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DIAMM Publications was set up to create facsimile publications of the highest quality without the massive cost markup of conventional publishers. High-quality colour printing is expensive, and the price only comes down when doing runs off tens of thousands, such as is done for glossy exhibition catalogues. With runs of a few hundred the unit cost is massively higher, but we felt that if we could produce publications without the usual overheads of a publishing house then we could produce publications that were affordable by to individuals, and to research libraries, whose spending budgets have been seriously diminished in the last few years. The profit margin on our publications is therefore extremely small, and is used only to subsidize future publications. All the income is spent on the actual cost of printing and binding. Nothing is spent on marketing, advertising, office management etc. All these costs have been met by private sponsorship.

Publications are funded by pre-publication sales offers, which give the opportunity to buy the books at a considerable discount from the full cover price.

Our prices are calculated based on the number of copies we think we can sell in the very long term. We then obtain the printing cost for this number of copies (the more we can print at one time, the lower the unit cost, but the overall cost still goes up, so we have to be able to raise that amount before we go to press. Printing costs have to be paid in full at the time of printing). Pre-publication sales help in determining the final print run number, but we also have to work out how many copies we can sell pre-publication. The pre-publication number is crucial, as the pre-publicaton cover price is calculated by dividing the printing/binding cost by the pre-publication sales number.

We also have to remember that booksellers and other suppliers expect a 25% discount on our normal prices (pre- or post-publication), so that they can make some profit on sales, so we have to ensure the cover prices will allow us that further discount leeway.

If we miscalculate and don't sell enough copies then the project has to underwrite the deficit. At the moment that means the project team are underwriting, but eventually we hope the publications will bring in sufficient funds for less popular publications to be subsidized by those that have a better market. The Dow Partbooks project was subsidized by the Eton Choirbook at the point when we had to pay the printing bill. Since publication we have sold a few more copies of Dow so that the book has paid for its own printing, but it has not raised enough yet to pay the full typesetting costs. Dow was therefore printed at a loss, but over the life of the project we expect it to pay for itself.

Once the printing bill is paid future sales will pay for the cost of typesetting and the administration necessary for shipping and managing orders (in the early stages this is around 1 hour a day), and then will go toward the photography costs for future projects, and will underwrite future printing costs. Effectively the project is non-profit therefore, ensuring we can give the best possible price to our purchasers.

The printing bill for Eton and Dow together was £42,000. The binding of Eton will cost a further £33,000 approx, but we will only be binding this in batches as required, so we don't have to find that amount right away.

We work very closely with Information Press at Eynsham. Andrew Hopwood and Martin Horsley ensure we produce exactly what they need to print perfectly, and work closely with us to find the best solutions for quality and materials. We decided at the outset that we would not cut corners to save a few pence, since colour printing needs to be at the best possible quality to be useful and attractive (and to showcase the superb quality of our images), and Information Press have gone out of their way to ensure we are getting the best value and output.

Limp binding (as for Dow) is done in-house by Information Press, but for the Eton Choirbook we are working with Green Street Bindery (in Oxford), a long-established firm of hand binders. The physical size of Eton and the relatively short print run meant that the project could not be outsources to large-scale machine binders (who would normally only take on projects with an output of 10,000 copies or more). Each copy of Eton will therefore be hand bound and finished.

There is no doubt that in order to print in colour in short runs the books will be expensive. Our costs are kept to an absolute minimum, and we hope that buyers will appreciate that we are not overcharging for our books. Many academic publications are subsidized by subventions from grant bodies or personal donations, and we hope that this type of income will also support our publications, but at the moment we are entirely self-supporting, and much of the work involved in producing a book is done pro bono. A comparison might be made between the Eton Choirbook and the Henry VIII choirbook recently published by the Folio Society:

Henry VIII 'Royal Choirbook'; print run of 500: 36 colour pages, gilded, in slipcover, plus 120pp commentary volume - £395 Eton: 256 colour pages, plus 112pp introduction - £180