Publishing
From Zanecorpwiki
Self-Publish Providers
For my purposes, it's important to distinguish between graphic and non-graphic books. Many publisher specialize exclusively in novels.
- Lulu : color, both photobook (offset?) and standard; very economical compared to other color choices so far
- Blurb : seems to specialize in high quality color prints; more expensive than lulu
- Aventine Press : looks to be excellent choice for novels; 80% of net goes to author and non-exclusive contract, tied in nicely with Amazon, Barnes and Nobels, etc.; up to 50 graphics
- Book Stand Publishing : full color books are expensive ($36/book at 100 pages)
For color/graphic content it seems to come down to Lulu vs. Blurb. The consensus seems to be be that Blurb has better color quality, but Lulu is overall easier to use and cheaper. There were some, though minority, reports of Lulu having better print quality even for color, but that was from a few years back. Lulu will accept PDFs and do full bleed (nice for self-design); I think Blurb is more restrictive but need to dig into this more.
Non-on-demand; for higher volumes... this route may be better for graphic heavy works.
- Brenner Printing : in San Antonio, decent website
- Lightning Source : really slick website, does small run offset
Pass:
- Virtual Book Worm : exclusive contract, only 50% net
- iUniverse : owned by Barnes and nobles, decent but not as attractive, up to 50 graphics; limited format: 6x9 only
- Llumina : low royalty, edits and formats books internally
- SIPS Comics : potentially interesting, but flash-based website takes minutes to load on fast connection... idiotic
- Xlibris : does full color, but packages... expensive and they muck around with your stuff.
Other Notes
You can buy your own ISBNs. Aesthetically and property wise, this is a good idea. It's one less lock-in. In fact, some publishers may require you use their ISBNs. To my taste, that's a very good reason to go with a different publisher.
A blog about self publishing.
