Higher setup costs make it inefficient for print runs of less than 2,000. With offset printing, the books are delivered to the author who is then responsible for finding their own means of distributing, selling, and shipping the copies. Since the plates only need to be etched once, you’ll pay less for reprints. You’ll enjoy the highest image quality. You’ll have the lowest cost if you are printing 2,500 or more books. This makes the method popular among traditional publishers who distribute thousands of copies to bookstores. The break point at which this happens is usually around 2,500 books. 
However, once the machines are in motion, offset printing becomes the most economical option. Out of the three print techniques, offset printing has the highest setup cost and requires the most preparation. This rubber blanket then rolls the image onto the paper, producing the final print image. The roller comes into contact with the ink and then passes the image to a rubber blanket. The first roller, usually made from aluminum, is etched with the print image.
#The print shop centralia wa series
Most offset printing techniques involve a series of three cylindrical rollers.
Offset printing is one of the oldest forms of book printing with roots tracing back to early lithographic printing in the 1800s. The unit cost is higher and your profit margin is lower.
The quality of your printed book is not checked by a human. With IngramSpark, you also potentially have to deal with the cost of returns, assuming you allow them. Although print-on-demand is a much less risky venture, especially for new authors, the distributor will charge for the printing and shipping of your book, and take a percentage of the sale price, resulting in a lower profit margin. Most importantly, the cost of printing one book at a time will be much higher than printing multiple books. Most POD printers also have limited trim sizes, paper types, and other customization options. Because a machine handles the printing of the book’s files, there aren’t any humans overseeing the process, which occasionally leads to printing errors. You don’t have to worry about shipping and distribution.Īll that automation has its drawbacks. You can start selling your book right away. You can never print too many or too few books. Amazon and IngramSpark take care of it all. POD makes it impossible to order too few or too many books, meaning you’ll never be stuck with a mountain of unsold books, nor will you have to deal with issues of distribution and fulfillment. In other words, the book does not exist until the customer “demands” it by buying a copy. When a customer buys the book, an automated system prints exactly one copy of the book. The files for the POD book, along with an identifying barcode number, are stored in a database and the book is listed as available and for sale. Print-on-demand (POD) printing is what self-published authors use when they sell or distribute through IngramSpark and Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. Before we look at the pros and cons of short-run printing, it’s necessary to understand print-on-demand printing (commonly used by self-publishing authors as well as traditional publishers) and offset printing (used primarily by traditional publishers). No single form of book printing can claim to be definitively superior to the other two it all depends on an author’s specific goals. Today’s post is by Colin Keane, marketing director for Gorham Printing ( book printers can be broken down into three main categories:Įach category can be defined by the number of books they are best suited to printing. “Thick encyclopedias with colorful hardcovers” by Horia Varlan is licensed under CC BY 2.0
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