Publishing question

“Does anyone know how to get something published or printed cheap,

I'm working on a book of photographs that corresponds with some poems and other prose I've written. I'm doing my own layout in Quark Express and my own photo editing in photoshop. I just need someone to print and bind it.

I'm talking minimal copies here. Just for friends and family.

Any ideas?”

“Jmitch is the guy to talk to. his book was published! I know because I got a copy.”

“You might check around at print shops in your area. It will vary somewhat, so you might get several quotes.”

“I've heard of self-publishing services online. You can submit everything electronically and they can put it together for you. I've seen quite a few positive feature articles on this in the past, but can't remember the websites. They apparently exist though. Good luck, sounds like a cool project.”

“The problem with teh self publishing services is that you pay anywhere from $500 to $2000 (or even more if you are really hard-up) just for the first book. After that you have to pay for each book minus your royalty rate.”

“I remember some being cheaper.”

“You may be correct. I haven't researched them in the last eyar or two. the prices may have come down.

If it were me, and it might be some day, I would do all the work that he is doing, then take it straight to a printer and work with them to get what you want.

I spoke with a woman that self-publishes her own children's books. She does all the lay out work, then takes it to one of several printers she normally works with. She uses several because the one with the least work at the time will give her the best price. They will usually make one run to check the results, let her make corrections then print out her run.

That was much, much cheaper than going thru a "self-publishing" service.”

“If you have everything in electronic files -- compatible with the software/hardware used by the printer -- you should be able to find a reputable printer in your region that will be able to meet your needs.

A few years back, my wife edited a small book for an organization. She submitted everything "camera ready" including cover design (the only part in full color - she did the separations on her computer) and it came to $3,000 for 1,000 copies, perfect bound, glossy cover stock.

The problem you face with a regular printer, even if you go with basic saddle stitched (stapled) binding and just black ink on white paper (allowing half-toned b/w photos) is that there are fundamental printing costs that make doing just a few copies not much cheaper than doing several hundred.

My wife did a poetry chapbook in the simple format above (no photos, but a decent cover) and it cost her a couple hundred bucks for 250 copies, as I recall.

If you are doing color and only a few copies, your best bet may be to explore a quality copy shop's services (Kinko's?). Some of the high-end copiers do pretty good work, and the business-oriented copy shops are used to doing small-volume, bound documents with graphics/pictures for marketing proposals, quarterly meetings etc.”

“how cheaply, and what kind of binding are we talking about here? this might be obvious, but Kinko's prints and binds stuff. the binding would be really cheap, but not very permanent.

bindings ”

“just steal my idea then, pekka!! ;-) took me awhile to write that one, i guess...”