Abouts Books

By Monica Carter Tagore

Choosing a printer is one of the most important production decisions when self publishing. Choose the wrong printer, and you could get a book back that is of poor quality, or you could end up paying way too much.

For the purposes of this article, I will exclude print-on-demand companies from this discussion. That is because I am talking about full-fledged self publishing, in which the author/publisher pays the full cost of publishing his or her book and orders a print run of hundreds or thousands of books at one time.

The first step to choosing a printer for your self publishing project is to solicit quotes from several printers. You'll need to tell the printers a few details about your book: the number of pages, the quantity of books you want to order, the trim size of the book, whether you want paperback or hard cover. Some printers will ask other questions, such as whether you want a laminate cover or the paper stock you want.

When you're asking for your quote, also ask about the turnaround time. And ask the printer to send you samples. When you receive your samples and quotes, study them. Look at the quality of the samples as well as the quotes you've received, and the turnaround time, especially if time is a concern for your project.

Book manufacturers generally provide more competitively priced quotes than do general local printers. That is because book manufacturers often have the technology to produce quality books at better rates than do printers that do not specialize in book printing.

Getting a good price on your printing is important because this is not the only expense you will have in putting together your book. You also have the cost of editing, book layout and cover design, marketing, and more.

Look at both the overall cost of printing the books, as well as the per unit cost.

You can find a lot of disparity in print prices, but price should not be your only factor when choosing a printer. You want to make sure you are getting a quality product, and in a turnaround time that works for you.

It does you little good to get a cheap print quote, but then to realize later you have a poorly put together book that comes back from the printer a lot later than you expected or planned. This could ruin your pre-publication publicity plans. Not to mention your budget.

I've worked on print projects for clients in which I solicited multiple quotes because I wanted to make sure my clients were getting the best deal. Often, the disparity in quoted prices was quite large - saving the client thousands of dollars.

So keep that in mind. When you solicit quotes - and samples -- from several printers instead of only one, you have a good chance of getting a printing deal that works for you.

Monica Carter Tagore is a self publishing mentor who teaches people to successfully publish marketable books. She is the author of three books, two e-books and thousands of articles. She also has ghostwritten books and projects for others. Join her mailing list at http://www.knowledgewealthseries.com/writingsuccess.html and get her free newsletter with helpful tips to successfully publish your next book.