Hard Cover book printing company

[liam75005]

Hello,

I searched in old threads but couldn't find something on that topic. I am in the production phase of my muse. It's a guidebook for tabletop gamers, that I want to get printed and sold with a little gaming helps booklet.

I am aiming at the French speaking market and I have tested the muse : there is interest ! I am now in the phase of investing and I am looking for a manufacturer to print the hardcover A4 book. So far I got a few quotes from some french based printing companies, and it goes up to 9€ per unit price, with a minimum of 1000 copies to print ! That means investing 9000€ in printing, which is a lot (I had expected to spend less than 5k€, with an initial print run of 500 copies). I won't get the 8x-10x markup for the product, as the price can't be above 40€ for this niche

I have started to contact asia/eastern europe supplier, does anyone know any good printing company that would be able to make a 500 copies print run for a cheaper price ? Has anyone already done this kind of book/printed information muse and found a good company for a more reasonable price ? Alternatively do you know any good website where I could get information from ?

Any help will be great ! Thanks in advance,

[Sven]

Have you seen these: http://www.printondemand-worldwide.com/colour-printing.html

[kamakiri]

Why do you need hard cover? Of course D&D is all hard cover, but other successful game companies, like palldium books publish everything in soft cover.

Doing a benefit analysis might be a productive thing, especially since soft cover books are many times cheaper and easier to make.

[officer_dibble]

Does it need to be printed at all? I see quite a few of these kinds of books being sold and distributed via PDF.