Hello All,
The book actually exists... it is running 142 pages, 8.5 x 11 inches, softbound. Cyrus and I both have the first test copies from Lulu and as a physcial object, the book has impressive heft and Joakim's cover design helps it to stand out on the coffee table.
But... Lulu sucks. The printing is beyond horrible on both of our copies. Actually the text and color photos aren't bad, but the toned B&W images are nightmares, with mixed green-magenta color bands ruining the images. (And yes these are olive-toned RGB files tagged Adobe RGB just like other acceptable B&W images that lulu has printed for me in the past.)
I have another test in the works to see if tagging the PDF file differently will help, but based on what we've seen this is way beyond a mere profile adjustment. Lulu simply seems to be printing stuff as though they are in an alternative universe where green equals magenta and stripes of both colors are meant to enhance the meaning of otherwise pretty sepia photos.
It's really a matter of quality control being non-existent, worse than it was a few months ago when I got 100 decent books with decent B&W repro.
So... in spite of my past success with getting consistent Lulu results, I am giving up on them unless this current test produces a miracle.
And here we are with a 201 mb PDF looking for a home.
One issue is that other Print On Demand vendors are much more expensive. The book from Lulu was about $25. A similar page count from a better vendor, like Shared Ink, would easily be over $150.
Part of the cost increase is that the better places use an ink-on-paper HP Indigo versus Lulu's inexpensive Xerox Docutech toner-based printing. And places like Shared Ink actually have some clue about quality control.
Another issue is that most of the better places (Blurb, etc.) force you to use their own proprietary layout software, so rebuilding the book page by page would be a tedious pain in the ass.
And while I think this is a great idea and project, I don't think the overall quality of the photos makes the book worth $150 to me. The only reason I would invest $25 in it is because I know the people, not because it is such an impressive book unto itself. So I really question whether it is worth it to spend a lot of money on it?
Right now I have about 24 hours into it and I know Cyrus invested a lot of time too. I'm willing to mess around a bit more but I don't want to start from scratch.
SO...
1. Does anyone know of a decent POD printer ready to take a 142-page, 8.5 x 11 inch, Adobe RGB tagged, 201-mb PDF file? (Plus a nice full bleed wrap cover)
Sometimes a local printer with a Docutech can do a decent job at a reasonable price, so if you know of one and want to give it a shot please speak up.
2. If people would like to download the 201 mb PDF directly and call it a day... does anyone want to donate FTP space where I can stick it?
3. Or any other ideas? I really don't want to set it up at Shared Ink only to find that only three people are going to buy one at $150 each. I doubt I would buy one at that price either.
It's a pretty nice book otherwise. Half the photos are above average.
Best,
Frank
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