Examining Print on Demand Printers :Size, Paper and Pricing

I'm in search for a new Print-On-Demand printer as I've changed my business model a bit and I need a different printer. Looking at the projects that I'll be publishing over the next 2 years, they will all be square bound books of more than 70 pages and they all fall into 3 size ranges

LETTER : 8.5" x 11" & 134 pages
SQUARE : 8" x 8" & 84 pages
LANDSCAPE : 8" x 6" & 72 pages

I really only want to deal with one printer for all my projects, so I need a printer that will be able print all these sizes. After scrounging around, I managed to find 4 printers that met my need. These are the usually suspects (Lulu, Ka-Blam, and Comixpress) plus a new find that I came across from a webcomics.com post (360 Digital Books).

All the 4 were able to meet my size requirements within reason. Lulu's square size was 7.5" x 7.5" or 8.5" x 8.5" (for this I chose the 8.5" size) and Landspace is 9" x 7". ComixPress and Ka-Blam offer a maximum size of 8" x 10". 360 Digital was the only place that could match all the sizes as I desired.

Lulu uses 2 types of paper for interiors, publisher grade and standard. Publisher grade is a 50# white text stock. Standard varies based upon size and binding. For square (7.5"), it's 60# cream text stock and for 8.5" it's 60# white text. For Letter and landscape, it's 60# white text. The cream paper at 7.5" is why I opted to use the larger 8.5" square with Lulu. Covers are 100# laminated cardstock.

Ka-Blam uses 50# bright paper for interiors and 80# glossy cardstock cover.

ComixPress uses 50# paper for interiors and index stock.

360 Digital offers more variety in paper stocks for interior and covers. For my quotes, I chose 60# white interior and 12pt C1S. These are thicker than the stocks offered by the usual suspects, but these are my choices with given a preference.

With all this information, I began to price the different options. For pricing, I'm only interested in the unit cost. I figure the other costs as the cost of doing business. However, note that ComixPress and 360 Digital have additional one time set-up costs. Since I plan to keep these books in with the chosen printer, I amortize these additional costs across the entire print run.

With the letter size, 360 Digital had the best price at $4.89 followed by ComixPress ($5.53), Lulu (publisher grade) at $5.91 and Ka-Blam ($6.90).

With the landscape size, 360 Digital had the best price at $3.59 followed by ComixPress ($4.63),Ka-Blam ($5.34), and Lulu (8.5"x 8.5") at $7.18.

With the square size, 360 Digital had the best price at $3.27 followed by ComixPress ($4.42),Ka-Blam ($4.97), and Lulu (9"x 7") at $5.94.

Overall, the unit prices for ComixPress and 360 Digital are the best, however remember they have extra set-up fees. ComixPress fee starts at $25, so if your print run is ony 25 copies that adds and additional $1 to each unit. 360 Digital fees are much more starting at about $120.

For me, it's more about quality and service than price. I plan to sell these books myself, so any benefit of having that the usual suspects gain for having a storefront is lost on me. Time between order and shipping as well as customer service is important to me, so that really nixes ComixPress and Ka-Blam which I've had customer service problems with in the past.

Right now, even with the large fee, I'm leaning towards 360 Digital. These books are $10-$15 books, so selling out of an initial print run of 25 at full retail would pay for the entire printing costs (including fees).

I've seen sample printing from all the printers, except for 360 Digital, so as of right now, i'm waiting for printing samples for 360 Digital.

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From the Forums: Preview Books and DPI

I spend a fair amount of toe on Digital Webbing answering questions, so every now and then, I'll run some of those answers here (when they relate to comic book self-publishing). Today, those questions involve preview book pricing and DPI.


Question #1
I'm heading to the convention. This will be my first show behind the table. I want to sell a 32-page preview book along with other stuff like posters. Ka-Blam charges about $1.98 per book with the Kablam ad inside the back cover. The book will have a color cover and B/W interiors.

My questions are :
How much should I charge for a 32-page comic book and 11x17 prints?
Does placing a Ka-Blam ad in the back cover of the book make it less professional?

My Forum Response
I charge between $3-5 for a comic book depending on the number of pages. I have a 32-paged black and white book that I sell for $2, but it's a sampler book used to encourage people to buy the more expensive $5 and $15 books. If it was my only book, I'd charge about $3-$4 for it.

11x17 prints, I sell for $10 or 3 for $20. These cost me about $1 each so they bring in a nice profit.

