Life in progress

On Printing a Manuscript

by 29 Comments

I’m so frustrated! All morning I put off printing off my manuscript (the older one, not my new NaNoWriMo project) which is 503 pages long. I’ve been going through WordPress themes, delivering newspapers, eating… generally doing everything I could to procrastinate. Finally, I said, ‘That’s it! I’m going to do it!’ (Yes, I talk to myself when I’m alone.)

So I went into the room where the printer is, and got started. Two hundred and fifty pages and I ran out of ink in an almost brand new cartridge. 250 pages! This thing is going to cost me $70 to print… and that’s just a draft!!

Who knew writing could be so bloody expensive?

So, my novelist buddies out there in WordPress land, and anyone else who prints vast amounts of text for whatever reason, do you take care of your own printing needs on your home printer? Or do you take it to a professional?

And either way, how do you afford to write?
Ugh.

Blog post of December 3rd, in honour of Every Damn Day December. Check it out! It’s not too late to join in!

 

Author: Linda G. Hill

There's a writer in here, clawing her way out.

29 thoughts on “On Printing a Manuscript”

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  1. R. Richardsson
    December 4, 2013 at 12:14 pm

    When I wrote my first book, I also tried printing from home. When I burned out the ink cartridge and couldn’t afford to replace it (at that time), I turned to my friendly neighborhood Office Max, who printed it for less then $24. Of course, my manuscript only turned out to be half the size of your previously mentioned project, but still a cheaper option than home. There are definitely better options than home. I chose Office Max because it was slightly less then my Kinkos but I suppose I could have found better options if I had looked harder.. 🙂 I use my home office more for checking the formatting than anything else.

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    • LindaGHill
      December 4, 2013 at 1:43 pm

      I didn’t go for the professional job in the first place since I thought it would be cheaper to do it from home. But it’s not just the ink, is it? It’s the paper, the electricity, the wear and tear on the printer… all stuff to take into consideration. I do think I’ll go that route next time.

      Thanks for the comment 🙂

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  2. samokan
    December 4, 2013 at 3:29 am

    We are on digital age, why oh why must it need to be printed before it gets published?

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  3. ravenjanedoh
    December 4, 2013 at 2:40 am

    I’ve noticed the price of printer ink has gone up at the same rate the volume of ink in the cartridges has gone down. I can’t afford to print either, so I take my stuff to Office Depot and see what rate I can get on a mass printing…. or borrow a friends printer.

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  4. jameswilliaml
    December 3, 2013 at 7:04 pm

    I used to home print. Then a church needed a sound engineer and blammo – free printing and unlimited printing. I have thoroughly abused it.

    But it is a thought. Are there student centers near by that could use a volunteer? Printing is damned expensive so it might be worth it for a while as you print for alphas and betas.

    And then of course, there are people like my copy editor who works on the computer. So much cheaper…

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    • LindaGHill
      December 3, 2013 at 9:50 pm

      That’s a good idea… volunteering somewhere. I have a hard time finding the time to actually get a job, but something I don’t get paid for is bound to be more flexible, right?

      Thanks for the idea. 😀

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      • jameswilliaml
        December 4, 2013 at 12:07 pm

        The other great thing about volunteering is meeting new people. I have tons of people that I can “study” to build off of. They’re more than willing to share their stories and when they find out that you’re a writer then they really open up. It’s great from so many perspectives.

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  6. Carrie Rubin
    December 3, 2013 at 5:19 pm

    I printed my own, but I kept it single-spaced and did double-sided printing which kept it to 125 actual sheets of paper (was 250 pages long, single-spaced). I did this for four beta readers, too. In the future though, I’ll probably take it somewhere to do it. The process grew old!

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    • LindaGHill
      December 3, 2013 at 6:00 pm

      It’s not the work, it’s the expense that’s killing me. But yeah, I think I’ll check out the price per page around town and see what kind of deal I can get.

      Thanks for commenting, Carrie. 🙂

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  7. willowdot21
    December 3, 2013 at 4:40 pm

    I hate it when you go to print that dastardly important document and the ink has run out!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😉 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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  8. Jill - Barefoot Editing
    December 3, 2013 at 4:23 pm

    Ink never seems to go as far as I think it should. I think it’s actually getting worse will less pages printed for more money. I would save it to a flash drive and try FedEx Kinkos or a similar printing store. It will probably be cheaper than printing at home because of the volume you are printing at once.

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  9. joeyfullystated
    December 3, 2013 at 3:59 pm

    I would like to commend you for posting this.
    RIGHT?!? Oh my goodness with the printer ink! One to submit and one to keep?!? ARGH!
    I do hope sknicholls can deliver that site information.

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  10. sknicholls
    December 3, 2013 at 3:49 pm

    The worst is that you must print it to properly edit it. You see things that just don’t show on a screen. There is a web site where we found brand name printer ink cheap that my husband has on his computer. I will try to find it and forward it to you.

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  11. Paul Davis
    December 3, 2013 at 3:48 pm

    I do it at work…. Though Kinko is pretty nicely priced otherwise. Only 250 pages on a cartridge seems pretty bad.

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