[5115] in APO Printshop
RE: Printshop pricing confusion
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Alan Meisler)
Fri Sep 14 12:32:19 2007
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 11:32:08 -0500
From: "Alan Meisler" <ameisler@admreo.com>
To: <apo-printshop-journeyman@mit.edu>, <apo-printshop-operators@mit.edu>
Hi,
Hope y'all don't mind a few words from an even crustier Journeyman.
1. Bookkeeping: It's too bad that the treasurer's haven't been keeping
adequate track of the press shop's books, but this does happen. (And is
expected to happen with non-professional bookkeepers.) In the past, we
have relied on the paper trail that the treasurer supposedly keeps, so
that we could always backtrack to some point where we *did* know the
balance and work from there. (And if some guessing and fudging is needed
to do that, that's OK. We're not a corporation paying taxes here.)=20
I understand that things changed when MIT forced the bookkeeping change,
but do we really have no records going back to the old system? If not,
what type of records do we have? How far back can we track what the
press shop has spent? Unless things have been really screwed up or
thrown out, we *should* be able to track what the press shop has taken
in since, well, since before the current Actives were born.=20
If we have can find enough years of history to trust the numbers, we
should compare the income vs the outcome. If we've made a profit over
the years, we can use that as a new balance, otherwise we can start with
a zero balance and work from there. If we're missing most of the
bookkeeping trail and only have a few years worth of history, then I
don't see any recourse other than just setting things to zero and
starting over. (Though depending on what the finances of the chapter are
like at the moment, it would not be unreasonable to request a "donation"
to seed the Press Shop fund. I believe it was more common when the press
was more profitable to be making donations in the other direction.)
Obviously, this would require a discussion between the Chapter, the
Press Shop Manager and the Journeymen.
2. APO Press vs Copytech
This is a new issue. We lost most of the MTG jobs in the mid-90s because
they decided to switch to photocopied tickets. Once electronic printing
became cheap enough to be a viable alternative, we have not been able to
compete on price--nor have we tried. It's a question of what you want vs
what you are willing to pay for. People have continued to use us because
letterpress printing offers a number of features that you cannot get
easily and/or cheaply for photocopiers and laser printers, among them:
1) Numbering. Easier to do with laser printers (using label
software), but difficult to do at CopyTech. Sure, you can write the
numbers in, but on any decent job most people don't want the extra work.
Students may be short on money, but often they are shorter on time. It's
also much easier to make more accurate.=20
2) Multiple colors. Used for security or for aesthetics. One you
go to a non-black color, photocopy/laser printing gets *much* more
expensive.
3) Perforations. Not used much, but not a feature easily
obtained off-press.
4) Letterpress printing itself. There is a qualitative
difference between what you get from a printing press and what you get
from electronic printing. Sure, you can do your business cards off the
Athena printers, but they won't look as "real" as what you get from
"real" printing.
3. LSC: Why they may or may not continue using us.
As touched on above, the question of whether or not LSC will continue to
use us is going to be far more than just the price per ticket. LSC has
had the capability to print their own cards 6-up (or 8-up, 12-up, etc)
for as long as they've had their printer (which is well over 15 years).
Paper cutters are not a recent invention! And it has pretty much always
been cheaper for them to do so. (Which is why they don't have us print
their posters anymore.) So then why have they, historically, chosen to
go with the APO Press?
It is entirely in the ratio of what they get for what they pay. In the
case of LSC, this has always been security.
You state that instead of having us number the tickets, they are
hand-printing the numbers with sharpie. Do they realize this does not
actually give them any security? *Especially* in the electronic age.
Pretty much anyone these days would be able to print out a duplicate of
their cards (as you said, CopyTech does card stock without problem) then
sharpie in whatever number they think will work.
I seriously doubt that the typical LSC worker would be able to recognize
a forged "sharpied number" against an original. But they probably could
tell the difference between a hand-printed or laser printed number vs
that of the numbering machine. (There would be no indentation for the
former.)
