More than Photography book published!

Download: Print on Demand and self publishing 101

Publishing a book with Blurb print on demand (review and also blurb vs. Lulu)

Now that I’m holding in my hands a book that was printed with Blurb I have to say I’m undeniably impressed!
The book I put together using BookSmart which is Blurb’s bookmaking software, is titled
Chasing George Washington – Road trip in Virginia & Pennsylvania
I created the book for personal purpose and also to test blurb and so I’m not planning on selling it.
Working in BookSmart was quite fun and simple and maybe the main advantage of this software is that it leaves lots of room for creativity. It lets you layer backgrounds, images and text, much like inDesign.
Once the book is ready it can be uploaded to Blurb from within BookSmart. After I ordered a copy I waited 4 days until the book was printed and ground shipping took another week or so.
The price of the book was quite reasonable; a Standard Landscape 10×8 inches premium printing Hardcover ImageWrap 80 pages is priced at $43.95.
The book is printed on a premium paper and the print quality is excellent! As I mentioned, I’m very much impressed with the whole process and mainly with the high quality of the actual printed book.
And finally as a bonus I discovered BookSmart makes it possible to create a pdf file from the file/print menu (printing as a pdf using a pdf writer such as CutePdf) and though the pdf file has the blurb watermark on it, it is certainly a plus.

The Conclusion:
If I had to choose between Blurb and Lulu then my choice will depend on my objective.
I would definitely choose Lulu (and/or CreateSpace) for publishing a standard book but for a coffee table/portfolio type of book I will absolutely go with Blurb;
1) Blurb’s BookSmart software permits more room for creative design and layout which is rather limited with Lulu Studio.
2) Another bonus point Blurb gets over Lulu Photo Book is the price: the same book mentioned above will be prices at $54.99 with Lulu (instead of $43.95 with Blurb) even though it will actually have somewhat a smaller size (9X7 at Lulu’s instead of 10X8 with Blurb)
3) The ability to create a pdf file with BookSmart is a nice feature.

Related:
Publishing a book with Lulu Studio
What Print on Demand should you choose?
Print on Demand photo books / part one
Print on Demand books / part two
The process of writing a book – part one
The process of writing a book – part two

Publishing a book with Lulu Studio

Totally L.A., the book I published with Lulu Studio Photobook, had arrived yesterday in the mail. How exciting!
It’s a 9×7 Landscape, casewrap hardcover binding photo book/portfolio printed on #100 white silk stock paper.
In the book I arranged some 80 color images plainly and genuinely depicting Los Angeles, or at least genuinely as I see it. (I say it because in the past I got email from someone who claimed the Los Angeles I was portraying in my photographs is far from being the real L.A. since I did not actually photograph in South Central or any other such bad neighborhoods. This is true; I only took some few pictures at the fringes of these areas. But sadly I stay away from these lovely districts and so I’ve never had the good fortune to take pictures documenting the life and activity of the numerous gangs in the area. but like I always say, L.A., like some other big cities, has many faces and so the Real L.A. is always something personal based on one’s experience) Now back to the book:
I find the book to be similar to what I’ve designed on the screen using Lulu Studio. The cover is in full color and looks quite appealing. The interior paper is premium quality and the printing is finest quality, vivid and just superior to any book I’ve published in the past.
However, the one thing I don’t like about this book is the PRICE.
I think compared with bookstore prices a small coffee table such as this one should not cost more than $25.00.
This is probably the main downfall of Print on Demand.

What Print on Demand should you choose?

When it comes to Print on Demand one of the first questions the future-bestseller must answer is; which Print on Demand service is the right one for them?
In the last few years the number of POD services grew a lot which is great as it created a larger spectrum of choices but it is also confusing because it created a larger spectrum of choices.
So basically your first task is to scan through these services, see what they offer, read reviews, and choose the right one for you. Essentially conduct your own little research.
It is very much recommended that you choose your publisher before even beginning laying out your book because you want to make sure you are designing your book according to their requirements.

Some of the POD services, like Booksurge , Xlibris and others, require that you to purchase some kind of a publishing package from them, basic package starts at $799 at Booksurge, I’m not really sure what’s the point of it, but whatever, I’m sure it somehow works for someone.

Other POD services, like Blurb and mypublisher require that you design your book using their desktop application which I find to be quite limiting since all your design work is confined within a file that can only be used with their publishing services.
Not such a good idea.

This leaves us pretty much with Lulu and CreateSpace.
Both services let you create your own PDF, DOC, RTF etc, and then upload your content to their server. Both don’t charge you anything upfront and they print your books once they are purchased. You keep your share of the loot and everybody is happy.

There are two main differences between these two:
1) Lulu offers to sell your book as a download which makes your book available for just about everyone because the price of a download can be kept low. For example, my own bestseller,
No Rules Streets Photography is sold as a download 4 times more than its print version. CreateSpace doesn’t offer a download version.
2) When you publish your book with CreateSpace your book is automatically assigned an ISBN number and is published on Amazon and as a part of the service it also includes the “Look inside” the book feature. Lulu offers an ISBN number and the Amazon promotion only if you purchase their Distribution package which costs around a $100, takes forever to establish and you need to do some work, like adding the “look inside” feature on your own (which btw, a pain in the neck!)

