Ah forgot an important point. One of the limitations of digital printing is the kind of paper stock that can be used in the printer. The characteristics of a digital printer that affect its range of papers include heat generated by its rollers, the paper feed system and the paper path. From what I understand, digital printers aren't big on coated papers. Pretty much limits what you can and can't do.

Another reason, I prefer offset.

Thank you so much for answering my questions. I discussed some of these things with the book designer last night, and he agreed that litho looks much better, but is significantly more expensive.

What's the next big cost consideration in the printing process? For example, if we decided to go litho, could we save some $$$ elsewhere when it comes to printing the book? For example, on the cover or binding? Glued notch vs perfect binding, for example?

In short consider forefgoing a color cover.

Labour costs preclude a color cover on a run of anything less than 500 copies using an offset press. Even at 500 copies, its probably not the best return on investment you could make.

In my experience, to do a colour cover costs a minimum of $700-$800 for a print run of 500 or less. When you break it down to a unit cost as we do in pricing books, an offset color cover would add to the unit cost making it more difficult to turn a profit on.

Your printing and binding cost on 500 paperback books is probably greater than the retail price of a book by a major publisher. How do they do it? The answer is simple. They print lots and lots of books.

Its up to us to try to squeak a little bit of a profit out of what we do (to invest in new books or marketing)--so consider the cost of a color cover carefully!

It may be better to go print-on-demand. I have been in contact with a company that will do your first 100 for $3.46 each, after whichyou can print in 25s. Your cost will never go down, BUT you wont lose any money in overstocks.

I would look into PODs. It is a good way to maintain low stock levels.

I would defintiely advise small publishers to look into POD or micro runs. Controlling storage expenses is important.

Thanks, anth, I hadn't really considered eventual storage costs. We don't plan on doing more than two _title_s a year. Although, I can imagine over time how books can pile up. Thanks.

Storage isn't so much a problem for a small start up publisher doing their first _title_. Most anyone with the will can scrounge up a _base_ment or garage and stack hundreds or a thousand books up to the rafters. Ands thats fine for the first product or two or three.

But what then? That publisher better have some great sell thru so they aren't sitting on the bulk of that product, have enough capital to afford a small warehouse, or be using POD of some sort. Cuz when your barely raising the money to print the next production the last thing you want to worry about is monthly storage fees or payments on property.

Another advantage of POD to consider invetory effects on profits and taxes. You spend $3,500 on a 1000 book run, but only sell 100 of those by the end of the year, you've effectively only "spent" $350 on product that may be written off as an expense on your taxes. The other $3,150 you traded in for an invetory asset of $3,150.

However, with POD, you have very little invetory and hence very little money tied up in "assets" that will end up costing you come tax time. So comparing POD to conventional printing isn't nearly so simple as one unit price vs the other and total dollars needed to be invested.

In general, once you have a track record for selling through 700+ units over a 3 year period on each product you produce, then POD doesn't make much sense. At sales levels less than that, or for new publishers who have no established sales track record, POD can be a very viable option. I'm not saying its better mind you. It just depends on a lot of factors, from capital available for printing, capital available from marketing, how much storage space you have available presently without further investment, etc, etc.