Offset Printing Quotes

[plughmann]

[quote="mikeyboy_esq"]Maybe I'm missing something, but why order hundreds or thousands of copies? Many indie authors (like me) use print-on-demand printers to make print books as they are ordered so we don't have to risk buying thousands of books and possibly have them sitting in our garage forever. You can use CreateSpace to make your ppk or Ingram Spark to make your ppk and/or hard cover and not have to buy any copies. But if you do want to buy some copies, you can buy them from CS or IS for the printing cost plus shipping. For my 2 books, the ppk cost for me is about $3 per book plus shipping. Obviously, the longer the book, the more it will cost to make. Also, if you have color interior pages and detailed graphics/pics, that will cost more too. So don't go by my costs. Good luck![/quote]

Price is the reason. Quality is a big factor too.
POD is often poor quality and per book costs a lot more than a longer print run by a real book manufacturer.
Larger books cost a lot more using POD. The extra paper cost is marginal for a trad print run by a real book printer.

The risk is having that garage full of books you cant sell.

[plughmann]

[quote="katiewd"]Hi. I am helping a writer do research for a book. Both of us are new to this process and it is a bit overwhelming! He hasn't started writing it yet but he has an estimate of how long it will be, page size, how many copies we'll print etc... We need to get an approximate price of what it would cost per book to print via offset printing (web fed most likely). Is there a way to get an idea of cost without me having to contact a lot of individual companies for quotes? One company I tried to contact wanted my home address, email, full name, and even title of the book! We're not far enough along yet that I want to give out all of that information but we need to have an idea of what this is going to cost before we get too far into this. When I finally did find a website that gave an "instant quote" it said $60 per book! I guess this quote was for a POD book but this price made no sense, especially since the book will retail for far less than that! I am sure that some blogs or websites for writers have discussed this but I'm having trouble finding them. If anyone can point me to a blog, website, etc... that has disucssed this, I would greatly appreciate it.

Below is our specs if any of you could give me an approximation of what this might cost.

Book Size -300 pages (book pages, not Microsoft Word pages)
Page Size- Either 5.5 x 8, 7 x10, or 9x6
Initial Number of Books Printed -5000
Paper Quality -Not sure about this yet but most likely will be of medium quality (not ultra cheap paper,not the most expensive....whatever is most appropriate for a non-fiction softcover book. I've still got to research the weights of paper used, etc...)

Thank You,
Katie[/quote]

There are web sites that let you put in parameters and give you a price. $60 is a rip off vanity press level scam price.
You may have contacted some vanity presses. Stay far away from them.

The best results will be real book printers and a quote just before you print the book. Prices vary with workload and spot price of paper.

POD is relatively expensive and quality is often poor. It is good for under 100 books.
Real printing is good over 1000. 300 may be the trade off point between the two.

Check aeonix site for a list of real book printers and a lot of useful tips.
http://www.aeonix.com/bookprnt.htm
He has a lot of useful info plus a list of real book printers.

You could probably get 5000 7x10 with decent paper in soft cover for $3/book.

Be sure you need that many books. Many folks end up with a garage full of books they cant sell.