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- Feb 6, 2016
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Hi all. I'm hoping someone in here can help me regain my sanity. I have 3 books almost ready to go through the print-on-demand process. One of these is more of an indulgence - my partner wrote his memoirs and wants about 10 copies to distribute to his family! (Yes, I know, no comments please, lol) But I thought I would use it as a trial run and have been internet researching which has simply made me more confused.
Of course, he had to make it complicated by including 20 b&w photos and 2 different text fonts, but it will be an interesting learning experience!
Here's what I have ascertained: Createspace is what most people use for POD, and that's fine if (a) you're in the US (we're in Australia which means cost of postage from US) and (b) you want to offer it as ebook and pod in Amazon, which we don't.
Next option is Lightning Source, or Ingram Spark - bit of confusion here because it seems they are the same company, but from what I have gleaned from youtube presentations and blogs, Lightning Source tends to deal more with publishing houses or multi-published authors and don't give first-timers much help, while Ingram Spark are a little more tolerant. Any comments?
It is also apparent that LS, and to a lesser extent, IS, will only deal with print-ready mss that have been formatted precisely to their specifications (a 41 page pdf of those requirements that lost me by page 2 - but that might be just me, I'm not totally computer-savvy) so this suggests the best option is to have it formatted by someone who is very familiar with their guidelines. Any recommendations?
My other concern is that having spoken to LS (I can find no phone number in Australia for IS) I'm told that it will cost around $300 for set-up, revisions and printing, and then around $5 per book. People I have listened to on youtube who have been through the experience say it cost them over $1,000 to go through LS or IS. Perhaps they are also including the cost of editing, which we don't need (both having been writers and writing teachers for many years and my partner was a senior editor at a major publishing company (pre new technology) so we edit each other's work.
I just want this all to go as smoothly as possible so we can get on with publishing our other almost-completed books, but it seems there be dragons out there in the POD world. Any comments, suggestions, recommendations, advice, warnings, etc would be more than welcome.
Of course, he had to make it complicated by including 20 b&w photos and 2 different text fonts, but it will be an interesting learning experience!
Here's what I have ascertained: Createspace is what most people use for POD, and that's fine if (a) you're in the US (we're in Australia which means cost of postage from US) and (b) you want to offer it as ebook and pod in Amazon, which we don't.
Next option is Lightning Source, or Ingram Spark - bit of confusion here because it seems they are the same company, but from what I have gleaned from youtube presentations and blogs, Lightning Source tends to deal more with publishing houses or multi-published authors and don't give first-timers much help, while Ingram Spark are a little more tolerant. Any comments?
It is also apparent that LS, and to a lesser extent, IS, will only deal with print-ready mss that have been formatted precisely to their specifications (a 41 page pdf of those requirements that lost me by page 2 - but that might be just me, I'm not totally computer-savvy) so this suggests the best option is to have it formatted by someone who is very familiar with their guidelines. Any recommendations?
My other concern is that having spoken to LS (I can find no phone number in Australia for IS) I'm told that it will cost around $300 for set-up, revisions and printing, and then around $5 per book. People I have listened to on youtube who have been through the experience say it cost them over $1,000 to go through LS or IS. Perhaps they are also including the cost of editing, which we don't need (both having been writers and writing teachers for many years and my partner was a senior editor at a major publishing company (pre new technology) so we edit each other's work.
I just want this all to go as smoothly as possible so we can get on with publishing our other almost-completed books, but it seems there be dragons out there in the POD world. Any comments, suggestions, recommendations, advice, warnings, etc would be more than welcome.