Self Publishing Choices
In preparing to publish this book, I’ve been doing a lot of research on the state of the printing and publishing industry. Like other industries, traditional business models are being wildly disrupted; while publishing seems to have escaped the scope of the original internet boom and bust, the second wave is making a direct impact on the way books traditionally come to fruition. The major players seem to have leveled out a bit, although some are clearly more evolved than others.
Lulu offers self-publishing of materials at a relatively low cost; while the quality seems to be hit or miss, this seems like an obvious choice for publishers of text-only material. The prices are a bit more than what Fidlar Doubleday might offer, but without the volume-necessity. For example, a 6x9 book of 196 pages in perfect binding would run $4.53 (binding) + ($0.02 (page) * 196) = $8.45; Fidlar could probably deliver this same size text for $5.00, but with a minimum purchase of 1000 copies. Color is out of the question, as Lulu charges fifteen cents per color page – but doesn’t allow you to print single pages in color (thus, the 196 page book just climbed to $33.93 – eek!). Fidlar would charge an insert-fee for color printing, of close to a dollar per page.
Lightning Source might be the bastard-child of on-demand printing; the site is ugly, the prices seem inflated, and the buzz about the service is really quite poor. I didn’t get much farther than the homepage, as the site looks like it was made in Frontpage by someone’s son. The benefit of Lightning Source, however, is that printing with them puts titles instantly into Amazon’s online catalog. I suppose if one had a mass-marketable book, that would be a good place to be; I don’t imagine it matters much with my own text if it is in Amazon Proper or Amazon Marketplace, so I’m not concerned with that.
Blurb offers self-publishing for individual texts. I just purchased a book that commemorates the life of my cat; the book is 77 pages of full color imagery, at 10x8. They sell each copy for $34.95, making this infeasible for large-scale publication but certainly an appropriate choice for memories and small-runs. I was blown away by the quality of the color printing; while the text itself seemed to roll a bit (creating a bit of a blur on several pages), the color was sharp, crystal clear and vivid. The layout software is a bit of a bear, but I muddled through it; I don’t know how usable it would be for folks who aren’t familiar with existing layout tools, but I’ve also seen Blurb advertising for an interaction designer, so they seem to be on the right track.
In the end, for me, having a small printer do the work makes the most sense. I can get two color throughout the text, have a more immediate control of the quality of the work, and reprint as necessary. This requires a bit more moneyup front, but I’m of the opinion: what else am I going to spend my hard-earned money on? I love books; why not buy 1000 of them?