If placing the Ka-Blam ad is the difference between profit and loss, then place the ad. However, I would place it on the inside back cover (at best). You have time now, so take advantage of Ka-Blam's pricing break for slower shipping and drop the need for the ad. There are also other printers out there that may have better pricing without the need of ads.

The Long Answer
When pricing comic books, I look at what the market will bear and price according to my cost. Additionally, I keep an eye on being able to make money wholesaling the comics. With the standard 24-,28- or 32-paged comic, the most common prices are between $3.00-$4.00. This price is pretty standard for black and white or color. This means, I want to wholesale these books between $1.50-$2.00, so I want to keep my costs below that point. I sell most of my comics direct to the customer, so I don't worry about my wholesale costs covering anything more than my printing costs, so in this case, if I'm pricing at $3.00 then my want my print costs to be no more than $1.25.

Keep in mind, that your printer has a lot to do with your final price. Let's use Ka-Blam (since it was mentioned in the example). A 24-paged black and white book with 4:1 covers (that full color exterior and black and interiors) without an ad can be printed as low at $1.98 (with the back cover ad, it will be as slow as $1.40). Let's print 25 and ship via USPS flat Rate for $4.80. That brings our total price to $54.30 or about $2.17 each. Let's make 23¢ on wholesale (at 40% off cover), so the wholesale cost is $2.40 and the retail cost is $4.

I think that's a bit high for a 24-32 paged comic, so I would be looking for ways to reduce costs. I'm not a fan of the back cover Ka-Blam ad (although, I've used it myself). Not because they are unprofessional, but because I think you can get a better deal on advertising by contacting other businesses. However, let's do that math. [(25 x 1.40)+4.80]/25 = $1.60, so you save about 57¢, so wholesale at $2, retail at $3.50 and retailers get a 43% discount. Not bad, but it could be better, so keep looking for cheaper printing and maybe a better advertiser.

FYI: Another way to save on Ka-Blam printing is to link to them from your site. This will give you and additional 5% saving. So that drops the price about another 10¢ on the $1.98 price. That makes your unit cost around $2.07. You have to metion the link when you order to get the discount.

For prints, I'm happy with my current printer (www.catprint.bz). They allow you to mix and match prints and as long as you print around 50 prints, the price including shipping makes your unit cost for full color, full bleed prints around $1 each. These prints sell easily for $5-$10, so after you sell 5-10, the other 40-45 are pure profit.


Question #2
I have photoshop 7 and I need to resize files. Can you change the DPI via photoshop? If so, how? Additionally, I have theA3 1200pro scanner from Mustek, the resolution says normal, fine, and super fine. Is there any way to know how much dpi each one is?

My Forum Response
Lucky for you I know exactly where it is in PS 7 as that's what I use.
It's under IMAGE>IMAGE SIZE

When resizing, the most important thing to remember is that you want the number of pixels to be EQUAL TO or LESS THAN what you began with.

I'm not familiar with a Mustek, but the best way to figure it out is to scan something small at each setting and open it in PS, to see the resulting DPI and/or pixel size.


Follow Questions to #2
Q: What happens if I scan it in 300 dpi at 11 by 17. Change it to 500 dpi, save it, and then downsize to 7 by 10.5. That way the final is 7 x 10.5 and 500dpi. Will it come out messed up?

A: 300 dpi at 11 x 17 produces a file that's 3300 pixels x 5100. At 500 dpi that file should be no larger than 3300/500 x 5100/500 or 6.6 x 10.2. 7 x 10.5 is close enough that you will not see a huge difference in quality, but in an ideal world you'd start with a higher DPI scan. Going forward, you need at least 3500 pixels x 5250, for a 7x10.5 file at 500DPI. So you're looking at scanning a little over 300 DPI (318DPI to be exact). I would suggest scanning even higher at 450 or 600 (if your scanner allows) because you never know when you need higher DPI images.


Q: How many pixels are there in 300 DPI. Does DPI mean dot per inch?

A: 300 dpi is simply dots per inch and is the same thing as pixels per inch. 300 dpi means 300 pixels will be in every inch. 1 inch is 300 pixels. 2 inches is 600 pixels. 2.5 inches is 750 pixels.


Q: If the image is 11 x 17, how do you figure about the pixels at 300 DPI?

A:
width in inches x DPI = pixels for width
height in inches x DPI = pixels for height

Using that at 300 DPI, 11 x 17 is :
11 x 300 = 3300
17 x 300 = 5100
and thus the pixels of the image will be 3300 x 5100.