OK, so the Grand question now is which one should you choose?
And the answer is….both!
Yes, actually, why not? Since both of them accept a PDF file, with just a little bit of adjustment your file will work just fine with both of them.
This way you get the benefit of offering your book in a download edition while also enjoying the exposure (and sales) through Amazon without any further expense or effort on your part.
And this should never be an under-rated quality.

The process of writing a book – part two

Because my books are essentially photography books, I usually like to create pages in my journal to choose the layout and see how the photos are going to work with the text. I get a really nice sketch notebook with heavy pages at a similar size of the book I’m working on. I then print out the photos place them in the journal and add the text. Its much better than seeing the pages on the screen as it gives me an actual feel for the layout.
I use Adobe InDesign to create the book. This program gives me total freedom to design and arrange the book any way I wish and work on each individual chapter at a time. Once the book is done I convert it to PDF which is usually the preferred format by the print on demand publishers.
Lulu is, for the most part, my preferred print on demand, especially since they let people purchase my books in a download format. These downloads are priced so reasonably and make my books accessible to just anybody. Though I was quite hesitant at first to sell photography books in a download version, a large number of my books were purchased in a download format instead of print since I made this option available around a year or so ago.
At the same time of publishing the book with Lulu I also upload and publish my book through CreateSpace. The main reason is that they assign an ISBN number and list the book on Amazon within a week.
Amazon is not a bad place to sell your book.

The next step in the process is sitting back and enjoying all the praise

The process of writing a book – part one

Every once in a while I get questions about the process of writing a book, so I thought I’d share with you the typical path I take when I write my books.
Typically the idea for a book comes out of nowhere when I’m in the shower or riding my bike and such activities that free the brain, but really the ideas and plans do come from somewhere. Usually the idea for a book comes after some time of practicing some method or another as well as writing and sharing thoughts. Eventually there’s a need to gather all this data, the methods, the ideas and photos into one place, and what’s better than putting them all together in a book?
The second step for me is choosing a working title which can obviously change as the book progresses. But the reason I always want to choose a title is that I have a general direction for the book.
At this point I’ll usually look around the net, searching for other related books. I just don’t want to write a book that’s already have been written. Duh!
Once the reason for the existence of this book is established I draw the general outline of the book and make a list of the topics I’m going to write about. Something like a temporary index. However, I do sometimes write without planning the topics ahead and I just go along with the flow of ideas. That works out just fine too.

To be continued in the next post…

Print on demand books / part two

The first nice thing about Lulu and other POD publishers is that it is free. It’s free to publish a book and its free to create your own storefront. Lulu gives you a storefront which you can customize to your taste. So you can publish a book and if nobody ever buys it, you didn’t lose anything.
In fact,you don’t even have to purchase your own book
To publish a book with Blurb you need to download their software, BookSmart, and use it to create your book. With Lulu you can work with any software you wish as long as the final book is in PDF format. (I designed my book with InDesign which is, in my opinion, the best software for writing books.)
When your PDF is ready you need to upload the file to your account on Lulu and assign it to your book project.
Paper back book sizes available at Lulu are 8.5 X 11, 6 X9, 9X7 and more. The prices are good as well: only $19.53 for an 8.5 X 11 full color interior, perfect bound, 100 pages.
There are 3 binding options: Perfect Bound, Saddle Stitch and Coil Bound

You can design your own book cover or use one from their vast free gallery of book covers.
The quality of these books are pretty good. They are bookstore quality which means they are printed on white interior paper (80# weight), which is not a heavy photographic paper, but yet quite nice and good quality.
The only thing you must remember with Lulu is to print your books in full-color interior ink, even for black and white photo book because their black and white ink is poor quality and suitable for poetry books and such but not for photo books.
Lulu’s turnaround is quite good. It takes about 3 days from your order to the time the book is shipped to you.
After approving your books you can set the price and begin selling it through your storefront.
Lulu also offers to purchase an ISBN number for your book in case you want to sell it in stores or online bookstores like Amazon.

Print on demand photo books / part one

When talking about publishing a book one needs to make a distinction between putting together a photo book and writing a photography book.
There are lots of print on demand sites out there; Blurb, MyPublisher, Picaboo, sharedInk, and others. For the right price, they will put together a photo book for you.
And the price is somewhere around $25-$40 for 20 pages. These books mostly resemble a photo album or a portfolio and are probably the best choice for any photographer who wants to put together a portfolio of their work.
Seems to me the high price tag on these books will make it quite difficult to sell them, and so they are probably more appropriate for personal purpose.
But if you are interested in writing and publishing a book about photography or maybe have a selection of your photos printed into a store quality book you should consider other options, such as soft cover books of standard sizes which are offered by most of the POD publishers. And since their prices are competitive you should definitely consider printing your book with Lulu.com
Some book-on-demand publishers, such as Xlibris and iUniverse require you to purchase a certain amount of books when you publish with them and with a steep price attached.
The only POD service I found that is somewhat similar to Lulu was CafePress, but their printing quality is poor and not suitable for photo books .
Next time: writing the book, publishing choices, prices, quality and turn around.