DESCRIPTION Flaunt Book CLIENT Self-promotion DATE August 2009 – February 2010 DESIGN CREDITS UnderConsideration: Bryony Gomez-Palacio Armin Vit PRINT CREDITS Capital Printing TYPE CREDITS Auto by Underware Mercury by Hoefler & Frere-Jones

QUANTITY PRODUCED 2,000 PRODUCTION COST $12,022.30 PRODUCTION TIME 2 Weeks DIMENSIONS: WIDTH × HEIGHT × DEPTH 8.75 in × 11 in PAGE COUNT 136 + Cover PRINT METHOD Offset PAPER STOCK Cover: Endurance Velvet 100 lb. Cover Body: Endurance Velvet 70 lb. Text NUMBER OF COLORS Cover: 2 Metallic Spots Body: CMYK VARNISHES Overall Aqueous BINDING PUR (Polyurethene Reactive Material) Perfect Binding

By now we hope you have heard of our new book, Flaunt: Designing effective, compelling and memorable portfolios of creative work, so this is not a self-serving promotional post and taking advantage that this is our blog. (Okay, maybe a little). Since we have all the insider information about how the book came to be we thought it would be interesting or helpful to share it.

We had originally made up our mind that Flaunt would only be sold as a PDF, making our profit margin much higher since we wouldn't have to plunk down thousands of dollars to get it printed. Then we thought, well maybe we print a limited edition or something on-demand, but doing either of these options would have made the book very expensive to buy in order for us to make a profit. Then we considered the idea of printing in China thinking that we could spend a couple thousand dollars on, like, 10,000 copies. Not the case, of course. Printing in China works out when you have large print runs and have a lot of time to wait — we had neither, since we only wanted to print 1,000 or 2,000 copies and we wanted the finished product in our hands right away, and going to China would have given us the final product three months after submitting the files.

At this point we were fully committed to printing the damn book. We just couldn't stay away from print. After working with Capital Printing on a client project here in Austin we pursued the idea with them and worked with their team to come up with an economic way of producing the book. While we originally wanted some lovely brand-name uncoated paper we settled on a coated house stock of matte paper that was, of course, cheaper and easier to work with on press than uncoated. We also decided on a 2-color cover to save a little on CMYK printing. After some careful negotiations we settled on a price of $12,000 for 2,000 copies at $6 per unit. While we originally meant to print only 1,000 the price for that quantity was $10,414 raising the unit price to $10, so it made sense to go with the higher quantity and increase our profit margin.

One print faux pas we unknowingly committed was that we had left no inside margin on the design to clear the perfect binding, usually a quarter-inch. This happened because the book was meant to be seen as a PDF, where the margins don't really need those asymmetrical margins. Changing the inside margin would have meant adjusting all 136 pages, and that was simply not an option. So we decided to increase the width of the book by 0.25 inches, and simply move the layout to the outer edges. Not a big problem until we got to shipping supplies, where standard sizes are meant to accommodate 8.5-inch widths. Live and learn.

For the cover we wanted to do something "special" and we considered letterpress and laser-cutting, but either option involved transporting paper around from one printer to the other and that was too cost prohibitive. So we settled on metallic inks but rather than go with the usual silver, we went with some offbeat choices in deep purple and a grayish lavender. Go figure, it works. Inside, there is no real story, just straightforward CMYK, where we press-checked a couple of forms and Capital Printing took care of the rest.

So far we have sold more than 650 printed books, and we have recouped the printing investment. We were incredibly nervous when we took this gamble and even as we submitted the files we questioned if it was the right thing to do. Once again it's been proven that print isn't going anywhere, we all collectively enjoy the physical presence of a book and are willing to spend our hard-earned money on such items. (The PDF of Flaunt, by the way, is on par with the book, selling short of 650 copies).

More photos of some beautiful ink mixing here.

what was the initial motivation for doing a print run; was it audience demand?

I think I would have gone with and 80lb text paper stock. The pages of the book feel weak and you can see some of the content on the backside of the pages. Otherwise I love the the book, it just feels like its missing something. Feels too much like a magazine rather than an actual book.

I agree with Jeff, the 70lb did seem a little too light. That said, I've read through much of the book and found the content to be helpful and interesting. Glad you went through with printing it.

Kelly, not at all. It was all just us getting worked up about it, and wanting to provide the option of buying a physical book. We thought we would put it on Lulu.com so that it was truly on-demand, but it would have cost around $50.

Jeff and Chris. We agree. It was slightly unexpected to get some of that see-through on some of the pages. If there is a re-print, it will definitely be on heavier stock.

Awesome book! It's beautifully designed and actually contains a lot of information designers can use for crafting their own portfolios.

I graduated just a year ago and remembering scouring Amazon for something like this.

Anyone that might be redesigning their portfolio should pick this up ( and check out page 30! )

I got the PDF, now I wish I got the book. Oh well. Less dead trees I guess! Great job!

Just ordered one!

As always, a huge thanks not only for sharing your process but for making truly useful disclosures re: cost, sales numbers, lessons learned, etc. This kind of post is what makes FPO a seriously valuable resource. Congrats on the book!