Menu
We know that cost is a major factor in making a parish magazine sustainable. Whereas a commercial printer will charge more for printing a short run than say a run of 2000, we charge the minimum price we can no matter what the run.
We print on a digital printer which is efficient at smaller print runs and especially runs under 1000. Although we could print any run size we generally recommend to our customers a plate printing service for any runs exceeding around 2000 because the cost per copy will start reducing by using this type of printing. We do not recommend laser printing at any time, see below.>
We take the PDF, usually by email, and print the publication as soon as possible. Although we would like the file as soon as practicable we are very aware that the editor probably has their own job, which might delay sending or that there is an important last minute parish event which needs recording in that months issue. We are therefore as flexible as possible in the turn around time often printing on the day of receipt and getting the newsletters back next day.
We know that collection of magazines from the printer is always likely to cause sustainability issues, especially with the price of fuel and getting to the printer before it closes, holiday periods etc. For that reason all our quotes include delivery to an address in your area. With some magazines we pre-bundle the distributors rounds.
We take a partnership approach with Editors because we have been there ourselves. If an Editor has an idea which will make their lot easier, we’ll see if we can do it.
We use a different type of printing ethos to most printing companies. Every part of our printer machines can be (and is) recycled, refurbished and reused. Their speed and quality is simply exceptional but not at the price of the environment. We have a number of these printers so if we have a breakdown you should always get your magazine on time.
We explain to our customers that printing to the edge of a page (a process called full bleed to edge) wastes a great deal of paper. To get ink to the edge the print is made on slightly larger paper and cut down. This wastes about 15% of the paper used to print and, if we were to use this system like almost all other printers do, then we would be throwing away the equivalent of nearly 1 million sheets of A4 every year. The most terrible thing is that many print companies use the slightly larger paper even if they don’t need to because it saves changing! It is so wasteful, use your influence and tell your printer that you don’t want your magazine printed on SRA paper (that is what it is called).
We feel that our customers, producing local Parish Magazines, Church Magazines and Newsletters value our ideals of environmental respect. We occasionally ask them their opinion when we try new products like perhaps boxes or packing tapes when we are trying to progress further. We are always looking for innovation which will help the process further.