Photo from theprintersalley.com.

These days, it is tempting to order printing from an online printer.

They often advertise very cheap rates and have flashy websites.

What most people don’t know is that online printers have hidden costs, high shipping costs, lengthy turnaround times, widely varying quality, no quality control and often very poor customer service.

In other words, you get what you pay for!

In today’s digital world, high quality printing – just like you get from online – is available in just about every city. If you are not a designer and don’t work with printers on a daily basis, chances are, you need some helpful feedback and assistance to make sure your print job looks as good as you need it to.

Here are five ways locally run and operated printers beat large online printers every time:

• With an out-of-town printer, you have no relationship with the person running your order. With a local, independent print shop, you get someone with some emotional equity built up in the business and their relationships with clients, especially longtime customers. You won’t be just a number or get lost in the shuffle. This means a real person who cares quality checks your order.
• With an out-of-town printer, you might see emailed digital proofs, which we all know can’t convey depth and color with the same accuracy as a printed proof. Local, independent print shops give their customers a chance to see and touch physical proofs and discuss any changes on the spot and face-to-face with the person who actually did the printing.
• Online printers can take 2-6 weeks to deliver your job. Need someone today or within 24 hours? A local shop can do backflips for you and make you look great by getting you a perfect print job at a reasonable cost when you need it.
• If you decide you need extras or other modifications to your order, you’re likely to fill out a complicated new order form or pay an extra fee when dealing with a large out-of-town printers. Independents can adjust on the fly with a mere phone call. It’s just way easier, and quicker, too.
  

  Angie Scott

• There’s always the personal touch and the satisfaction of knowing you’re supporting a locally owned and operated business that keeps your dollars circulating in the local economy. When you buy local and independent, you’re doing your part to help your community stay vibrant. Doesn’t that just feel better than filling out a form online and waiting for the mailman to show up with a box?

Professional Reprographics is Nashville’s oldest all-digital print and copy shop, and we go out of our way to build trusting relationships with our clients that often last years. Actually, there’s a sixth reason why it’s better to go local and independent with your printing needs — if you live in Nashville, that means you might get to work with me! And you’ll like me. I have a nice smile, a goofy sense of humor — and I do a nice job of printing things, too.

Call or shoot me an email today!

Angie Scott
615-509-3192
angie@prnashville.com

The banner we made for Hillwood Country Club. From the PR Nashville website.

We got an odd order in not long ago from the nice folks over at Hillwood Country Club. They were promoting a reopening and they wanted us to make a banner – a huge one, about nine by 12 feet.

We wondered what kind of material they wanted. Normally customers want vinyl for a banner that size, something nice and sturdy so it holds up over time.

Nope, the Hillwood folks said. Paper, please. They  wanted golfers to hit golf balls through the banner as part of the grand re-opening. We obliged.
The event went off nicely, and Hillwood’s order is a good example of how many uses exist for large format banner printing. Even in the Internet age, used well, a classic paper or vinyl banner to hang on the side or front of your building is still one of the most effective and least expensive ways to advertise. Large format items like banners and large posters have the highest ROI of any printed marketing materials.

Assembling the banner for Hillwood Country Club. From the PR Nashville website.

Keep these tips in mind if you are thinking about printing a banner:

• Paper is ideal for a one-day event, but vinyl is exceptional for repeat or extended use; as long as you don’t put dates on it and keep it in a tube, vinyl can last a long, long time.
• Don’t cram too much information on the banner or poster. Keep it simple: one clear message, logo, phone number, one simple URL.
• The large format printing item should be clear, visible and easy to read, with strong contrast between letters and background. That draws people’s attention. You have only a second or two to do it. A good rule of thumb for typeface: Think at least one inch of height for every 10 feet of viewing distance.
• Make sure you know how you will hang the large format item before you order it. Hooks? Velcro? Do you need grommets to tie up your banner?

The banner we made for Hillwood Country Club. From the PR Nashville website.

No matter what kind of large format printing item you’re looking for, Professional Reprographics Nashville can do it professionally and affordably. Give me a call or email today!