It's the same with their membership cards. Those were typically done
with a numbering machine *and* split-colors.=20
So the problem isn't that we're no longer competitive, it's that LSC has
decided that they do not need what we are supplying. They have decided
that they are not sufficiently worried about security that they are
willing to pay the relatively small extra cost to get it. ($6 may be a
lot for a student, but not for a student group. How long would APO
ExecComm spend discussing an extra $6 expenditure for pretty much
anything?)
So in terms of it being "a matter of whether the price we end up with is
better than the semi-commercial alternatives", our price is still
competitive. What LSC is doing is not an equivalent "alternative" but
significantly substandard to what we offer.
Ironically, in an age where electronic duplicate is easier then ever and
available pretty much to anyone, they've decided that anti-copying
security is of less importance.=20
4. "It also seems awfully fishy that this system is capable of being
gamed."
The fee structure is purposefully vague. This allows us the freedom to
charge more or less, based on the judgement of the press op taking the
job. We assume the judgement of the press op is reasonable.
The main purpose of the press is to allow APO brothers who enjoy
printing to have an outlet where they get to use their printing skills
and creativity. The press use fees are designed so that these brothers
do not have to fund their hobby. A secondary purpose is that by covering
expenses using outside jobs, the Chapter gets discounted printing (no
press use fees) when needed. A lower purpose is to provide inexpensive
printing to the community where needed. (Service to the Brothers,
Chapter and Community.)
At no point is "to make money" part of the purpose. In fact, we
purposely do *not* allow brothers to charge for their time. (This is to
keep it as a hobby, and to make it less likely a brother will accept a
job when they do not really have the time for it. Personal gain as a
motivator often outrules common sense.)=20
There's no reason that we should ever even *think* of trying to to
"take" anyone.=20
So yes, you could put the two blocks into one setup, printing two at a
time, and charge just one setup. But why would you want to?
Have you ever tried printing two cards at once? I have. It's a royal
pain in the neck with little room for error. Especially so when
numbering is involved. (It makes it very difficult to track mistakes
that you have to go back and fix/reprint. (For the record, I have only
done this because I wanted to give it a try--i.e. for the fun of it.) It
does *not* cut the print job in half. You cannot run the press at
anything near normal speeds when trying to feed twice the cards unless
you are unusually dextrous (and fully ambidextrous as well.) So the
print job is going to be harder and probably longer.
The result of which is you save the client $3 in setup fees while at the
same time greatly increasing the amount of work you have to put into the
job. This is a very minor service to the client in exchange for a major
*disservice* to the press op.=20
You are worried about "taking them", and this is a good thing. We should
not be doing any disservice to the community. However, our aim is not to
give the *cheapest* price possible for the service, but to give the
*best* service for a reasonable price. Our price structure is designed
to keep the price reasonable (and given that I doubt we've changed the
fees for 20 years, it is probably *more* "reasonable" than it should
be.)=20
The trick is to tell the client *before* the print job just how much it
will cost. (And if you don't know then, then you don't know enough about
the job to take it.) It is only "taking them" if you start adding
charges at the end, after they don't have a choice about it.
What we have charged in the past is relevant, but by no means an
absolute dictator of what we should charge now. For one thing, we
wouldn't want to perpetuate mistakes. Maybe we've been *undercharging*
them by mistake. Should we continue to undercharge them because someone
once made a mistake? You should, given the fee structure as written, be
able to quote a reasonably correct price without checking what previous
people did. If you can't, then you need to ask another printer to better
explain it to you. (Yes, I understand this is exactly what you,
Mitchell, did. Very commendable. This last line is directed to those
other press ops reading this who are just now realizing they might be
confused.)
=20
Alan Meisler
Asset Disposition Management, Inc.
