Amazon KDP vs Blurb vs Mixam vs IngramSpark

[juggler]

I'm making a smallish art photography book with a collaborator & I'm expecting a few dozen sales, so print on demand seems the way forward. Colour 8x10" format, softback. It's 40 or so pages 20% text 80% photos. Looking for high quality colour but not layflat or C type.

I've gone down the Blurb route so far but have recently found that Amazon KDP do 'print-on-demand' an order of magnitude more cheaply.

Any experience of KDP or others? IngramSpark seems similar pricewise to KDP. Mixam's AI Bot is quoting £1k for a single copy so they're out

 

[gramps]

I follow a photographer who does some brilliant B&W photography and has a book produced by Amazon so I ordered one.
It was AWFULL, his prints were like they had just come out of a poor photocopier and I returned it. Couldn’t recommend it.

 

[Ruffmeister]

I've used Mixam a few times for producing a photobook. Have always found them pretty good.

It's, as expected, cheaper to order a batch of say 10 or 50 than what it is just the one copy.

I've then sold these on a big cartel shop.

 

[Ed Sutton]

Any experience of KDP or others? IngramSpark seems similar pricewise to KDP. Mixam's AI Bot is quoting £1k for a single copy so they're out

I would have thought Mixam would be cheaper than that for a single copy. I got a 210mm square perfect bound full colour with 108 pages for £15 recently. Maybe the non standard size was the issue?

 

[justyn_c_uk]

I did a small run last year with Mixam, the interface is great, but the cost for small batches was very high. I ended up at Bookvault, the quality wasn't far off Mixam but the cost per unit wasn't far off £1 for a square zine (210mm). You can get a draft version to check it. I did all the desktop publishing on my Mac on Scribus.

 

[Bletch]

I used mixam for a test run a bit back . I might do so again later later to see if they muck things up again, but for a final print, I'm probably looking elsewhere.
Changing the paper type lamination can add several hundreds, is that what you maybe did?

 

[juggler]

I would have thought Mixam would be cheaper than that for a single copy. I got a 210mm square perfect bound full colour with 108 pages for £15 recently. Maybe the non standard size was the issue?

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thanks, I couldn't find any prices except by going through the AI bot. I'll try again.

 

[Penlens]

I'm making a smallish art photography book with a collaborator & I'm expecting a few dozen sales, so print on demand seems the way forward. Colour 8x10" format, softback. It's 40 or so pages 20% text 80% photos. Looking for high quality colour but not layflat or C type.

I've gone down the Blurb route so far but have recently found that Amazon KDP do 'print-on-demand' an order of magnitude more cheaply.

Any experience of KDP or others? IngramSpark seems similar pricewise to KDP. Mixam's AI Bot is quoting £1k for a single copy so they're out

I've been producing photo zines for some years now using Mixam, and have recently gone over to the print on demand route. I've tried Blurb for their photobooks, magazine and trade books formats. Photobooks and magazine are good colour printed (use Blurb IC profile on software). But, Blurb is expensive as are also their shipping charges. Also tried KDP using best colour printing option (use Generic CMYK IC profile on software). Good colour printing on a matt finish paper (feels like 80 gsm)and choice of matt or glossy covers. KDP is much cheaper and shipping too is much cheaper. The printing quality suits my zine output aesthetic! I'm sticking to KDP print on demand for the foreseeable future. Formatting for KDP can be a little tricky, but just follow all the instructions on their excellent website.