Angie Scott
615-509-3192
angie@prnashville.com

Photo from colorprinting1.com.

Color looks better than black and white. Duh! Everybody knows that.

But small businesses often shy away from printing their fliers, posters and other promotional materials in color because they think it’s too expensive. And until recently, it has been.

To get quality color prints, you’d have to do a medium or large run using traditional offset printing methods, which costs a lot and can take days to finish. Even small jobs used to cost way more with color; you’ve probably tried to print something out at a FedEx Office and went with the 15-cent black and white pages versus the 50-cent color ones.

But technology has come a long way, especially in the past few years. That’s allowed small, independent printing companies like Professional Reprographics to take advantage of digital technology to print runs of any size in color for only slightly more than you’d pay for black and white.

We have some of the latest digital printers, which give postcards and fliers all the detail and depth of traditional offset printing but allow us to fulfill large orders quickly. Print equipment manufacturers have made great strides in resolution capability and ink development, so no more pixelated graphics or smeared inks, even on high-quality glossy stock.

Photo from Signal Graphics.

And you can get your order filled quickly, too, usually within 24 hours for a run of 1,000 fliers or postcards.

The narrowing of the cost gap lets small businesses capitalize on the natural advantages of marketing materials in color:

• They have high impact, catching the eyes of potential customers.
• Color makes a better first impression. Black and white says, “Cheap.”
• Items in color have more staying power in people’s memories. Color increases brand recognition by 80 percent, studies have shown.

We at Professional Reprographics specialize in color printing Nashville can rely on, done downtown near Printers Alley, and it’s how we’ve built our brand: by offering affordable, high-quality color printing to our local Nashville customers.

In Nashville, color printing is a whole lot easier than it used to be. Want us to run off some brochures for your small business or fliers for your event? I’d love to talk with you. Call or email me today!

Angie Scott
615-509-3192
angie@prnashville.com

Image from niceposterworld.com.

Poster printing is one of our most common jobs at Professional Reprographics and the uses people find for them at times surprises even us.

Nashville’s a big music town, as you may have heard, so bands and musicians constantly come to us with orders for fliers they can staple to telephone poles and posters they can tape to the insides of windows. Chances are, we printed those posters you see on street corners.

They’re usually 12-by-18, with a picture of the band at the top and a blank space at the bottom for gig information. We’re happy to help out our local musicians. We also do short runs for churches, offices, civic clubs — for all the traditional poster printing uses you can imagine.

With digital printing, a poster is not expensive to print, even in state of the art color. With today’s digital printing technology, the quality is far better than you might think. Today, there is little difference in print quality between a photograph you get printed at a photo lab and what comes off our equipment.

Then we get clients who put in poster printing orders for more creative reasons.

We had a client not long ago order a series of posters, of different, random things, including a boat on the ocean. We asked him why, and he said his office was where the fuse box was, and he wanted a range of options to look at aside from the fuse box. You just never can tell why somebody might want posters printed!

Image from Short Run Printing, Ltd.v

Posters can be one of the most effective printed marketing tools for a business, organization or band. They’re usually very colorful and have high visual impact, guaranteeing coveted eyeballs on your product.

At Professional Reprographics, we have the capacity to turn out posters in any size and design you might want, from 8½-by-11 to super wide format and everything in between.

Want a tip for poster printing? Make the design simple; it will keep viewers’ interest longer and do a better job of communicating your message.

Want to print a poster to cover up your wall or advertise your gig? Give me a call!

Angie Scott
615-509-3192
angie@prnashville.com

Robert Lee Boyd's memoir is one of many self-published books PR Nashville has printed.

As I talked about a few weeks ago, self-publishing your own book is easier and less expensive than ever! We at Professional Reprographics can take whatever you have and turn it into a professional-looking book with a “short run” of 500 or fewer copies.

If you’re like a lot of our clients and just want a bound workbook for a class, or a collection of Grandpa’s war stories for a family keepsake, the process is not too complicated. We’ll work with you every step of the way to make sure the result looks the way you want it.

