How much should a run of 400 books cost?

May 1, 2007 1:42 PM

I'd like to publish 150 - 400 copies of a book, in colour, for 150 - 400 pages. How much should this cost?

The plan is to have a couple of colour photos on each page accompanied by text. The book will be about 150-400 pages, and a similar number is to be distributed. What sort of per-unit cost should I expect for this? Also, bonus points to anyone who can point me in the direction of printshops around Victoria, Australia.

Thanks a lot!

posted by PuGZ to media & arts (4 comments total)

As stated in this thread, call around and get quotes. There are so many variables that it's really impossible to even give a ballpark figure. Just open up your local phone directory and start calling. Anyone who doesn't get back to you promptly isn't someone you want handling your job.
posted by lekvar at 1:53 PM on May 1, 2007

And tag-on a 10-15% surcharge to the printer's quote if you do the whole book in Word.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:16 PM on May 1, 2007

I had a 192-page hardcover book, on heavy-duty art paper, in full colour throughout (about 350 illustrations, roughly 2 per page), printed in hongkong for about $20,000 (US) for 1,000 copies, inc. a hard slipcase, shrinkwrap, fitting into cardboard mailing box, delivery (by boat). i supplied everything ready to print: pages in pdf format, images as scanned files to be fitted by the printer into image boxes. Company is called WorldPrint, you'll find them on the net. Ran very smoothly: they send you page proofs and you check everything through. But 400 books wouldn't cost pro-rata (i.e., here, $8,000), they'd cost the best part of a 1,000-book run.
posted by londongeezer at 3:02 PM on May 1, 2007

Can you digitally print or must it be offset? Page count is very important and the cost could double in the range you ask about. My obtuse, back of the bar nap, best guess would be a unit manufacturing cost between $10 (digital, low page count) to $20 (offset, low page count.) This is from file to boxes of books. To get to file is a whole other set of costs. As you might expect, both quantity and quality greatly effect unit cost. If you decide to go offset, be sure to ask for local bids.
posted by Toekneesan at 4:29 PM on May 1, 2007