Posted by Peter Conway on December 19, 2011 at 2:14 PM
I recently used iphoto 11 to print a large format 13" x 10" hardcover photo book from apple. The quality is super and the book is beautiful. I would like to order a large quantity of them but Apple offers no quantity discount and at $80 a pop it is much too expensive.
Is there a source for high qualtiy hardcover photo book printing that would offer a significant discount for say 100 books?
Peter
Posted by Mike Moats on December 19, 2011 at 4:00 PM
You really have to get into a quality of a least a thousand just to get started with volume printing. With the second thousand, price will drop. I did a soft cover book here in the states and it was minimum of 1,000 books at $10 each. The second thousand and there after dropped to $2 each. So I bought 2,000 at a cost of $12,000 bringing my per book cost to $6. The best prices come out of China and I believe Korea.
Posted by Peter Conway on December 19, 2011 at 4:21 PM
Mike,
Thank you. That makes sense for a commercial operation. I don't see huge sales, but I have so many friends and relations that want to have a copy of the book. I don't need to get to $10.00. If I could cut the price to $25 or so that would be great. It may not be possible, there may not be significant savings at a 100 copies vs 1 but I thought this would be the place to find out.
Posted by Max Waugh on December 19, 2011 at 6:09 PM
Peter, I think Mike is right that you really need to go for a lot of books in order to drop the price significantly.
Out of curiosity, have you tried Blurb? For larger books (100-200 pages) they are typically priced much better than other vendors. However, if this doesn't have much content Blurb may not be as competitive. I imagine you can still do better than $80 though, so they're worth checking out.
Max
Posted by Eva McDermott on December 19, 2011 at 7:36 PM
Another option is MyPublisher. they tend to run sales like 2 for one on books. I did some of my calendars with them this year. Their quality was better than Lulu.com. I also made a few calendars with MPIX which also does photo books. Their quality was better then either and also competitive but I do not know too much about the book pricing
Posted by Gary Yeoh on December 19, 2011 at 8:09 PM
Peter:
Printing in HK is relatively cheap. How many pages is your book? I can find out the cost of printing in HK. It might be cheaper even taking the freight cost into consideration.
Posted by Peter Conway on December 20, 2011 at 12:55 AM
Thank you everyone I appreciate the help.
Gary, Thanks so much. I sent an email with a full description. It is really kind of you to look into this for me.
Peter
Posted by Mark Stadsklev on December 20, 2011 at 10:26 AM
Hello,
I did my publisher for years, and always the 2 for 1 sales. I sold those to tourists and made maybe $20, finally I bit the bullet and bought design software. I used Serif at about 1/10th the cost of the most popular company. It has all the options you need for laying out a professional book.
Then I contacted Sam Sheng at Cosmo BLS. I was worried since he is on the east coast and I'm in Alaska, but I checked his references and they all couldn't say enough nice things about Sam. He did a ton of work with me and that was without any money up front. Including sending me a sample book, helping me with about 50 questions about laying out the book, and even sending proofs from China before I sent him one dollar. I chose his company because of the price and the way the books lay flat. I have several dozen images that are two pages wide and most books do not lay flat, his do. I ending up getting the 2000 books, and the price included to my door shipping, insurance, customs and all other fees. They expressed the first five copies off the press and the rest arrived about a month later. Books don't expire so if it takes 3 years to sell them all it doesn't matter. It's a big 12x12 hard cover with embossing and a super heavy french fold dust jacket. I paid $7 a book and they sell for $50 retail or $25 wholesale. see www.artwithinnature.com
Enjoy the challenge.
Mark
Posted by Peter Conway on December 20, 2011 at 11:27 AM
Mark, Thank you.
I visited your website and your images are beautiful!
Peter
Posted by Mark Stadsklev on December 20, 2011 at 11:44 AM
Hello,
I did my publisher for years, and always the 2 for 1 sales. I sold those to tourists and made maybe $20, finally I bit the bullet and bought design software. I used Serif at about 1/10th the cost of the most popular company. It has all the options you need for laying out a professional book.