But if you’re serious about being a published author, and you’re hoping to turn a short run of your novel or memoir into something lucrative, consider these dos and don’ts:

DON’Ts

Don’t write about a subject people have already written about a lot and expect to sell books. You might have a great idea for a novel about famous paintings concealing clues about the secret history of the Roman Catholic Church, but, um, it’s been done. No UFO books, either, unless you’ve been on one. Scratch that — I mean especially if you’ve been on one!

Don’t assume you’ll be a success telling your own life story. Some of us have led fascinating lives full of drama and adventure. Most of us haven’t. Sure, your life is interesting to you, and I hope to your spouse, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us want to read all about it. (Sorry!)

Don’t go in blind. If you’re serious about selling even a few hundred copies of your book, do your homework.

Which brings us to the DO’s:

Do have a marketing plan. Figure out your target audience and come up with ideas on how to reach those readers before you publish. For example, you can partner with companies that can use your book to cross-market their products and offer it to them at a premium.

Do look into obtaining an ISBN number. Here’s a good place to start. (I’ll talk more about this in a future post.)

Do get a professional editor to proof your manuscript.

Do seek the services of a graphic designer to come up with an eye-catching cover.

Do rewrite. Your first draft is very, very seldom your best draft.

Do call or email me to learn how PR Nashville can print your book affordably and quickly!

Angie Scott
615-509-3192
angie@prnashville.com

Advertising postcard for Seattle business, c. 1904. From Wikimedia Commons.

Take a look at this video. It is only a few minutes long, and it highlights the most important advantage of one of our specialties, variable data printing, or VDP. In short, even in an age of email and web ads, direct mail is still one of the most effective marketing tools you can use. What separates the mail customers keep from the mail they toss into the recycling bin? The mail they keep is relevant and personal.

That’s where we can help you not only get your marketing message out but also tailor specific messages (relevance) to specific people (personal). I blogged a while back about Nashville variable printing and how postcards remain a great, inexpensive way to market your company, especially compared with emails and web ads. It’s funny — even after customers agree to get emails from companies, they often still treat the emails as spam. Into the trash they go! But who isn’t excited to get a postcard, especially one clearly addressed to “Jane Smith” instead of “Occupant” and featuring something Jane’s interested in?

Traditional offset printers must print large amounts of identical postcards and other printed materials at once to keep per-unit costs down — but this approach loses the personal touch, and bulk orders almost always either run short or leave costly excess.

Not so with digital printers like PR Nashville. Give us postcard files and a mailing list to match to each file, and we can use variable printing to fulfill your order in as small or large an amount as you need, with designs or files tailored to individual customers. We’ll even stagger shipments over weeks or months if you want to do it that way. As I wrote in my previous post on this, “Need 50 cards mailed? No problem! Need 5,000? Still not a problem. Need them shipped in several batches over random periods of time? Easy.”

And it really is easy. Give me a call or shoot me an email today to find out how PR Nashville can put the power and flexibility of variable data printing to work for your company.

Angie Scott
615-509-3192
angie@prnashville.com

Let Professional Reprographics make beautiful wedding invites for your special day

Some people I meet here in Nashville see wedding invitations as something they can mass-order online or from a department store outlet. But they don’t understand that a small, independently owned print company like Professional Reprographics can custom-design an invitation that meets or exceeds your expectations while still offering the best value.

I really enjoy working with clients on their wedding invitations. Nashville is a great city for starting and raising a family. I got married myself not long ago (for the second time; I must enjoy it!), so I love when I can share in a small piece of someone else’s happiness.

Here’s how I do it: When clients come in, I sit down with them and show them the designs, typefaces and colors we can work with. People get very excited. “Oh, wow,” they say. “I want something like this. Or this.” It’ll be the most ornate, expensive wedding invitation possible, with an elaborate font, heavy stock for the main invitation, ribbons and, oh, four kinds of envelope. (The bride usually does the picking.) I explain to them how expensive that would be. Their enthusiasm begins to fade.

