Trying Out The Online On Demand Printers

While I was sorting out the details to publish my book as an eBook (a topic I will cover in future posts), I decided to see what I could get out of the online on demand book printers that I knew about.

I have been aware of blurb.com and lulu.com for some time. I downloaded blurb.com's Mac software and tried to put together photo books on at least two previous occasions. (Sadly, their desktop software is utterly underwhelming. I suppose it's probably faster and more stable than trying to layout a book through a Web site, but the experience isn't any more fun or flexible. Both projects got abandoned in fairly short order.) I had looked into their pricing when I was considering book projects in the past, only to walk away when it became clear that their volume pricing is okay, but not nearly what can be had by printing offshore.

But this time I came at it with a different idea. Instead of thinking that I would print mass quantities of the title, I was instead hoping for something good enough to print 10 copies as gifts for the band members and a few people who had made significant contributions to the writing of the book.

I took my book, written in Apple's Page application, generated the necessary PDF and cover art files, and sent them off to blurb and lulu, ordering one copy from each to see what they would look like. I really was not expecting what I got back.

Within a week I received the finished copies from both vendors and I was shocked at how good they looked. Not "coffee table travel photography book" good, but much better than I expected and absolutely good enough to offer for sale. 

I chose a glossy cover and simple, common paper stock for the inside. Half of my book is black and white photographs, and I was concerned about the many problems that can crop up - moire patterns, poor tonal range, lack of detail in the shadows due to dot gain, uneven quality from page to page, excessive softness or distracting sharpening artefacts. None of these were evident in my test copies. I compared them to the printing quality of some of my favourite books of photos from the 70s and 80s and they were immeasurably superior. I got kind of excited.

And the excitement wasn't just over technical issues. I was holding a book in my hands. Having a finished writing it was cool, printing it on the laser printer at home and having a physical manuscript was very cool, but holding a printed, bound, professional-looking book in my hand was genuinely exciting.

It was at that point that I made the fateful decision that I would also offer the book in a printed form. I mean, why the hell not?

I also chose to print the books with lulu.com, although to be fair I don't imagine there is much difference between them and blurb. My decision was based on the only difference I could discern between the two copies. They seemed absolutely identical in almost every respect - the paper quality, the weight, the paper colour, etc. The blurb edition seemed to have marginally finer lines in the text, but it also seemed to be a little less sharp in the photos. They were very slightly washed out in comparison. My guess is that blurb uses the same process to produce their books, but I suspect they print at a slightly higher resolution. This would account for the finer lines in the type, and also the quality of the photos. I also suspect that the books are printed on what amounts to giant laser printers - toner based printing instead of ink based. Printing this way at a higher resolution can add a little bit more detail in photographs, but it also sometimes has the effect of reducing the contrast and, ironically, the sharpness. (If you have any technical understanding of this and care to offer some useful information, please comment below.) The photos in the lulu version seemed to "pop" just that tiny bit more.

My endorsement of lulu.com should not in any way be construed as disappointment with blurb. I simply can't comment on blurb's quality beyond this one copy of one book, and even then all I can say is that I had to make a choice between the two vendors so I decided based on one small detail of personal aesthetics. I'd love to hear from anyone who has dealt with blurb to get their thoughts and experiences.

The other comment I would make is that I hope blurb offers service as broad and good as lulu, because my impression of lulu started out good and has only improved since then.

In other posts I will go into the things I discovered I could do with an online on demand printer like lulu or blurb, but let me end this post with a definitive endorsement of these printers.