MARQUETTE BOOKS LLC

Dr. David Demers, owner and publisher of Marquette Books CLICK PHOTO TO SEE PRESS RELEASE

No Risk Book Publishing

How I Built a Profitable 30-Title Book Publishing Company in Three Years in My Spare Time

By Dr. David Demers, Owner and Publisher of Marquette Books

In 2002, I organized an international conference of mass communication scholars and published the papers they presented in a book titled, "Terrorism, Globalization and Mass Communication."

The goal was to generate a little income for the Center for Global Media Studies, a nonprofit organization I founded and directed at the time. Mission accomplished.

But I never dreamed my book publishing "hobby" would itself turn a profit in the second year of operation, and that within three years it would become a 30-title book publishing company with a dozen more books under contract or in production.

And did I mention that I did all this in my spare time?

You see, I work full time as a professor of mass communication at Washington State University (which, by the way, does not endorse or have any involvement in Marquette Books). I love my "day job" and have no intention of quitting. But I also love publishing books and hope to do this for many more years.

My book publishing company would not have grown so quickly had it not been for improvements in printing and computer technology. But I no longer use conventional printers, copy services, or binding companies. They often failed to do the job right and they're also much too expensive. The cost of printing 500 copies of just one book with a convention low-cost book printer usually exceeds $3,000.

Nor do I rely on print-on-demand (POD) printers. Although you don't have to order as many copies to get those needed economies of scale, POD prices per copy are still just as high as conventional printers and the quality is sometimes questionable.

Instead, I publish and print my own books.  I began with a popular laser printer, a manual perfect-binding machine, a manual guillotine paper cutter, and a book-cover laminating machine. Later I added a large-format ink-jet printer and more recently a color laser printer (the latter is a bit more expensive, but it does lessen the work load substantially).

All of these hardware items can be purchased in toto (with the exception of the laser color printer) for less than $10,000 -- an amount that is less than the cost of printing four books via traditional printers. And if you purchase some good-quality used equipment, the "No Risk Book Publishing System," as I call it, can pay for itself after publishing as few as three books.

So why aren't more small publishers doing this? Why do they still rely on conventional printers and run the risk of losing lots of money from unsold books?

Two major reasons. The first one is technical.

Although everyone knows that laser printers can print the inside pages of books, the big problem is that most 60-pound acid-free papers (good quality paper for a book) will curl ferociously when duplexed (printed on both sides). That's because the hot fuser (280+ degrees or so) in the machine zaps the moisture out of the paper. I've tested scores of papers and only a few hold up well under that kind of heat.

Inexpensive large-format inkjet printers now also can do a good job printing those covers, including the requisite bar code. But those covers have to be laminated, and most lamination machines use a film that is too thick (3 mils) to prevent major curling problems. I use an extremely reliable lamination machine that uses a 1.2-mil laminate.

The second major problem is per-copy costs. The cost of toner to print the text of a 200-page book can easily exceed $3, and the cost of ink to print one 6 x 9 book cover can exceed $1 if one purchases brand-name products. In contrast, I can produce the text for about 80 cents a book (5 x 8 format) and the covers for 20 cents (using high-quality large-format inkjet printer technology).

In short, the "No Risk Book Publishing System" can produce up to 1,500 copies of a 250-page book more cost-efficiently than a conventional printer or a POD printer. If you need more than 1,500 books, then it pays to go to a conventional printer. But be certain that those books will sell.

Not all of the books I've published have sold well (see this Web site). But I've only lost several hundred dollars at the most on even the poorest-selling book, because I only print what I need. And to date I've sold more than 20,000 books.

If you are interested in learning more about how to set up your book publishing company, call me. We'll get you into one of my seminars.

(signed) Dr. David Demers