Hello,
I am looking to print a self-made graphic novel, and I’m currently searching for quotes from printing houses all over Europe (and China, but they don’t seem to be any cheaper than their European competitors). I’ve got a nice list of companies from a few countries via recommendations and several in Switzerland found via Google, but I figured I’d check if somebody here has any particular places in Switzerland to recommend.
The Google-powered EF search did bring up a load of places to ask, thanks for those, but I’m looking for new tips on top of them, as printing a b&w thesis is a little different from printing 200+ coloured pages of hand-painted comics. So just in case someone has experience in printing art books in Switzerland, or really anywhere for that matter, I’ll be grateful for tips! Cheap, good service, high quality? Two out of three? One out of three?
1 ) Buy a printer
2) In the office. It is free.
All right, there's one out of three (my service is lousy). Can anyone top that, make it two out of three?
I would suspect that printers in Switzerland would be more expensive than in countries like Germany or the UK. But who knows... This country never fails to surprise me with what is and what is not expensive.
Anyways, best of luck to you with your book!
I suspected the same and didn't even bother looking into the Swiss printers at first, but then I just stopped by at a digiprint nearby my apartment and was surprised to find out that the prices were in the same ballpark as the quotes I've received from countries like Finland and Germany; I was similarly shocked to find out that even hole-in-the-wall printing houses in China, visited by a local friend of mine, were also in the same ballpark. It's a damn crowded and international ballpark!
Thanks!
The printing may be the same price - it's basically all done by machine with minimal labour costs.
Do the prices you have found include scanning in the 200 pages? If not, that's where you may see a vast difference in prices.
Are you talking about a massive print run or just one or two copies?
Can we get a peek?
Yeah, I figured that must be the reason. They all have the same machines around the world, it seems.
No, I've done the comic layout digitally, just the panels are separately painted, and I can prepare a print-ready pdf version of the book on my own.
Neither of the two; I'm looking at printing 100 copies and then desperately trying to sell them to whoever might be interested. That's why offset is completely out of the question (my quantity is too small), as are print-on-demand services (my quantity is too large for them to be competitive).
I've sort of published all the pages in my blog , but I've repainted more than half of the book since then, because, gasp, it turns out one can learn a lot during a project like that, especially when the starting point is totally amateurish, so the stuff I did two years ago looks simply embarrassing compared to the latter pages. So peek, but imagine the end result better... I'm currently already working on a sequel to my first storyline, so the blog is a little confusing to browse, though.
I will make a free pdf download available of the book once it's completely ready and lettered, and unless EF bans my future blatant marketing attempts I will surely advertise it here.