Printing Pricing

Desktop Miracles provides outsourced/brokered Book Manufacturing services to our publishing clients on a cost + basis. Our management fee starts at $500 per project.

We ONLY provide these services for projects on which we have done all the design and creative work, because we become responsible for having the books correctly manufactured and we have to guarantee the accuracy and correctness of files for the manufacturing process.

We negotiate pricing and specs with various printers, add our management fee to the job, and provide you with a printing quote on the project as if we were your printer. You contract with us to have the books made.

We make our profit on our ability to negotiate a price that is lower than the average pricing on the job. We compare prices on each job to double check that our quote to you remains reasonable. If we negotiate a better cost, we make a better margin and you get better pricing from us. If we can't, then we make a smaller margin.

You simply decide if the price we quote to you is objectively acceptable.

The best part is that in many instances, our quote to you, even after adding our management fee, is reasonable compared to the average prices you might receive on your own. Many clients say that our quote, even after our fee, is actually lower than quotes they received directly and/or they were expecting to pay.

The benefits of this service including price, are numerous, and are detailed in this section of our website.

Printers provide us with outstanding quotes based upon several factors:

We broker the printing and manufacturing of 30-40 books a year and receive preferred pricing from several high quality vendors. Our projects range from short-run one-color books to large-run four-color coffee-table books, as well as reprints on titles for previous clients and backlist books. This gives us more volume and buying power than most small publishers have.
Each printer we bid with knows they will usually get one shot at consideration, and that they are bidding against the best of the best pricing and most if not all of their usual competitors.
We have established relationships with almost all of the well-known book printers in the US, and several in Canada and Asia, and we work with virtually all of them on regular basis even if we are not managing the printing.
Our projects cost less for manufacturers to produce. They know they will be dealing with us, and only us, directly, and therefore the job will require a minimal amount of customer service time and expense, as opposed to the amount of time required to help an inexperienced customer through the process.
They know that the files and materials they receive from us will be correctly and efficiently prepared, thus saving them time and money in prepress and customer service, eliminating delays, and minimizing corrections at bluelines.
They know that we understand the overall process, and how to make sure it works efficiently for all concerned.
We know the printers and their capabilities, and who should be among the lowest quotes for each type of job, all of which is backed up by our spreadsheets detailing several years of previous jobs and quotes.
You can rely on our expertise and relationships with these printers to get you the highest value for your manufacturing dollars. Sometimes this means a higher quality book for the same unit cost.

Requirements of Desktop Miracles Print Product Management

To provide the maximum benefits of these services for our clients, and to make the process work as smoothly as possible, we have established several IMPORTANT conditions before Desktop Miracles will manage a project for a client:

Confidentiality

The quotes we receive from the printers are confidential and we do not disclose them directly to you. Therefore our exact management fee is transparent to you. You simply decide if the price we quote to you is objectively acceptable.

Printers

We cannot, and will not, quote a job with a printer you have already talked with. It's not fair to ask them to submit a bid, in essence bidding against themselves, and/or having two different sales reps and estimators working on the same project. It's also not fair for me to quote a job with them based on minimal sales and customer service expenses for to them if they have already committed time on the job working with you.

If you have already talked with a printer(s), or wish to bid the job yourself to a couple of printers to double check our numbers, simply let us know who you have talked with and we will exclude them from our RFQ list.

You may specify a "preferred" printer to be used if other factors are equal or close.

If you prefer we not include any printer for any reason, simply state this and we'll exclude them.

Communication

We are the only point of contact with the printer. You will not have ANY direct contact with the printer. Clients contacting the printer directly or making random phone calls does nothing but confuse situations and cause headaches for all involved, especially when we are negotiating or working on "back office" solutions with a customer service rep to scheduling or manufacturing issues that arise. One cook in the kitchen is all that is allowed, and that cook is us.

Our Projects

These services are only available to clients for whom we are also designing and producing the jacket/cover and interior. This is primarily due to the fact that we can only be responsible for overseeing the printing and manufacturing of files we have created and produced.

Payments

You make payments in four stages:

Payment 1 - Commitment to Production

You make a $500 non refundable payment to begin the process.

Payment 2 - Deposit

You pay 50% of the quote, payable BEFORE the project is shipped to the printer.

Payment 3

You pay 50% of the quote, payable after reviewing sample advance copies .
Upon your approval and payment, the books ship from the printer.

Payment 4 - Final Balance

You pay any additional charges (usually overruns/underruns, prepress charges if any, and shipping expenses)

This invoice is payable immediately upon receipt, typically two weeks after the books ship.

Some clients may not be comfortable with these requirements, and we can certainly understand that. Experience has shown this is the best way for us to handle these services, and the way to provide the best results for our clients. We will not manage a project for you without these terms.

For clients who are not comfortable with these requirements, or for clients who have already selected a printer and would now prefer to have us heavily involved in the process, we can also function as consultants on an hourly fee basis.

And of course, for many clients we simply provide the materials directly to you or your printer, and remove ourselves from the process unless needed.