Self publishing a book / catalogue - any printer recommendations (not Blurb, Loxley, etc)

[viewfromthenorth]

I've got a couple more exhibitions and talks coming up next year, so I want to produce some catalogues.

I used Blurb last time and produced a magazine, but a) it was expensive, especially once you added postage on, and b) the fonts got mucked up which they say is a known issue but they don't seem interested in either fixing it or telling people not to use certain fonts (!!!?!!?!!). They did give me a refund though which has allowed me to sell the catalogues for a decent profit.

Looking at all the other print on demand printers (Loxley, Alibelli, etc) they seem comparable on price to Blurb, i.e. way too high, so I'm now looking at going direct to a commercial short run printers with a PDF, as the online quotes I've looked at (for 50 or so books) are orders of magnitude cheaper than Blurb, etc.

I'm aware that the quality of digital printing isn't as good as litho printing, but you really need to be buying hundreds or thousands of books to make litho economic.

Has anyone self published before, and can you recommend a printer? I've looked at loads of websites, but I was wondering whether anyone could make a recommendation based on experience?

 

[Ed Sutton]

I've not self-published a photo book, but I have self-published a book and had catalogues printed. I approached local printers and asked them for quotes. That would be my first line of attack.

You'll be able to see first hand samples of what they can produce and do some face to face haggling on price. Printing is a highly competitive business. DO NOT take the first quote they offer - look sad and say you were thinking of half that price.

 

[viewfromthenorth]

Thanks! There are a few printers in this corner of Lancashire, it might well be worth knocking on some doors. Thing is many of them seem to be companies doing posters and menus and stuff like that, although I suppose what I'm after is basically a glorified brochure!

 

[Ed Sutton]

If it's something along the lines of magazine you had at Ebb & Flo there'll be plenty of firms able to do that. The only problem is that short runs work out relatively expensive per copy, although being black and white (I assume) will make it fairly cheap.

 

[andrewc]

Lulu is cheaper than Blurb, but I think less suited for photo books.

Otherwise its sometimes worth calling universities or colleges as they often have print shops to produce things for internal uses and will often work for outside interests at pretty reasonable rates as their reason for existance is not necessarily profit making.

 

[Pookeyhead]

Has anyone self published before, and can you recommend a printer? I've looked at loads of websites, but I was wondering whether anyone could make a recommendation based on experience?

I've used Blurb, as they deal with the whole package, ISBN, marketing, sales on Amazon etc etc. Or did you mean literally just getting a book printed and not really published?

 

[viewfromthenorth]

I've used Blurb, as they deal with the whole package, ISBN, marketing, sales on Amazon etc etc. Or did you mean literally just getting a book printed and not really published?

I was using the term self published generically in this instance I guess, as I was more looking into printer recommendations. For all their convenience, Blurb are just too expensive for smaller runs IMO. They are a known quantity to me though as I've used them quite a bit over the past few years so I know what to expect in terms of quality.

That said, I have looked into ISBN's and such like as I am pondering doing a longer book for sale via my website and at my talks, etc. Some printers have online quote calculators, which come up with prices vastly less than Blurb, albeit this is without all Blurbs online promotional stuff, software, etc. I can sort out the creation of print ready PDF's so that isn't an issue, what I don't know though is how good they are.