Book publishing services

[QT Luong]

In this article on LL, MR has
brought to attention an outsourcing company (www.my100books.com) that can arrange to have photography books printed for a very reasonable cost. They streamline the publishing process and have it done in China.
Some quotes I was given:
<ul>
<li> 9x12 inch 100 pages 1,000 copies $11/copy.
<li>9X12 inch 100 pages 3,000 copies $5.00/copy.
<li> 9X12 inch 200 pages 3,000 copies $7.00/copy.
<li> 9X12 inch 300 pages 3,000 copies $8.75/copy.
</ul>
This makes it quite tempting to try and self-publish my
book on the national parks, especially after reading
about problems with publishers such as
the CRC v. Weinstein suit.

Has anyone heard of competing companies ?

[Donald Brewster]

Look at http://www.lulu.com for a printing on demand service.

Mike Johnston has written about it favorably in photo.net for (finally) publishing his photo books.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

My100books is a higher quality printer than LULU and the other printers on demand. I asked from a sample from LULU and the photograph reproduction was terrible, it looked like a low res scan printed on a cheap ink jet. My100books otoh will do full reproductions with screens, Brooks had a blog about them a while back, maybe you should contact him and ask him him what was his experience if any with them.

In any case even at $8.75 per copy, you are still talking about 26,000 bucks.....not a drop in the bucket IMO...

[Wilbur Wong]

I have no experience in the area of book publishing but am at least aware of printing processes from many years of being in the periphery of lithography. I am very impressed by the quality of print coming out of Hong Kong. I often look at the printing source when I see a very well executed book and often my impression of a Hong Kong printer is correct. I have heard that over there, they are able to use some inks that are not nearly as acceptable in the United States - presumably over environmental issues.

[QT Luong]

There are a lot of printing services geared towards the self-publisher, but most of them are not for photo books, unlike my100books. I don't think there is any on-demand service for photo books.
my100books is not on-demand. There are companies that will produce very short runs photo books (print run
as low as 1 copy), but the price is too high for reselling as a retail book. You could use them as portfolios. Royce Bair on another list mentioned Asuka Book as a great source. A book of 20 sheets
(40 pages) is $140 for the first one, $110 afterwards.

I'll certainly wait for completion of MR's project to see what he has to say. Who is Brooks ?

[Paul Butzi]

I have friends who have self published books. Not photography books, mind you, but the usual text based kind.

The big killer is that once you arrange the press run and cutting and binding and all that, you end up with a room full of books.

And breaking in to the distribution channels is just a killer. It's an enormous hurdle to get the books into mainstream places like Barnes and Noble, or Borders, or any of the other chain bookstores.

Having watched their struggles to get their (very good) books sold after getting them printed, I don't know that I'd go out and order up a large number of books unless I was pretty confident that I had the distribution problem solved.

One way to solve that problem, of course, would be to sell them direct off your website.

If you go ahead and do that, please make the ordering process easy, because for sure I would buy one and I get frustrated ordering stuff off the web all the darn time.

All that said, one of my photographer friends just had one of his photo projects done up as a very small run book. It's very impressive, and I'll try to remember tonite when I see him to ask which service he used.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Who is Brooks ?

Brooks Jensen, the editor of Lenswork magazine. I dont know if he used them or not, but he talked about them as a good source for self publishing. Given that the guy knows what he is talking about (at least on publishing :-) ) I think my100books is the best bet.

[Nick_3536]

http://www.lumierepress.com/pages/about.html#

Isn't that guy the ultimate in self publishing? Too extreme?

[steve simmons]

One of the mistakes many people make who self publish is in the marketingf the book. This is at leat 50% of the effort required for a book to b successful. You will need a chain of people to get the book out there, get it known, and wanted. Otherwise you end up with a garage full of books and a big printing bill.

IMHO you need to develop a marketing plan before you agree on a printing contract. You need to find magazines to review the book, possibly show samples. arrange for exhibits, etc. I once got a letter from someone who told me he had a book coming out and wanted to know if I would promote it in the magazine. I ask for a copy and he refused stating he could not afford to send me one!!!!!

We have run a couple of articles in the last year or so about having books published and the potential pitfalls.

steve simmons

[Michael A.Smith]

Those prices do not seem so good to me. Paula Chamlee and I recently formed BackStreetBooks, a division of our publishing company, Lodima Press. We had a book printed in Hong Kong. Excellent quality. Reasonable cost. Less than the quote you received. We did not get a quote for very small runs.

Unless a printer specializes in photography books, you are really taking your chances. You need to see press proofs of every page or you need to go stand on press. Nothing less, ever, if you want fine results.

Distribution--the bane of the small indepndent publisher and self-publishers. To solve the problem, Paula and I, along with another publisher, have formed a not-for-profit corporation, the central purpose of which is to distribute independently published fine photography books. It will not be up and running for a number of months yet (and we are looking for an executive director), but at some point we expect this organization to be a significant force in the field.