617-574-1615 (Direct phone)
617-574-1665 (Direct fax)
-----Original Message-----
From: Mitchell E Berger [mailto:mitchb@MIT.EDU]=20
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2007 5:47 AM
To: benazeer@alum.MIT.EDU
Cc: Mitchell E Berger; tower@alum.MIT.EDU; jtu@MIT.EDU;
apo-printshop-journeyman@MIT.EDU; apo-printshop-operators@MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: Printshop pricing confusion
I didn't really want to have this discussion (note that my original
e-mail was intentionally only sent to the journeyman list requesting a
clarification of vague wording on our price sheet in the binder), but
since it's happening anyway, to pretend that the printshop or the
Treasurer have any clue how well the shop is supporting itself is a
joke. We're in no position to determine that, because we have no clue
what the starting balance of the printshop's "account" was when the
current bookkeeping system came into being. We don't even know if we're
in the black or the red, so any arguments about anything that are
predicated on the shop supporting itself are invalid because we don't
know how it's doing financially.
Next, if you observe the listing in my mail of what they've been charged
for this identical job before, and consider that the answer I got will
result in me charging them more than we ever have before because nobody
ever did the math as prescribed by the replies I got from the
journeymen, and add in the fact that our rates haven't changed across
the years the previous instances of this job have been run, and ask if
that makes me feel like we're "taking them," the answer I'd have to give
you is "you bet it does."
It also seems awfully fishy that this system is capable of being gamed.
I certainly feel like it's "taking them" given that it occurred to me
that it'd be possible for me to lock up "part 1" of both of the
Munchicard and Multipass jobs in a single chase at the same time, put
two cards on the platen with each press cycle, and essentially charge
them half price because that would be *1* setup, and half as many
impressions as cards printed.
Now let's take your $0.02/impression claim - in the 21st century at MIT,
that *is* a lot of marginal money on the cost of a copy. CopyTech's
rates are $0.04 per copy. Their copiers will happily handle cardstock,
and if 8.5x11 cardstock is used, you can easily print what we do on
Jersey Cards and similar 6-up (possibly 8-up, depending on design). If
you have access to a paper cutter, which most people do, I assure you
that if you do the math, you'll find out that the cost per card at
CopyTech comes out to less than *one cent*. If you add the price of the
cardstock, then it becomes less than two cents instead. You were
talking of adding two cents per copy not being a big deal? It's
actually adding more than the price of doing it at CopyTech onto our
already more expensive price.
You don't have to take my word for it, though - actions speak louder
than words. They stopped using us to print membership cards years ago
because they realized it was cheaper for them to do it themselves and
use their paper cutter. Last year, they considered using us to print
tickets to the xkcd lecture, and again realized it was cheaper for them
to do it themselves. They did want to have serial numbers on the
tickets, though, for fear of forgery. I offered to run our numbering
machine over the tickets after they printed them. Because of what it
would cost, they chose to have tickets labelled "A1-A9, B1-B9, etc.",
and printed "A", "B", etc. on the n-up page they ran through their
press, and then sharpied in a different number for each page. I'm sort
of surprised they're even thinking about letting us print Munchicards
and Multipasses, but maybe they haven't noticed yet that the rates I
quoted them will make their usual order come out to just over $0.06 per
card.
It's not a matter of whether $6.00 is a lot of money for a college
student. It's a matter of whether the price we end up with is better
than the semi-commercial alternatives. We're not competing with a
professional shop where each card might cost $1.00. If we're competing
at all, it's with CopyTech, and our prices aren't beating theirs. In
this particular case, we're also dealing with a group that has their own
press, and while it's true they can't print on tiny stock like we can,
we lost our edge when n-up printing and a paper cutter became an obvious
solution to them.
So, has someone on LSC exec told me that our printshop is too expensive?
Yes, effectively, when they wouldn't let me number their xkcd tickets
and chose to use sharpie instead. Have they told us this collectively
before? Yes, when they started printing membership cards themselves (we
have a cut for that whole card, you know). We don't get to claim that
our price is ridiculously low when CopyTech can undercut us and will get
perfect alignment on every print.
