Printing a small newspaper

Hi iam openning a new business with a friend, a weekly newspaper. Were want to produce from 3000 to 5000 newspaper of 16 to 24 pages, per week the size doesn’t matter we can be flexible on that be we were thinking on a tabloid.

What machine will you recommend to print this low amount of newspaper (brand, models, type, etc) ?
If you have a idea please send me links if you have.



thanks i will really apprecieate if you help



my IM is (msn@innovahn.com) MSN or Yahoo

[imatt]

It depends on what quality you want or more accurately, what quality your willing to sacrifice.

Will you be printing in full colour, spot colour or mono?

Also, what budget do you have? $1,000 or $100,000???

A good solid choice from the top of my head would be a digital duplicator or Risograph. Combining photocopier, and ink printing, they are very fast and cheap to run. A lot cheaper than ANY laser printer or photocopier for example.

See below for an example:

http://www.riso.co.uk/product/wide-f...nters-riso.htm

They are not small machines but not massive either. They should fit in a typical office for example.

They can cost anything up to £12,000 or so, so were not talking pocket change here. That said, if a digital duplicator fits the bill, it will pay for itself in next to no time. The sort of volumes you're talking of should be doable too.

Most digital duplicators can handle spot colour print, but you'll have to purchase extra colour drums and swap the colour drum each time you need to print a particular colour. Bear in mind, some high end duplicators can print two spot colours in one pass.

If there's a downside with digital duplicators, it their low (ish) resolution. They start at 300dpi and go up to 600dpi, which sounds low compared even to a low end £100 laser printer. However, a digital duplicator can be attatched to a PC like a standard printer. When doing this, the resolution improves by 15 0r 20% as you are printing direct and not making a copy from printed artwork.

Looking at one of these myself at some point soon.

If you're really flush with cash then consider:

http://www.riso.co.uk/product/multif...nters-riso.htm

This is a whole new class of industrial printer and is in effect an inkjet on steroids!!!!

100pages a min, 600 dpi and FULL COLOUR!!! Also goo for at least 250,000 pages a month!!! Drooooollll!!!

Hope this all helps.

[PeterArnel]

Are you sure? - He wants to print 16pp or 32pp tabloid - I thought these machines can only print one page to view
Peter

[imatt]

I'd agree that outsourcing for a newspaper with editorial content would be a better option. If it were 100% ad based, self printing could be ok. However, as Ktinkel says, you need to consider writing, editing, proofreading, photograpy, graphic design / artwork as well as printing. This is not oly a time issue but also a staff and ultimately a cost issue too.

I mentioned a digital duplicator as some succesfully print newspapers and even simple mags with them.

P.S. Peter, what do you mean by one page per view? Do you mean cut sheets? If so, they can handle tabloid sized pages (I think). Youd need a folder and a collator mind you, meaning even more expense.

[PeterArnel]

Matt
Tabloid to me is a size like the Daily Mail or the Times - which means you can only get one page to view. The only way of binding it would be perfect binding ( but 8 leaves would not work)
If the page size was A4 then a digatel duplex machine linked to a (folder Stitcher trimmer would do the job).

Peter
Can u email me about how Leeds was like

[PeterArnel]

I personally wouldnt consider printing it - it would be much cheaper to outsource it .

[dthomsen8]

Originally Posted by PeterArnel

I personally wouldnt consider printing it - it would be much cheaper to outsource it .

That was my first thought, too. One obvious place to look for possible outsourcing production would be other newspapers, maybe in the area, maybe elsewhere, with spare capacity.

[ktinkel]

Originally Posted by chiham

I am openning a new business with a friend, a weekly newspaper. We want to produce from 3000 to 5000 newspaper of 16 to 24 pages per week. The size doesn’t matter — we can be flexible on that — but we were thinking of a tabloid.

What machine will you recommend to print this low amount of newspaper (brand, models, type, etc) ?

If you have a idea please send me links if you have.

I would recommend that instead of trying to do this yourself that you find a printer able and willing to do the work for a price you can afford.

It will be enough work for a small business just to write or edit the copy, find or take the photos, build a subscriber base, etc. without adding to it printing, folding, inserting, etc. Most small publishers contract the work out to either a local newspaper publisher or some printer specializing in that sort of work.

True, your volume is small, but if you can find a newspaper printer with unpaid-for time on his presses, you may be able to make a deal.

How do you plan to distribute the papers? The printer might be able to help with that as well.

Good luck.

[marleycarl]

hi i am also starting a small paper and was wondering if you wanted to corrispond. we could possibly share ideas and help each other . m

Originally Posted by chiham

Hi iam openning a new business with a friend, a weekly newspaper. Were want to produce from 3000 to 5000 newspaper of 16 to 24 pages, per week the size doesn’t matter we can be flexible on that be we were thinking on a tabloid.
What machine will you recommend to print this low amount of newspaper (brand, models, type, etc) ?
If you have a idea please send me links if you have.



thanks i will really apprecieate if you help



my IM is (msn@innovahn.com) MSN or Yahoo