You may be wondering about what is involved in book printing in China. What is the quality like? Can I get my book printing questions answered correctly and in a timely manner? Are the cost savings worth the risk of printing in a foreign country?
Our FAQs about overseas book printing overseas will dispel the myths you may have about using a Chinese printing service for your book. Callawind also prints books in North America and handles print on demand (POD) books.
For many years, we have been successfully partnering with superior printing companies in China to deliver beautiful books for our clients.
Let us put your mind at ease about China book printing. Below we address typical questions so you can focus on preparing your book, and leave all the overseas book printing details to us.
There are several reasons why our clients print a book in China. The main reason is price. Offset book printing in North America is expensive. This is especially true if you are printing a full-color, hardcover book with coated paper. China printing is usually 40% less expensive than book printing in Canada or the US. Even if you add shipping, duties, and sales tax (where applicable), you still save considerably.
Overseas book printers can do a variety of special binding and printing effects at very little extra cost compared to North American printers.
This is the biggest concern that clients have when book printing overseas. You assume that since you are getting a great price on book printing, the quality will be low. In fact, you receive as good or often even better quality by printing overseas. The machinery used by overseas book printers is virtually the same as what is used in North America. Not only have overseas book printers invested in state-or-the-art equipment, they put a lot of time and effort making sure that employees are carefully trained on the equipment being used. Finally, employees are encouraged to take pride in their work and quality control is of the utmost importance.
You do not need to communicate directly with the overseas book printer. Callawind does that for you. We have dealt with production and sales support at our chosen overseas book printers for many years. We know them and they know us. We want to provide the best customer service to our clients. That’s what we look for in an overseas book printing partner. When we need information from our overseas book printers, we get answers most often within 24 hours. The staff we deal with is friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable, and will go above and beyond to make us and our clients happy. The work ethic is truly impressive.
No, our overseas book printer will prepare all the paperwork and coordinate the book shipment with their export department. In addition, the export department will work in conjunction with their customs broker representative in each country.
Book shipments are typically quoted as “DDP” (delivery and duty paid), and included in our book production quotes.
For book shipments to the US, you will need to provide your EIN number.
For book shipments to Canada, you will need to obtain a GST/HST business number and register as a Canadian importer. Visit your province’s government website to easily obtain these numbers.
Ye, you could if you wanted to.
On average, figure about 8 to 10 weeks. Usually, a book can be printed and bound in about 4 to 5 weeks from the time printing files are submitted. This includes generating and reviewing the printer proofs, through to printing and binding the finished books.
Depending on where you are located, shipping on average is another 4 to 5 weeks.
We take care of paying the overseas printer (in US dollars). A 50% deposit on the total production cost will be payable at the time of signing the production agreement and starting the work. The remaining balance (including any additional chargeable costs and supplies) will be payable upon the client’s approval of advance printed and bound books. Please note that overseas book printers will not ship the bulk of books until they are paid in full.
Payment options include: bank wire transfer, check, or credit card (through PayPal, where a 2.9% surcharge will apply).
Relatively speaking, no. Book shipments are loaded onto container ships, and the cost per square foot is inexpensive.
It is standard practice for the book printing industry to deliver either more books (overrun) or less books (underrun) than you have ordered. Depending on the printer, the overrun or underrun will be 5 to 10% of the order quantity.
Usually, there is a small overrun of books. Printers tend to print more copies than ordered in case some books are damaged during production. For example, if you order 3,000 books,with a 5% overrun, you may receive and be invoiced for up to 150 extra books. These overrun books are typically priced at a lower cost per book. Underruns occur less often—when there are more damaged books than the printer planned for.
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Magazine Guy said: Click to expand...
You are approaching this in the way that I prefer my customers approach problems like this: get a quote to match and then see if someone can "reverse engineer" a price for you.You see, there is a lot of uncertainty in pricing, not to mention the uncertainties in the production area.Some people will come in with an "idea" and that's it. These people usually are (prudently) given a high price because the printer has no experience with them and truly doesn't want to get burned by a dissatisfied customer refusing to pay, for instance.Going outside the loop to China sets up the equation differently: the vendor will know that it might be a one-shot, but if the money hits the bank, the order is good to work on. The vendor's risk of a refusal has now been taken out of the equation, and that is worth a lot.Notice the difference in transaction style: payment up front versus the usual U.S. approach of "let's work out terms".Cash is king.If you "walk in" to any web printer in NYC and haggle this out, you should be able to get this price or possibly even better...I mean it. The shop I work for could not produce this job effectively at this price (with our present equipt configuration), but a shop specializing in wide web publication work could. (I have a very good idea of the costs to a web shop.) You just have to come in with the right proposal.The big thing in any intelligently run shop is to keep the presses running with work that is profitable... and the cost of shipping a ton or two of magazines from China is certainly what a low margin profit could be for the job, even compensating for lower wages. (And don't forget import duties and customs fees.)Face to face is still the best way to buy printing. You just have to(rather than take the price or deal that is offered) and that will also mean that you must understand the vendors' point of view. This is very uncomfortable for most Americans... we are reared NOT to haggle.This, incidentally, is what I believe is a big source of failure of North American commerce: the American (and Canadian) prejudice against haggling cripples the supply system against inundation by foreign suppliers who understand the important of price fluidity. (A list price is worth nothing unless the goods can be sold in sufficient volume at that price.)