20 Page Booklet - Need Layout Help

Steven Pollack

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I have written a self-help booklet for victims of home fires on how to get back on their feet right away. It is also self-promotional and I plan to distribute it as a resource as I learn about people who have had fires.

I want to have it nicely laid out. Where can I go for this type of service?

I will either have a short run printed at a local printer or else print them on demand from my home printer.

Thanks

Steven B. Pollack, Attorney
 

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Is it just text, or text and graphics? If it's the former, or the graphics are relatively simple, and you plan to print it on your own computer, an experienced secretary could do it (Word has all sort of layout options). A secretarial service should be able to handle it if you can't do it inhouse. If it's more complicated, then you could hire a graphic artist to do the layout (your printer might offer this service, or be able to refer you to someone who can). Even Kinko's might be able to help you out.

At my firm (engineering), the marketing secretary prepares all sorts of materials and makes the layout look as good as anything done by a magazine or graphic artist.
 
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Steven Pollack

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Well I played around with it myself, learned a few new things in Word, and I am satisfied with the results. I printed out several copies on my brother-in-laws high end color laser printer and it looks great.

I went in to a local Sir Speedy to get a quote and it was $660 for 100 copies. Granted, they are in color, but it is only 16 pages, i.e. 8 sheets of 8.5 x 11 paper. That seems really steep to me. It was for the flat plastic binding.

Is this just the price for color or are there better options?

Steve
 

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Steven Pollack said:
Well ... I went in to a local Sir Speedy to get a quote and it was $660 for 100 copies. Granted, they are in color, but it is only 16 pages, i.e. 8 sheets of 8.5 x 11 paper. That seems really steep to me. It was for the flat plastic binding.

Is this just the price for color or are there better options?

Steve
Color printing is expensive. You can shop around (Staples, OfficeMax, etc., and Lulu.com) for comparisons, but I suspect that is the rough ballpark. If you do not need every page to be in color, maybe you could reduce the cost, possibly at expense of some nuisance.

If you can manage with a grayscale version throughout, it would be a lot less expensive.

--Ken
 

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Taking it to a 'real printer' (as opposed to Kinko's or QuikPrint) is cheaper, too - IF you need a larger quantity of copies. Also, get quotes. When I was doing DTP out of my home, I had six or seven printers who bid for my stuff and I let them know what they were bidding against. They'll deal.
 

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Flat, plastic binding--do you mean "fastback?" That's pretty expensive and falls apart. If you ask for your stuff to be saddlestitched (stapled down the center), you'll probably find it a lot cheaper.