Macopinion

Adventures in Self-Publishing, Part 3

by Marc Zeedar macopinion@designwrite.com

In the first couple parts of this series I discussed my interest in self-publishing and some problems I ran into with Lulu, the print-on-demand (POD) service I selected.

But despite my complaints (and some other issues, like the upload feature of their website not working well with Safari), the end result proved to be terrific. The quality of the book is excellent. The cover quality is outstanding, with a glossy finish that protects the book, and the black-and-white insides are fine. Text is surprisingly high-quality, even with small type and fine typefaces.

While the black-and-white photos inside aren't too clear or sharp, that's due to the digital printing process and limitations of my own artwork and was no worse than I expected. In short, I never expected the black-and-white photos to reproduce that well inside, which is part of the reason I sell print copies of the book with a complimentary PDF edition. In the PDF the photos are in full color, which makes a lot more sense for a cooking book with food photos.

I could have chosen to have the book printed full-color inside, but it would have been outrageously expensive. With Lulu color printing is an all-or-nothing option: even though there are only pictures on a few dozen pages in the book the entire thing would have had to be printed in color. That would have dramatically increased the cost of the book. Instead of retailing the book for a reasonable $16, the book would have had to sell for at least $35 to keep the same profit market -- that's a lot of extra to pay for a few color pictures!

I find it odd that Lulu doesn't let you mix color and black-and-white pages inside. With traditional printing that makes sense as books are printed on signatures (large sheets of paper with multiple pages per sheet, folded and trimmed to create a small section of the overall book) and all the pages of a signature must use the same printing process. But with digital each page is produced individually (at least in theory; I have no insight into exactly how Lulu's printing process works) so mixing color and black-and-white should be possible. It would complicate things so I can see why they don't offer it, but for certain kinds of projects it would be nice to have the option.

For my needs, the Lulu process has worked well. The printing and binding quality is excellent. Delivery was a little longer than ideal (it took about two weeks) but that was because I ordered over 100 books which takes longer than a single book order (which usually ship in a few days).

The packaging was a bit overdone. For small orders it makes sense and really protects your order, but for many copies of the same book like I ordered it is inefficient and environmentally wasteful. The books arrived via UPS in seven cartons; each large box contained a couple smaller boxes. Inside those were shrink-wrapped collections of books, and each collection of three to five books was inside a cushioned envelope. So for each set of twenty books I ended up with six sleeves, two cardboard backings, plastic wrap, two inner boxes, and a larger cardboard shipping box. While it's good to protect my order, that's a lot of excess. I think it is obvious Lulu is not set up for bulk orders.

Overall, though, I am happy with the process. I could have saved myself hassle by just having Lulu fulfill the orders, but I chose to do it myself. This means more work, but more control. For instance, I had to set up my own shopping cart system. I chose the terrific and inexpensive E-Junkie service, which will automatically ship each customer a unique link to the digital edition for immediate downloading. Payment is handled via Paypal, which works well. I am sent an email of the order and I simply print out a mailing label and ship off the book in a Priority Mail envelope. The customer already has their PDF edition, so the order's complete. Best of all, because I am handling everything myself, I am free to offer bundles with other products I sell or discounts.

(Speaking of discounts, since I am shamelessly promoting my book in this series, I offer you a special discount: you can save $2 on my book via promo code macopinion. Isn't that nice of me?)

Next Time: Marc the pros and cons of the self-publishing process.

macopinion@designwrite.com