Advice on the business of letterpress please
Hi—
I have had a case of ‘letterpress lust’ for quite sometime and now I have a small business idea that centers around selling a niche letterpress card that I cannot currently find. However since I am not a letterpress printer myself, I’m wondering if it is possible to contract with a printer to do the printing for me—in essence to “manufacture” the cards? I realize that letterpress printing is an art-form, quite different from screen printing t-shirts for example, which is why I wonder if this possible. Or if it would be cost prohibitive? I have found several printers that will print a custom design, but those seem to be targeted for the consumer (personal stationery, wedding invitations, etc.) and not for re-sale.
I would love to learn letterpress printing myself in the future, but for now I think my skills might be better suited to the other tasks of beginning a business. I’m interested in any thoughts or advice you may have—or any pitfalls that I might run into. Thanks in advance!
-KR
It is difficult to have a idea of what you want as a card. There are designers and there are printers. I do print for other designers being the artwork done by me or others. If you drop a line we can talk about. Cheers.
André
I think you find all combinations of design and print and art and craft when you are talking about letterpress. I know there are plenty of printers out there that run work for outside designers that they can work with as more of a partnership.
It is also reasonable to be able to make work for the retail market. When you outsource the printing you are adding a step of expense so that might be your hurdle in making it profitable as a retail product, but it is worth a shot. there are companies out there making it happen.
In a craft product like letterpress, it can be challenging to sell the volume you need to sell in order to make a retail item competitive with other stuff that is being printed cheaply or overseas or something. That is why alot of printers focus on the custom work. It can be easier to sell 150 wedding invites at a set price for the whole job, rather than trying to sell 150 individual greeting cards to 150 customers.
but hey, follow what it is that you think will satisfy you.
good luck :)
If there is a market for it in your area, then you can make a profit doing it. The easiest way to do it (well, the most profitable way) would be to find a local stationary store and sell them a bulk amount to put on their shelves. They can mark it up, you get everything paid for, and you don’t have to worry about selling cards individually.
The hard part is finding a printer who will give you a good deal on printing in order for you to make your profit before the store tries to make their profit.
I guess what I am trying to say is for something like this it might be better for your to invest the time/effort/money into printing your own ideas rather than adding another person in the mix who would like to make money for their time spent. There are several people who I know of who sell individual cards, but they also print them theirselves so they don’t have the expense of paying somebody a few hundred dollars and waiting for that wad of cash to be paid off by selling one card at a time.
I hope I make sense.