But that’s just the first part of the process! Then I explain to them how they can save money by doing without all the bells and whistles — the second envelope, the bows, the seven layers of different types of paper — while still having a great-looking invitation on high-quality stock. (I wrote last year about ways to save money on wedding invitations.)

And here’s the big difference in working with a full-service, independent print shop like Professional Reprographics. I work with clients every step of the way to make sure they are happy. Unlike department stores and online outlets, I let clients see the proofs before we start the press run, and I go out of my way to make sure clients are satisfied that they are getting what they want at the lowest possible price. Once we finish the run, if 20 more are needed, I’m a phone call away. Other companies require a new order form and often charge an extra fee.

The difference is customer service. If you live in or near Nashville, wedding invitations that look phenomenal but don’t make you groan when you see the bill are just a phone call or email away. Contact me for a quote today!

Ever want to write a book? How about capturing your grandparent’s life stories in printed form? What about that amazing collection of family recipes or that really important e-book you wrote to help grow your business?

Photo by Stewart Butterfield via Wikimedia Commons

People are always surprised to find out how easy and inexpensive it is to publish a book these days — and I’m always surprised that they’re surprised! Today, anyone can publish a book that looks just like one you would buy in a store: printed, bound and wrapped with a good-looking cover. You don’t have to have a publisher and you don’t have to print a ton of books. Need 25 books? 50? 500? No problem!

Over the past 10 years or so, advances in digital printing technology have allowed full-service, all-digital printers like us at Professional Reprographics in Nashville to affordably do what’s called “short run book printing” — a limited run of 500 or fewer copies that’s great not just for poets and beginner novelists but anyone who wants a great marketing tool for trade meetings or a precious family keepsake.

You don’t have to be an experienced writer to get a book published and you don’t need to be in Nashville. Clients we work with on self-published book projects usually just email us their file in Microsoft Word, and we do the typesetting, design the cover and present them with a proof within days, often at a cost that surprises people.

But it doesn’t even have to be in a word processing program; it can be handwritten, too! We’ve done a few books written by family members about a beloved grandparent as a birthday gift. If you have an older family member with fascinating stories about serving in World War II or Korea, think about talking to them or getting them to write down their stories, then come talk to us about how we might be able to turn Grandpa’s great dining room table tales into a book the family can treasure for generations. That’s one of the great advantages of independent print shops like PR. We can work with you on whatever you want to bring to us. Once you sign off on the proof, we can have the full run done, boxed and ready to go in as little as a week.

And if you’re a fiction writer or poet, and you’ve collected a shoebox full of rejection slips over the years, self-publishing is a way to get your work noticed. It’s fast becoming the way for writers of all kinds to get books into print without trying to woo persnickety publishers (then watch as the publishers take most of the credit and the proceeds even if they’re successful; see this article from The Guardian newspaper in London about the rise of self-publishing).

We get all kinds at PR, though: school classes that want to compile student essays and sell them as fundraisers; or college professors in higher ed-happy Nashville who want to arrange a semester’s worth of handouts and reading assignments into a convenient package. Your price is going to vary, of course, depending on the kind of paper you choose, the kind of cover, whether you want graphics or color printing and how many pages your book has.

But it’s doable, and you shouldn’t be intimidated by the thought. It’s way easier than you think, and trust me, no matter what business you’re in, clients and colleagues look at you and your message with a little more respect when it’s between two covers. Interested? Get in touch! I’d be happy to talk with you about self-publishing your book.

Angie Scott
615-509-3192
angie@prnashville.com

Photo by Stewart Butterfield via Wikimedia Commons

Want to get the most out of your marketing message with the smallest marketing expense?

Try a good, old-fashioned banner.

We live in such a Web-based world that when I say that, often people think I’m talking about banners on an Internet site. But no, I’m talking about the classic paper or vinyl banner you can hang on the side or out front of your building. It’s still one of the most effective and least expensive ways to advertise if you use it well.

Banner photo courtesy of Andy C

At Professional Reprographics in Nashville, we print a lot of wide-format printers for people all over the country. We print on paper, vinyl and everything in-between. We make weatherproof outside banners and inexpensive but effective banners for inside use.

