Print on Demand – Publishing a Book!

As a Publishing House, we watch technology to see how it changes relevant to Self Publishing. We are now getting more and more choices for Print on Demand Books.

Here are some distributors who can help you self publish your book. Do remember there is a lot of work involved after you’ve finished writing. Plaisted Publishing House has an Author Assist Program to help you get your manuscript in the best shape for Publishing with any of the companies below. You can find the Submission Guidelines HERE

Distributors of Print on Demand

One of the most popular was Createspace which closed it’s doors and re-opened as KDP Print. Fair enough they still do Print on Demand, though it seems there are still a lot of hassles for KDP Print to get it right. This seems strange considering how good Createspace used to be. I’d like to know how they’ve messed it up so much. It is one I now choose not to use as a Print on Demand Distributor, though we still use KDP for eBooks.

Then we have LULU. They also do Print on Demand and eBooks. It takes a while to learn all the ins and outs, not quite as simple as KDP Print. However, they print on cream paper…YAY, They have LIVE CHAT along with up to 50% Discounts.  The only downer to many Independent Authors is you have to buy a proof before they will distribute WIDE whereas with KDP Print you can approve with a digital file at no cost. 

SMASHWORDS only do eBooks and it is still tricky. The layout for uploading is pretty easy to use, however, to get the document ready for their site is another matter. They are probably the fussiest of all distributors. The ebook cover has to be a certain size. For the uninitiated, it can be a nightmare of complications. On top of this, your manuscript has to be saved as Doc 97 which very few use anymore. We’ve been waiting for them to update for years.

Ingram Spark is a distributor of Print on Demand. We use this company with several of our clients. They do cost so it is up to the author if they wish to have an account with them.  On top of this, they also do Book Covers differently. Instead of RGB colours, they use the CMYK which you use at home with your printer. You also need to download their templates for the book cover size and make sure you add the 5mm on the top, bottom and the unbound edge of the cover and the interior. Make sure you use margins or your file can be rejected.

Draft to Digital is a great distributor for ebooks. They have templates you can use, however, I’m not overly keen on them when I see the files. Some looked pushed up and without the correct spacing. To us this is annoying. They do a good royalty share.  Today they ran out their Beta Print Book for testing Print on Demand for Authors to try out. We may well try. We’ve already heard about issues…They don’t do wrap covers…yet. We also noted in the email we received that the royalty share was 40% of the list price and they still take off print cost.  Where does the other 60% go?  We haven’t seen or read about this yet and will keep our eyes peeled to find this information. Confused? We are too.

These are the Print on Demand distributors most of us know about. However, Europe is digging in their heels with their own companies. Do you want your Self Published Book for sale in Europe? One site we were introduced to also do translations on a royalty share scheme. I suppose this would be a bit like with ACX and Audiobooks.

There you go…Information on ‘How to Self Publish a Book.’ Don’t forget we are here to help you. 

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