More about Scanning and Image Manipulation
Some scanners scan everything in at the same DPI and increase the number of pixel at higher settings. With these scanners, for a 1 x 1 square you may get 75 x 75 at low setting. 150 x 150 at medium. 300 x 300 at high. If you look at those files in Photoshop, you will note that the DPI is all the same (usually 72 or 75), but the physical size (in inches) is different ( about 1 inch, 2 inches, 3 inches, respectively). In cases like this, when you change the DPI, you also need to change the physical document size (in inches) to match what you desire for the final result. The key thing to remember is that you never want the final number of pixels to be more than what you started with.

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POD: ComixPress.com

Comixpress.com was the first Print on Demand printers dedicated solely to comic books. They currently offer saddle-stitching and perfect binding in color and black and white.

My first experience with them was back in 2004 and the very first job, I had them do was a simple 8-paged black and white book with a full color cover. Since POD was new to comics, these 8 pages were designed to run ComixPress through the paces. I had received the sampler that they sent out and production quality wasn't what I expected. I suspected that some of the production problems were due to pre-press and not actual printing, so I devised this sampler booklet as a test. As it turned out, I was right. The problem that I had with the sampler all turned out to be pre-press problems and the sampler looked much better than I expected AND I received 10 copies of the sampler within 2 weeks of placing the order.

This led me to use ComixPress when I needed to print Warmageddon: The Art of Sengkry Chhour. This was back in October 2004 and I needed the books ready from the Mid-Ohio Con in late November. ComixPress delivered and I was very happy with the results.

Unfortunately some time in 2005, ComixPress became victims of their own success and soon have way more orders than they could fill in a reasonable amount of time. This led to 3-6 month delays between payment, printing and delivery. These delays also extended to email responses and since email is the only means of contacting ComixPress, this meant that you could go for months without hearing a response from ComixPress. This problem was not only in printing, but also in fulfillment of orders placed via their online store. Sometime, in late 2005, I placed an order to refill my W:tAoSC supplies, the results were great when I finally received them 3 months later.

Fast forward to Oct 2006 when both Logan (the gut in charge of ComixPress) and I were both at SPX. Logan and I were back and forth between our 2 tables talking about the past and future of ComixPress. I found out about the launch of the new line of graphic novel services. Logan went into depth about what they do at ComixPress and the reason for the set-up fee. Even though, I have experienced the delays and poor response, I walked away from SPX full up hope for ComixPress and hoping to be able to promote the service.

Sadly, the same problems still plagued Logan and crew at ComixPress through the remainder of 2006 and into 2007. I last spoke with ComixPress in early 2007 in effort to find out about the performance of W:tAoSC and the process for removing books from their store. Their responses were once again delayed (2-3 weeks between responses).

Overall, I think ComixPress offers a great quality product in both color and black and white. They probably have the best quality product between the 2 major online comic PODs (ComixPress and Ka-Blam). ComixPress, however, still struggles with customer service, fulfilment, and delivery.

My advice for those that want to use ComixPress is to follow their guidelines exactly and plan 6-9 months in advance. Doing this will almost guarantee that your printing will be delayed as little as possible. If you can't do that, then you are better off exploring another option.

POD: Local Copy Shop

If you want a very quick study in desktop publishing, then I suggest you visit your local copy shop (YLCS). I use Kinko's because they are the closest and I've used them for so long that most of the employees know me by sight (if not by name).

YLCS is not the most cost effective means of creating merchandise, but as a publisher you will have need of flyers, postcards, prints, and a variety of other swag. Often, you will need this swag in a very short time. It is in this time of need that YLCS will become your best friend.

I use my local Kinko's to create ashcan preview editions and black and white prints.

The ashcans are generally 5.5" x 8.5 (8.5"x 11" folded in the half and stapled). These are usually no more than 10-16 pages (5-8 pages folded) plus a cardstock cover. Generally, I do these in print runs of at least 25 and the cost per unit is about $1.50.

My black and white prints are generally 11" x 17" on cardstock or some variation thereof. I, generally, get 10-20 copies for an initial run and continue to reprint as needed. These cost about 25¢-50¢ each.

When out of town for conventions, I always make a mental note of the location of the nearest copy center. I always keep my storage web site up-to-date with my most recent prints, so that at any time I can grab a print and replenish my stock.

My first self-published item that actually sold out at a convention was an ashcan preview edition of Warmageddon Illustrated #1. I had a print run of 50 and debuted at the Wizard World Philly 2005. They sold for $10 each and more than paid for the entire cost of the convention.