Deciding how many books to print is one of the toughest decisions a publisher has to make. Guess too high and you've got lots of unsold product. Guess too low and you'll be stuck going back for costly reprints - as well as perhaps dealing with a supply lag and some unhappy consumers. So what's the secret formula?

I've worked for nearly 15 years in the book printing industry, and I still don't have a perfect answer for this question. However, I would definitely recommend being cautious about printing too many books. It's much more common to see someone end up with too many books than not enough.

Ask yourself how many books you would hope to sell in your realistic best-case scenario. I'm not talking about Oprah choosing your book for her book club - let's stay grounded here. But come up with an optimistic number. Now look at your worst-case scenario. How many books are you extremely confident you can sell based on your current market research?

Now compare the numbers and choose something in-between, but probably closer to the lower side. Again, the cons of printing too few books usually heavily outweigh the cons of printing too many.

Will you use a traditional offset printer or a digital printing press? The quantity you choose will make that part of the decision easy.

A digital press is usually most cost effective for print runs less than 1,000. If you decide to go with a digital printer, you definitely want to lean toward a smaller quantity. The cost savings per book for 100 copies vs. 500 copies on a digital press just aren't that great usually.

An offset press is usually most cost effective for print runs more than 1,000. If you decide to go with an offset printer, be sure to ask the printer sales reps for quotes for multiple quantities -- including all the way up to your "best-case scenario" number. It doesn't cost you any more to get those extra numbers, and you'll get to see just how much the price per book drops for higher quantities.

So to recap: Don't stretch your budget too thin by reaching for the stars with a huge print run to start. Stick with smaller quantities until you can definitively prove the market is there with your book sales. If you stick to your marketing plan and continually build on your sales, you'll be able to jump up to larger book printing quantities soon enough.