PMS swatch books. People use them to choose clothing and make-up colors based on their hair and complexion. She is expanding and adding a clothing line based on her color system. Therefore, I’ve been studying direct-to-fabric printing in order to help her prepare her initial Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. For this campaign she will only need a few digitally-produced prototypes.

 

1. 1. A few years ago I had a client who produced graphic novels. They were essentially perfect-bound print books. Their subject matter was an intensely emotional, dramatic, photographic portrayal (with limited text) of human relationships. To me it was a cross between high opera and an adult comic book. This client also crowdsourced her work, getting small donations from a number of people and drastically limiting her press runs.

 

1. 1. I had a recent client who wanted to produce a 500-plus-page book with heavy 4-color coverage and bleeds but only a 100-copy press run. My price was too high for him, so he first considered buying a Xerox color copier for the text and outsourcing the binding. Then he opted for a 30-copy press run produced by a local printer to test reader interest and secure funding for a longer run.

 

1. 1. I had two poets contract with me to produce very limited runs of poetry print books. In one case, my client only wanted 20 to 30 copies of a 32-page book (plus cover).

 

1. I had another client who produced a 200-plus-page print book on the Holocaust for family members. If I recall correctly he produced only about 40 copies. I had a digital print book vendor produce the text digitally and then offset print the covers (to ensure their quality), since the press run was so small.

The list goes on.

A Learning Experience

That said, here are some things I learned from all of these experiences.

1. 1. It used to be that a writer would produce a book and then find a publisher. The publisher would pay to print, market, and sell the print book. Then he/she would pay the writer a percentage of the profits. This meant that only a limited number of authors would get published. Beyond the financial implications, this meant that only a limited number of writers would get their product to a wide audience—or to any audience.

 

1. 1. Then there came digital custom printing, the country-wide increase in freelancing, crowdfunding, the “sharing” economy (like Uber), etc. Writers realized they could “do it themselves.” They could produce a limited number of any kind of publication, shop it around, talk it up on the Internet, maybe sell it on Amazon, and get a percentage of the profits. If they also sold it themselves (rather than through Amazon or any other web-to-print site), they could keep significantly more of the profits.

 

1. This redefining of publishing (which in the 1970s was called “vanity printing”: i.e., funding your own print job rather than convincing a publisher to do it for you) democratized the industry. It made everyone a potential publisher.

Implications for Digital Custom Printing

The democratization of printing, which I would put up there with Gutenberg’s invention of movable type in Europe (as opposed to in China, where it happened earlier)–and which led to the democratization of information–also had implications for how print buyers bought printing. Here are some thoughts:

1. 1. I just received the first bid for my client whose 32-page book of poems I’m shopping around. The cost of 20 copies or 30 copies is almost the same (about $5.00 apart). What this means is that almost all of the money is going into preparation (no matter what they say about digital printing’s not having any prep work). My advice to her is to buy 40, 50, or 100 books and give them away through writing schools, her website, and other venues. She could consider it a marketing expense. The unit cost would drop precipitously, but the overall cost would rise only slightly.

 

1. 1. My client who printed the Holocaust book text via digital printing and the covers of these books via offset lithography benefited from the following technical “facts”: a) For heavy-coverage solids, offset printing is better than digital. b) For black-only text on a nice, textured, off-white printing stock, digital printing is fine, especially since the photos were old and of of marginal quality. c) And an offset printed cover with a film laminate coating, a press score, and a nice perfect binding can make a digitally printed book look spectacular. d) Plus, a press run of 300 covers is cheap when compared to a print run of 300 entirely offset printed books.

 

1. 1. There are online vendors willing to do any of these jobs. Personally, I’m more comfortable going to vendors when I know the management and can visit the shop if something goes wrong. You may have a different experience with online vendors.

 

1. 1. There are any number of vendors in the Far East who will do this kind of work. However, they’re far away if anything goes wrong. Also, if there are any problems with the shipping, customs, dock strikes, etc., what are you going to do? (You pay for your savings in other ways.) Also, they often have minimum runs—like 1,000 copies.

 

1. In general, many printers have minimum runs. Most of my clients’ jobs could not meet these minimums. That means needing to find a printer who can. It also means (see item #1 above) that most of the ultra-short press runs will cost about the same even if you double or triple the run length. I always tell my clients that it’s cheaper to print too many copies and then give (or throw) them away than to print too few copies and need to go back on press. This is sometimes true for digital jobs as well as offset jobs (see item #1 above).

What You Can Learn From This Multi-Client Case Study

1. 1. Think outside the box. Don’t be afraid to blend technologies such as digital and offset printing in one project.

 

1. 1. Think outside the box with funding. Look at Kickstarter and other crowdfunding sites online.

 

1. 1. Consider repurposing your product, as my client did by expanding from color books to garments based on the same colors.

 

1. 1. Always get samples. For any job with physical requirements (such as garments), test the samples. Wash the sample garments. See how they “drape,” how they fit and feel, how they respond to sun and rain.

 

1. 1. Look at samples side by side. See what a heavy coverage, full-bleed cover looks like printed digitally vs. offset printed. Can you see a difference? Does the difference bother you? Is it worth the extra money?

 

1. Find print vendors you can trust, and then listen to their advice on all of these subjects.