I can’t think of a business that doesn’t need or can’t use a banner. As far as marketing goes, a simple banner has the highest ROI of any printed marketing materials.

Here are some important tips about banners:

• Paper is ideal for a one-day event, but vinyl is exceptional for repeat or extended use; as long as you don’t put dates on it and keep it in a tube, vinyl can last a long, long time. And you can use it for all kinds of things (ad-related things, I mean; you probably don’t want your kids to use it as a Slip ‘n Slide!).
• Even people who know better can make the mistake of trying to cram too much information on the banner; it’s as if they see all that space and worry they don’t have enough to fill what they’ve bought! Take a look at the banner in the photo — there’s tiny print, URLs, sponsors, logos, a footnote on an unrelated event. That’s distracting. Keep it simple: One clear message, logo, phone number, one simple URL.
• The banner should be clear, visible and easy to read, with strong contrast between letters and background. That draws people’s attention. You have only a second or two to do it. A good rule of thumb for typeface: Think at least one inch of height for every 10 feet of viewing distance.
• Make sure you know how you plan to hang your banner before you order it. Are you going to hook it? Velcro it? Do you need grommets to tie up your banner?

No matter what kind of banner you’re looking for, PR Nashville can do it professionally and affordably, leaning on our years of experience in this city. We’re Nashville’s oldest all digital print and copy shop, located downtown and offering digital color copies, B&W copies, binding, laminating, oversized copies and much more. We offer pickup and delivery of your projects. Give us a call or shoot us an e-mail today, and let us help you grab your customers’ attention with a colorful, compelling banner!

If you’re looking for a way to jumpstart a new business or boost an established one, Professional Reprographics is offering a phenomenal deal starting now. We’re offering vinyl banners for $3.50 per square foot — our usual price is $8/sf — and paper for $2.50; our normal paper price is $6.50. (If you’re looking for some canvas, we’re selling that at a discounted rate of $3.50/sf, too.)

It’s one of the regular promotions we offer to our customers in Nashville, and the main reason is that we have a new large-format photo printer that spits out banners faster than we’ve ever been able to print them. Needless to say, we’re pretty excited about it, and we want to take full advantage of our new gear by putting it to work as long as the promotion lasts — and we’ll keep it going indefinitely.

Angie Scott
615-509-3192 / angie@prnashville.com

“When Printing Flyers, What Are Some Tips for Getting Clear Copies?”

When you put a lot of time into designing and laying out your flyer and it looks great on your screen, its always disappointing when it prints poorly. We print a ton of color flyers (and even have a special 15th anniversary rate for color copies) and here are some easy tips to think about before you lay out your next flyer:

1. Web resolution is 72dpi and the flyer you’ll print is print resolution, 300dpi. When you blow up an image from web resolution – what you see on your computer screen or online – to a printable size, it is rarely large enough. The result is your images (pictures and graphics) will be pixelated:

Pixelated Photo from Robinsblog.com

Make sure you are using higher resolution images so your flyers look crisp!

2. Design your flyers so they are cleanly designed without a lot of clutter. Use a simple, clear headline that gets straight to the point. Don’t put too much text and always put your contact information on the flyer!

3.  The larger the file, the better the copy. Make sure to output your file into a high-res PDF or TIFF file. .JPG files (images) are compressed and whenever you compress an image, you’ll lose quality and it will look less clear.

4. Don’t copy a copy and expect it to be as clear as the original! We can easily copy your old flyer but you’ll often lose some of the clarity. If you don’t have electronic artwork, consider scanning it in at a larger size and importing the file into your graphics program. That way, your flyer will be sharper.

5. Use better paper – the cheapest paper is not always the best to use. In some cases, using a black and white flyer on colored paper is far less expensive and can be more impactful.  Heavier stock paper is better for handing out to individuals – the first impression your flyer makes is important and how the paper feels can make a big difference.

Flyers rock – they are a great way to market your business, service or product. Next time you need flyers printed in Nashville, give us a call and let us help you get the most for your dollar!