Then I contacted Sam Sheng at Cosmo BLS. I was worried since he is on the east coast and I'm in Alaska, but I checked his references and they all couldn't say enough nice things about Sam. He did a ton of work with me and that was without any money up front. Including sending me a sample book, helping me with about 50 questions about laying out the book, and even sending proofs from China before I sent him one dollar. I chose his company because of the price and the way the books lay flat. I have several dozen images that are two pages wide and most books do not lay flat, his do. I ending up getting the 2000 books, and the price included to my door shipping, insurance, customs and all other fees. They expressed the first five copies off the press and the rest arrived about a month later. Books don't expire so if it takes 3 years to sell them all it doesn't matter. It's a big 12x12 hard cover with embossing and a super heavy french fold dust jacket. I paid $7 a book and they sell for $50 retail or $25 wholesale. see www.artwithinnature.com
Enjoy the challenge.
Mark
Posted by Peter Conway on December 20, 2011 at 12:17 PM
Mark, Thank you.
I visited your website and your images are beautiful!
Discussion
10 repliesIs there a source for high qualtiy hardcover photo book printing that would offer a significant discount for say 100 books?
Peter
Thank you. That makes sense for a commercial operation. I don't see huge sales, but I have so many friends and relations that want to have a copy of the book. I don't need to get to $10.00. If I could cut the price to $25 or so that would be great. It may not be possible, there may not be significant savings at a 100 copies vs 1 but I thought this would be the place to find out.
Out of curiosity, have you tried Blurb? For larger books (100-200 pages) they are typically priced much better than other vendors. However, if this doesn't have much content Blurb may not be as competitive. I imagine you can still do better than $80 though, so they're worth checking out.
Max
Printing in HK is relatively cheap. How many pages is your book? I can find out the cost of printing in HK. It might be cheaper even taking the freight cost into consideration.
Gary, Thanks so much. I sent an email with a full description. It is really kind of you to look into this for me.
Peter
I did my publisher for years, and always the 2 for 1 sales. I sold those to tourists and made maybe $20, finally I bit the bullet and bought design software. I used Serif at about 1/10th the cost of the most popular company. It has all the options you need for laying out a professional book.
Then I contacted Sam Sheng at Cosmo BLS. I was worried since he is on the east coast and I'm in Alaska, but I checked his references and they all couldn't say enough nice things about Sam. He did a ton of work with me and that was without any money up front. Including sending me a sample book, helping me with about 50 questions about laying out the book, and even sending proofs from China before I sent him one dollar. I chose his company because of the price and the way the books lay flat. I have several dozen images that are two pages wide and most books do not lay flat, his do. I ending up getting the 2000 books, and the price included to my door shipping, insurance, customs and all other fees. They expressed the first five copies off the press and the rest arrived about a month later. Books don't expire so if it takes 3 years to sell them all it doesn't matter. It's a big 12x12 hard cover with embossing and a super heavy french fold dust jacket. I paid $7 a book and they sell for $50 retail or $25 wholesale. see www.artwithinnature.com
Enjoy the challenge.
Mark
I visited your website and your images are beautiful!
Peter
I did my publisher for years, and always the 2 for 1 sales. I sold those to tourists and made maybe $20, finally I bit the bullet and bought design software. I used Serif at about 1/10th the cost of the most popular company. It has all the options you need for laying out a professional book.
Then I contacted Sam Sheng at Cosmo BLS. I was worried since he is on the east coast and I'm in Alaska, but I checked his references and they all couldn't say enough nice things about Sam. He did a ton of work with me and that was without any money up front. Including sending me a sample book, helping me with about 50 questions about laying out the book, and even sending proofs from China before I sent him one dollar. I chose his company because of the price and the way the books lay flat. I have several dozen images that are two pages wide and most books do not lay flat, his do. I ending up getting the 2000 books, and the price included to my door shipping, insurance, customs and all other fees. They expressed the first five copies off the press and the rest arrived about a month later. Books don't expire so if it takes 3 years to sell them all it doesn't matter. It's a big 12x12 hard cover with embossing and a super heavy french fold dust jacket. I paid $7 a book and they sell for $50 retail or $25 wholesale. see www.artwithinnature.com
Enjoy the challenge.
Mark
I visited your website and your images are beautiful!
Peter