An art book budget rarely fails in one dramatic moment. It goes quietly, in a decision about paper weight, in a second round of proofs nobody costed, in a freight invoice that turns up after the printing has already been paid for. By the time the total is obvious, the files are at the printer and the conversation is about compromises rather than choices.

The way round this is to build the budget before you ask anyone for a price. Not to guess what printing costs, but to know exactly what you are buying, which parts you can trade away, and which numbers have to hold. The order below is roughly the order an experienced small-press editor works in.

Start With the Object, Not the Quote

Quotes are only comparable when the specifications are identical. Two printers given the same vague brief will come back with prices for two different books, and you will spend a week discovering that one of them assumed a limp cover and a lighter text stock.

So write a one-page spec sheet first. It needs the finished trim size, the extent in pages, the text paper with weight and finish, the cover material and board, the binding style, the print run, whether colour runs throughout or only in a section, any special finishes, the delivery address and the date you need the books. Send that same sheet to every printer and keep a copy in the folder. Every later change gets dated.

Paper Is a Design Decision and a Budget Line

Paper usually competes with printing for the largest share of the quote, and it is the area where designers and budgets disagree most often. Three things drive the number.

Sheet size and imposition

Printers buy paper in large parent sheets and fit as many pages onto each one as the format allows. A book that imposes neatly, with pages landing in clean groups of sixteen or thirty-two, wastes very little. Nudge the trim size by a few millimetres and you can fall off that sheet, or leave a strip of it unused and unusable. The same is true of extent: add eight pages to a book that was imposing perfectly and you may need a whole additional signature, with its own make-ready and spoilage.

This is why the cheapest favour you can do your budget is to discuss trim size and page count with your printer before the design is fixed. A small change at that stage can be worth more than any negotiation later.

Weight, coating and bulk

A heavier uncoated stock feels generous and gives photographs a soft, grainy presence. A lighter coated stock holds ink sharply and costs less to post. Neither is better; they are different books. Ask for the quote to show two or three text stocks side by side with the price difference for each. It is one of the few places where a printer hands you a genuine lever.

Cover, boards and endpapers

Case binding, printed covers, jackets, headbands and printed endpapers are all separate line items, and they add up faster than most first-time publishers expect. If the budget is tight, a printed cover with no jacket is often the least painful saving.

Printing: Run Length, Signatures and Colour

Offset printing carries fixed costs — plates, make-ready, setting up the press — that are spread across the run. Digital printing removes most of that setup, which is why it suits short runs and reprints, but its cost per copy falls far more slowly. Where the two cross over depends on your format, extent and finishing, so ask for both on the same spec rather than assuming.

Ask each printer to price two or three run lengths, and look at the cost per copy rather than the headline total. The shape of that curve tells you where the value sits: sometimes a run of 750 copies costs barely more than 500, and sometimes it is a leap you should not take with stock sitting in a spare room.

Colour is the other big variable. Four-colour process throughout is one thing; a book with a black-and-white text section and a colour plate section is another, and a cover printed separately from the text adds a second setup. Every extra pass through the press is money, and every spot colour is a decision worth defending out loud.

Proofs: The Cheapest Money You Will Spend

Proofs feel like overhead. They are not. A book reprinted because a caption sat under the wrong plate, or because the shadows went green, costs many times what the checking would have.

Budget for the whole ladder, not just the printer's charge:

• Soft proofs for layout, pagination and text, checked by a proofreader and a designer — their time is a cost, even when the file is free to send.
• Hard-copy proofs for colour, ideally on the actual stock or a close simulation, viewed under decent light rather than on a monitor.
• A press check if the book is image-heavy. Someone who knows the work should stand at the machine and approve the sheet.

Ask, in writing, whether the quote includes one round of proofs or two, who pays for changes made after plates are made, what colour reference the printer uses, and whether a press check is included. Corrections at layout stage are cheap. Corrections after plating are billed as fresh make-ready, and rightly so.

The Costs That Live Outside the Quote

Printers quote for printing. Publishers pay for a good deal more, and these lines belong in the budget from the beginning:

• Freight from the printer to your flat, studio or warehouse — pallet weight, tail-lift, whether delivery is kerbside or inside.
• Storage, if the books are not going straight out.
• Copy-editing, proofreading, indexing and translation.
• Design, typesetting and image preparation: scans, colour correction, retouching.
• Image licensing, permissions and any fees for quoted text.
• ISBNs, barcodes and legal deposit copies.
• Review copies, launch stock and the postage that goes with them.
• A contingency. Ten per cent is a common working figure, and it should stay untouched until the books are in the building.

Building the Budget Before You Request Quotes

1. Set a ceiling. Decide the total you can spend without putting the press in difficulty. Write it down; it is the number every later decision answers to.
2. Subtract the fixed costs. Editing, design and rights do not change with the printer, so take them off the top first.
3. Describe two books. The one you want, and the one you would accept: a slightly smaller trim, a lighter stock, a limp cover.
4. Hold back contingency. Do this before you divide anything up, or you will spend it in your head.
5. Name the envelope. What remains is your printing, paper, proofing and freight money. That is the figure you are trying to fit.
6. Request quotes against the written spec, with the same run lengths and delivery terms for each printer, and ask them to break out paper separately.
7. Compare landed cost per copy, not the headline price. Freight and proofing change the ranking more often than you would think.
8. Ask what they would change. A good printer will tell you which three adjustments would bring the job inside your number.

Holding the Line Once Quotes Arrive

When a quote comes back above the envelope, start with extent and run length, because that is where the largest money sits. Then paper. Then binding and finishing. Proofs come last on that list, and cutting them is the one saving that tends to cost more than it returns.

Keep the spreadsheet alive through production and add a column for what things actually cost. Note what each decision bought you, in money and in feel. A budget is not a restriction on the book. It is the thing that lets you promise a designer, a printer and a contributor a date, and then keep it.

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