How would someone go about making a diary

GerBear93

Hi All,

Just wondering if someone could point me in the right direction?

I would be interested in looking into making diaries to sell as a hobby.

I've the idea of what way the diary would work but I'm at a lost on things like printers and where to actually buy in bulk blank A5 Diaries.

Would it be cheaper to have a 3rd party print them out? If so any recommendations on where in Dublin would be the right place?

sysprogrammer

Hi Gerbear,

Snap printing and most print/merch companies will be able to help you.
They supply and print on blank diaries for companies.

I would sell the diaries before ordering though , I can't see a need to bulk buy.

I'd also add A4 to your range, as that's the only size I use for the last 10 or more years.

hth,
Sys

GerBear93

sysprogrammer wrote: »

Hi Gerbear,

Snap printing and most print/merch companies will be able to help you.
They supply and print on blank diaries for companies.

I would sell the diaries before ordering though , I can't see a need to bulk buy.

I'd also add A4 to your range, as that's the only size I use for the last 10 or more years.

hth,
Sys

Thanks for the reply.

Just emailed them to get the ball rolling.

Do you think it would be possible (or even worth it financially) to be able to buy some sort of printer and cut out the middle man on the printing?

Also the diary I am looking at making would be a finest one. So it would need pages that a regular diary wouldn't have. An example would be a page where I would log calorie intake, water, exercise and moods.

I have the templates off of these ready to go so would the same printing company also print out these pages our would these printing companies only print diary with just dates and days?

Thanks again.

Gerard.

sysprogrammer

At the beginning I would concentrate on sales and have someone else do the printing. certainly for the first few hundred.

If sales prove the business then you could look at bringing it in house.

I brought t-shirt printing in house with my own company and we are saving about 80% on previous prices.
I would not have bought the printers without prior sales justifying the expense.

Try a few other printers as Snap are at the top end of the price scale.

Lastly, how big is the demographic of people who would log such data daily ? and why would they not use an app ?

GerBear93

I was a personal trainer for a few years with up to 100 clients per week (Alot of semi private classes) and over the years I found that 90% of my clients preferred to track information using a journal of some sort over their phone.

I also sent out a survey to 50 woman all looking to make progress in the gym. 43 of them said they would prefer a physical diary rather than an electric one which have me the idea to start doing them on the side as a hobby while continuing to work full time. Also 30 said that they would prefer an A5 instead of an A4 (haven't decided which one yet)

The only part that is holding me back is if a printing company will print the template pages
and at what cost per unit.

I've looked at other diaries that are sold in Ireland (fitness ones) for pricing, quality etc and believe with the advertising idea that I am currently working on (this will take up to a year to complete) so the marketing/advertising is really being prioritised for the final product

So in reality it will be another year before anything would be launched. Just digging up as much research as I can.

I just don't understand if the promtimg company's would print the diary with my templates (pages for calories etc). still waiting on replies from several places

Congratulations on the success so far on the t-shirt printing. Great to see businesses starting from the ground up progress. Also I appreciated all the response. Again, thank you.

Gerard

jimmii

I've done diaries, weekly planners and calendars etc in the past and you can go with their standard template or you can supply the design for every page. Have you much design experience? It's harder than it seems! I would much rather a well designed app but seems your clients are at least saying they prefer a physical record. Is the hope to be able to supply it for free and have advertising cover costs and a little profit? I only did diaries one year as I found them pretty expensive was hard to get good quality with a low print run <£4/unit. I got 250 done seem to recall managed to sell just under 200 at full price 30-40 or so half price and ended up with ~20 being given away to staff. After that just did weekly planners they're cheaper and don't go out of date!

antoinolachtnai

The way the printing business is, there are lots of machines out there chasing a declining amount of work. It is by and large not a good investment to buy printing equipment unless you have a plan to keep it running 24 hours a day.

What you want to do is quite specialised. Don't expect to find anybody interested in printing this in Ireland for you necessarily. They will print manage it for you if you want I suppose.

But an advertising supported diary is not something that you are going to get to work anymore. If you really think there is an opportunity I would go for the pad of weekly planners as suggested.