Generally the largest overhead for any publisher or producer is the production cost. As a magazine printer, we are extremely sensitive about the price of a job and making sure you have a commercially viable ongoing sliding price matrix as a start with any relationship with any printer.
However, don’t just look at the bottom line when choosing your magazine printer, as you want to make sure your job is produced to the quality you need each and every time you go to print. We would also recommend you set timelines for production. Most printers are able to produce a full colour booklet or magazine in some guise, but depending on the size and capability of the machinery, this will determine how quick your magazine will be produced. So make sure you ask about turnaround times and you fix a schedule between yourselves and the magazine printers. Include dates like artwork submission dates, latest proof sign off dates and the all important final achievable delivery date.
As we all know with the production of any magazine as much as you set schedules to obtain your magazine on time, things happen constantly to hamper the progress. Our advice is to set an artwork submission date for all content, including magazine advertisements following the advertisers commitment to the space they are booking. The beauty of this process is that once they have committed and signed, you can leave a blank spot for them in the magazine with the words “Space sponsored by…” And you are well within your rights to still invoice for the space.
From our point of a view as your printer, we see a lot of magazines that run behind on the agreed production schedule, in order to achieve a less stressed magazine production you need to communicate with your magazine printer as the space is normally booked on the press and other printing equipment, so you may miss your slot and delays on delivery can happen. Remember if you don’t tell your printer about the delays there is not a lot they can do to move the laws of physics for you. Sadly printing magazines is not just pushing a big green button on the printer and magazines popping out the other end.
As a final note we offer many other services to help you run your magazine business, because we appreciate there are many elements other than print and production. Check out our free Ebook tools that can double your readership and increase your advertisers reach. Or maybe ask us about our affiliation with anyone of our partners to help chase debts from advertisers or help with distributing your magazine.
For more help and advice on choosing the right magazine printer please feel free to call us and talk to our team.