Tuesday, April 5, 2011

CafeExpress Print on Demand?

Anyone got experience with them?

7 comments:

bourgon said...

For What It's Worth - I just recently bought a book by Chris Braak, published via CreateSpace (http://www.createspace.com). The price was quite reasonably, including shipping, the paper is good, the cover is pretty nice (though the laminate at the very edges is starting to come up a little). I have no idea how much the author made, but $9.99 for a 250pg Trade Paperback seems pretty reasonable offhand. And, unlike Lulu, shipping was $3.61.

No affiliation with either Mr. Braak or CreateSpace, but it might be worth a look.

McKee's Miazma said...

Check Wil Wheaton's blog. He uses someone to self-publish his work. I'm sure if you dropped him a line, or searched his blog, you'd find some useful information.

http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/

Daniel Keys Moran said...

The three services tipped to me so far are CreateSpace, Lulu, and Cafepress. I'll dig down and see what's what with each of them.

I'm skeptical this is going to end up paying for itself. Steve Perry's tried it, and made much more money from his ebooks than from his POD -- not just by percent (you make more on ebook) ... but by volume. Way more ebooks ales ... buyers are voting with their wallets as well.

But I will provide the option.

jmadmartigan said...

There is also http://www.lightningsource.com/ who require an ISBN and a $75ish set-up fee, but list book titles with Amazon, BN, and most major book sellers and then print to order. The quality is very good and reproduction of color covers can look really slick. However, the LS expectations for preparing files isn't very intuitive and can suck up time with the learning curve.

prophet said...

Only one data point, but I would buy the print-on-demand hardcopy in preference to the ebook version - but having bought ebook versions already I'd buy the PoD too.

Daniel Keys Moran said...

Anyplace with large setup options or that won't take a PDF isn't an option for me. I'm skeptical I'm going to *make* $75 off of the POD backlist.

AndySocial said...

The big benefit to Cafepress is the complete lack of upfront costs expected from the author. Of course, they also provide no services - you make the cover art, etc. I know you're not very technical, so it would obviously be a daunting prospect for you. Hehe