How to Decide How Many Books to Print
by: JoshuaPrizer |
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One of the first questions to answer once your book is written is: How many books should you print? This is really the million dollar question and where a lot of money is often made or lost. Print too many -- you'll be stuck with a huge inventory of unsellable product. Print too few -- you'll get stuck doing costly reprints.
While I can't definitively answer this question for you, I can give you some valuable input based on years of helping people just like you get their books printed. One of the biggest mistakes I see is people being overly confident as far as how many books they will sell.
Compare your worst-case and best-case scenarios. Do you have marketing channels in place that convince you that in your worst-case scenario you are sure to sell 100? 500? 5,000 books? What's your optimistic guess as to how many books you will sell? Now I'm not talking about the scenario where Hollywood options your book for a movie - let's stay realistic.
Look at your worst-case and best-case numbers. That should help you decided on the right quantity for your project. Definitely stick closer to your worst-case scenario number. Getting a reprint is much easier on your pocketbook than staring at boxes or pallets of books gathering dust for years to come.
Your quantity will determine whether you will end up using a digital printer or a typical offset printer.
A digital printer is much more price-competitive for quantities under 1,000. Also, keep in mind that quantity discounts are not as great on a digital press. So if you're already set on printing fewer than 1,000 books, definitely lean much closer to your worst-case scenario number. Printing 700 books is not going to cost that much less per book than printing 100 books. Thus, reprints don't end up as expensive with a digital press.
An offset press is usually most cost effective for print runs more than 1,000. If you decide to go with an offset printer, be sure to ask the printer sales reps for quotes for multiple quantities -- including all the way up to your "best-case scenario" number. It doesn't cost you any more to get those extra numbers, and you'll get to see just how much the price per book drops for higher quantities.
So to recap: Don't stretch your budget too thin by reaching for the stars with a huge print run to start. Stick with smaller quantities until you can definitively prove the market is there with your book sales. If you stick to your marketing plan and continually build on your sales, you'll be able to jump up to larger book printing quantities soon enough.
About the Author
Get a Free 7-Part Mini-Course showing how to publish your own book. As a cheap book printing expert, Joshua Prizer has worked in the book printing industry for nearly 15 years.
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