Selling photography books online?

January 2, 2005 6:59 AM

Print On Demand / Digital Fulfillment for photography books - I want to sell small photobooks through my site, but want someone else to handle the printing and shipping. Both Lulu and CafePress handle books, does anyone know of others, or have experience with any of these outfits? [mo'better inside+]

CP and Lulu have slightly different options regarding paper stock and formats, Lulu seems to be more oriented towards photobooks. Ideally I would like each book to be a one-off. To achieve that with Lulu I would have to process the order and payment through my site, upload the specified pages to Lulu as a new job, order it, and have it sent to the buyer. A little convoluted, but I have no printing or storage to do, and no visits to Kinkos. Lulu apparently has partnered with Xerox, and is able to offer good color work. The spellchecker thinks I should sell phonebooks.

posted by Jack Karaoke to shopping (11 comments total)

Umm.. ok, so there's a link on Lulu to a huge list of Print on Demand publishers that I failed to notice. Oops.

But experiences with these services esp. concerning photos rather than text would be greatly appreciated.
posted by Jack Karaoke at 7:44 AM on January 2, 2005

Apple offers photo books through iPhoto. You would be locked into one of their templates, I suspect, and have no choice about paper stock. The ones I saw at the Apple store looked nice. Might be too expensive, though - $30 for 10 pages & then $3/each additional page.
posted by belladonna at 9:03 AM on January 2, 2005

You should be prepared for the fact that the prints on paper may look nothing like the way they look on your monitor. I'm not sure what your level of experience with printing from digital files is, but by going this route you are going to relinquish a lot of control in terms of color and resolution. I'm just saying..be prepared.
posted by spicynuts at 9:22 AM on January 2, 2005

I had some photo yearbooks printed by lulu for christmas. I was surprised how good they turned out. The cover paper and interior stock was very good for photographs. ( Make sure your images > 150 dpi ) I am going to be making more with them.
They let you order one offs so you can get a proof copy at a reduced rate to check first.
I created a 52 page photobook for approx $14.50
posted by stuartmm at 9:33 AM on January 2, 2005

How about XLibris?

I know a well-regarded author who's used their services for a traditional print-based book, and he seems to be pretty satisfied with the results. No word on the quality of their full-colour option.
posted by greatgefilte at 10:46 AM on January 2, 2005

I would second the comment about colour control. Lulu and any other print-on-demand system will be digital printing and right now, it's not up to snuff with traditional offset colour options. Depends on how picky you're going to be, really.

That being said, it is a much cheaper option than traditional printing for a small run. What I'd do if I were you is send the same file to each supplier and get one copy back. See which one you like best and use them. You could use the copy you get as a proof. Compare it to what you see on your monitor, make adjustments, and get another copy printed. If the price per book is right, that would be a slow, but inexpensive way to get the colour and quality you want.
posted by Salmonberry at 11:36 AM on January 2, 2005

I've done a book of text and b/w photos on LuLu and I'm absolutely overwhelmed with the quality. The shortcoming is their UI; it basically stinks. But, they've got a great QA forum and their wholesale pricing structure is excellent. Like stuartmm said, the paper and cover quality are both outstanding.

DO NOT go to IUniverse. That was an awful experience. And, for all those self-publishers out there, announce your stuff on the MeFi announce list; it's be great to see everyone's work!
posted by moonbird at 11:39 AM on January 2, 2005

(Oh, nevermind that: it's no longer being updated. We'll have a new 'filter for that soon.)
posted by moonbird at 1:08 PM on January 2, 2005

Glad to hear encouraging comments re: Lulu.

In similar situations, I've sliced an image into 20 layers, applied curves to each layer, saved the curves as I went, flattened, and referred back to the CMYK characteristics of that layer to make an approximate profile of the printer, guess I'll do the same here.

Lulu seems like a really, really cool service.
posted by Jack Karaoke at 4:52 PM on January 2, 2005

They are, and I forgot to mention that they are cheaper than the others with more useful features. They're helping me to publish under my own imprint which helps in getting a library of congress entry, if that sort of governmental thing interests you. Good luck!
posted by moonbird at 5:16 PM on January 2, 2005

If you are really concerned you should probably get a very short book printed by them that is a image of a Macbeth color chart and then use that in color calibration. Some additional photos and or grey card as well would let you see the color range.
If they use different printers/machines for different size jobs;binding;page sizes that may not be as informative but it will at least give you something.
posted by stuartmm at 8:54 PM on January 2, 2005