Been getting some print quotes from various publishers. It's rather complex, especially if i want this to be not-for-profit and invest all the money i raise on the book's production.
The good news is i can get the production cheaper, but that does in turn mean not having it made to my prefered specifications.
Ideally i'd like a 30cm x 30cm hardback book with around 100 pages. Having shopped around i can make one of these for £75, which is obviously too expensive, and nobody would buy it.
However, I can get 100 copies of an A4, softcover book made with 100 pages for about £25 each, not including VAT or delivery. So for that i'd be needing to raise about £3,500.
Further, if i could raise about £10,000, then i could make the book a lot lot better. Then it would be 30cm x 30cm (square shape preferable because it has both landscape and portrait pic inside), the best quality papers, hardback imagewrapped cover, for £35 each, but i have to order over 300 copies.
Finally, to complicate things further, if by some miracle i managed to secure an order of 750 copies, then i can make use of a Chinese offset printing and get each copy made for around £15. This means having 300 copies made is about the same cost as having 750 copies made, which is fucking crazy.
Obviously id rather pay 10,000 for 750 copies than 300 copies. But it does complicate things, because the reduced cost per book means i'm suddenly profiting from the sale price.
I'm not sure how to reconcile the not-for-profit motive with my want to get the best value for money from the printrun.