Our rates are in fact fantastic as they scale to jobs where we print
huge quantities of things, but for "small" 500-1000 copy jobs,
technology has caught up and passed us, I'm sorry to say.
Mitch
> If a crusty alum can throw in her $0.02, I don't think were "taking=20
> them" for anything here. Operating a press costs money, and while the=20
> pressops are somewhat shielded from that, since the APO treasurer=20
> keeps the books, that doesn't change the fact that ink, solvents,=20
> parts, etc are expensive.
>=20
> And just to make sure I understand, we're talking about a difference=20
> of $6 between the correct fee structure and one in which the numbering
> machine doesn't count as another setup, right? That's less than two=20
> cents/impression (or three hundred emails from crusty alums!). That is
> a very small amount of money, even for poor starving college students.
>=20
> Has someone on LSC exec told you that our printshop is too expensive?=20
> Because honestly, for the quality we produce, the amount we charge is=20
> ridiculously low, and I'm having a hard time seeing our setup fees=20
> being a total dealbreaker. I mean, I've seen things come off our press
> that are just as good as samples from professional shops, where a five
> hundred card run can cost $500.
>=20
> YiLFS
>=20
> Benazeer
>=20
> On 9/14/07, Mitchell E Berger <mitchb@mit.edu> wrote:
> >
> > My feelings about how reasonable the number of setups we count for=20
> > this job is aside, we're not going to change the prices between now=20
> > and when LSC needs cards, and this does answer my questions, so I've
> > explained the pricing structure to the relevant LSC folks.
> >
> > As to Len's question about LSC membership cards, I don't remember=20
> > the last time we printed them, and I forgot to look again when I was
> > in the office, but it was years ago, and as I said in my original=20
> > e-mail here, they've been printing those cards themselves on their=20
> > own press or on a laser printer and copier, 6-up, for years, and=20
> > it's probably cheaper for them to continue doing it. The one real=20
> > thing we have going for us if we're going to take them for 6 setup=20
> > fees for that small number of cards is that we can print on Jersey=20
> > cards instead of the thinner flimsy stock they use for membership=20
> > cards these days.
> >
> > Mitch
> >
> > > Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 15:35:42 -0400 (EDT)
> > > From: Leonard H. Tower Jr. <tower@alum.MIT.EDU>
> > >
> > > Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 15:17:09 -0400 (EDT)
> > > From: Jennifer Tu <jtu@MIT.EDU>
> > >
> > > Len -- out of curiosity, what *is* the correct charge for this=20
> > > job?
> > >
> > > > Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 01:21:17 -0400
> > > > From: Mitchell E Berger <mitchb@MIT.EDU>
> > > >
> > > > The binder claims:
> > > >
> > > > Press use: $3.00 setup* + $0.10 per 100 impressions
> > > > * Each color ink, each numbering run, and each perforator
run is
> > a
> > > > setup and an impression.
> > >
> > > jtu et al:
> > >
> > > With these current rates, and assuming 500 Multipasses, 2 colors,=20
> > > 1 numbering machine used**.
> > >
> > > 3 setups @ $3.00 =3D $ 9.00
> > > 1500 impressions @ $0.10/100 impression =3D 1.50
> > >
> > > for a total of $ 11.50 plus the cost of the card stock, if AX=20
> > > provides the card stock, which is what's happened in the past. I=20
> > > don't remember what the shop is charging for cards stock right=20
> > > now.
> > >
> > > Double that, if there are also 500 Munchicards, 2 colors, 1=20
> > > numbering machine used.
> >
> > > yiLFS -len
> > >
> > > **i don't rmember a job where two numbering machines were used,
but it
> > > did get discussed, and the consensue at the time, was that it
would
> > > be an additional setup/impresssions charge for each machine=20
> > > used.
> > >
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