DIY Calandar

[JonnyWales]

It's the time of year when we try and raise a bit of extra money for the local village school (currently host to 2 of my little terrors). This year we are aiming to produce a calandar with self portraits of all the kids shown on the particular month of their birth.

A number of local printers have been approached and have provided estimates from £4.50 to £18 (yikes!) for a simple A4 12-sheet calandar, card cover sheet and a spiral binding. Our aim is to make money for the school and sell them for a fiver to parents and friends; at this rate we will lose money!

I can do the whole task myself at my cost (probably less than £1 a time), other than the spiral binding thing. Has anyone any ideas about other ways to bind the things. One local printer quoted £3.50 to just bind them ie. I do all the scanning printing etc and take to him - and there goes all the profit raised for the school.

Any suggestions?

[limbo]

Scales of economy?

How many calendars are you wishing to produce?

Printers have to price jobs on the intial prepping of the images and presses for the production of the artwork - this bit takes up the real cost - making multiple copies is often cheap. so the cost for producing 10 and 500 can often be quite similar.

I would not do this yourself - it would be very time consuming!

Printers should be able to do a better price than £4.50 - 18 quid would probably be the cost of producing 1 calendar - the money going on man hours and press preparation.

Ta

Limbo

[Hawkgirl]

Depending on the number you're trying to produce, it might be worthwhile for you to check prices on a binding machine - if you can't afford a new one, you might be able to buy a used one. A company I used to work for had one for internal use (we put out a lot of reports for clients) and it was relatively inexpensive.

Another thought (if you don't want to be stuck with a binding machine!) is this:

I know that in the States a lot of businesses will donate or discount services if they're going to a local cause. If it were me, I'd shop around to print shops in your area, explain what you're doing and why, and see if they won't drop their price or do it for free. You can even offer them an ad on the last page of the calendar or something like that as a thank-you for their time and efforts. That way, everyone wins.

[killroy]

If your numbers are smalller then 500 try finding somebody with a digital press. It doesn't suport economies of scale as well a film offset print, but is MUCH cheaper for numbers less then 500.

Also, I remember doing much ringbinding at stationers in my university days, and the quoted price you mentioned seems out of this world. Try finding stationeers near a university who are used to medium sized jobs.

Currently I'm working on some small number callendar prints, and we're at around $10 for a SINGLE unit of A3 double sided full color print, 6 sheets and ring binding. 100-500 units of A3 should be much cheaper.

Good Luck!

SN

[dragonlady7]

Use a staple binding.

Lots of decent calendars have staple bindings. It's not so bad.
Simplify, simplify.

[JonnyWales]

"Use a staple binding."

Yep, I like that idea ... much more profit :o)

[dragonlady7]

They don't care if it's slick and professional. If you're going to print it out yourself, just staple it.
If you're going to have it printed, just staple it. I've bought countless calendars that were professional and expensive that just had staple bindings.
Also, if you want to take it apart later to reuse the pictures, it works much better if it was bound with staples. ;)