Hello Courious ~
To answer your question(s):
The paper the New York Times (and other newspapers) are printed on
does have a name, it's called newsprint, and it is about the lowest
priced paper on which to print periodicals.
The newsprint newspapers such as the New York Times and other cities'
daily newspapers are printed on are on huge rolls , which are run
through huge multi-story Goss or Webb presses, much like the one
pictured on the Goss website:
- http://www.gossgraphic.com/pdf/English/Universal4550.pdf
The cost of newsprint in the US is currently between $450 and $500 per
metric ton, the price having been raised in March. There's an article
in Newspapers & Technology online discussing the pricing of newsprint
in the US.
- http://www.newsandtech.com/issues/2003/03-03/nt/03-03_newsprint.htm
Newspaper ink is usually delivered by the tanker truck and pumped into
underground storage tanks for that purpose.
Therefore, a per unit cost to print a single newspaper would have to
factor in all those elements, plus a percentage of the capital
investment of the press, etc. The fact that the price of a single copy
of a newspaper has gone up in the last few years doesn't really begin
to cover the cost of actually printing it. Newspapers depend on
advertising revenues to pay the bills.
As to your question about whether or not you can get started with MS
Office, Photoshop and a digital camera: if you're talking about
running even a "few" thousand (say 2000-3000) copies, the costs would
be prohibitive to you without substantial advertising revenue. To
print several thousand (say 10-12,000) copies would no doubt put you
in the poorhouse before you even got a solid foothold.
There are alternatives, such as farming it out to others to print,
such as the web-based Our-hometown.com
- http://www.our-hometown.com/
or even software for newspaper content management, such as that
offered by the Ecom Media Group
- http://www.emg.ca/products.html
Without the equipment to print a substantial run, such as you
suggested in your question, if you are seriously seeking a low-cost
answer to producing an upstart newspaper, you might approach the
printer of a 'giveaway' periodical, such as a PennySaver or Nifty
Nickel or whatever they are called, and negotiate a price for a print
run on their presses.
They will tell you what they need from you to run it, add a bit of
profit for themselves, but often can be the best way for you to get
started without a huge capital outlay.
The costs of print publications can be so prohibitive that many good
ideas never make it to print because of the initial outlay. I hope you
find an answer for what you have planned.
Regards,
Serenata |
Request for Answer Clarification by
courious-ga
on
05 May 2003 07:33 PDT
Serenata,
New York City, cheapest, regular size (New York Times et cetera), 10
pages (which is 40 pages), only covers colored, 3000 copies weekly.
About how much does such a thing cost weekly? - $1000? $500? $100?
|
Clarification of Answer by
serenata-ga
on
05 May 2003 10:17 PDT
Hi ...
A call to Display Advertising of the NY Times revealed they wouldn't
run such a small edition. Extra production runs are for in-house
inserts (that is inserts which could be targeted to a particular
burrough or segment. If you were looking to include it as an insert
the cost would run from $4000 to $6000 per issue.
A call to the Phoenix Republic yielded about the same information,
except their cost would be a bit less for the same for about $4200. A
call to the Denver Post was slightly more, $4800. Please note that
those are a ballpark figures, as none of those would be interested in
printing it. It's not what they do, and for such a small run, it
wouldn't really be worth it.
None were interested in printing a startup newspaper for another
entity when press runs could produce greater revenue in running
tabloid inserts or advertising inserts. The small amount you are
talking about (3000) isn't worth setting up the presses for a run.
(It's just not what they do).
A recommendation was to find a printing facility that could run it in
a smaller (magazine) size or even a tabloid size where a production
run of 3000 would cost approximately $2300-5000 per run. The expense
isn't so much in the materials (although they are considered) as it is
in setting up the presses to make a run for that publication. The
printing method (for the most part) is offset printing, which requires
burning the plates, setting them on the press, registering the color,
which is a 3-color (plus black) run.
============
Your original question is the lowest price paper, which is newsprint.
The cost will vary depending on the printing house that does it. If
you're interested in a different kind of publication, say smaller
magazine sized publication with a staple in the middle, the cost could
be as low as $1200 for 3000 copies if you negotiate the right kind of
contract and split advertising revenue, etc. Your biggest costs are
the production costs of setting up.
If you're wondering how some printing places (such as Kinkos) can
print somethings cheaper than that, many times they are photocopies,
not offset printing. But you can't photocopy on newsprint, newsprint
is made specifically for running through presses - which leaves you
with higher paper costs for photocopy-grade paper.
Regards,
Serenata
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