List of printing companies for self-publishers
I know of only two that will print your work without a set-up fee: Lulu and Café Press. Both are print-on-demand (POD) companies. http://www.lulu.com/help/node/view/9 http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/help/learn_book.aspx However, the way that those companies accomplish this without a fee is by not offering distribution services outside of their own Websites. Lulu does offer two optional distribution packages, and its basic package (a listing in Books in Print and a listing in Amazon Marketplace) is wonderfully reasonable, only $35. Even its Global Distribution Service (all of the above, plus a listing in major online bookstores) is quite reasonable, only $150 plus the price of your book. Café Press doesn't offer distribution services outside of its Website, but you do have the option of tying images related to your book in with merchandise - for example, you can sell a mouse pad with your cover art on it. The price for printing at other companies that offer distribution ranges from $200 to a whopping $7000. Here's a handy comparison chart by a British printing company. It's in PDF format. http://www.adlibbed.com/pabd_support/comparison_table.pdf The alternative is to go to a company that simply does printing (whether by traditional methods or by POD) and handle the distribution yourself. Here's a helpful guide if you want to take that route: http://www.fonerbooks.com/porder.htm In that case, and in the case of Lulu and Café Press, you'd need to be the person to do all the work in editing, designing, and marketing the book. Lulu does offer a bit of help with cover art; I'm not sure about Café Press. My impression is that this is a better system than the package deal you get at other companies, where you have to buy their services for editing and design and marketing, whether or not those services are cruddy. This way, if you need help putting your book together, you can shop around for the best deal. Or, if you have a bit of background in publishing - or don't think your readers will be too picky - you can do everything yourself.

There is also The Writing Cooperative (sorry, don't have the link to hand) but I have heard *very* mixed reports about them and their business practices....

If you find the URL, I'd be interested in it. A Web search didn't turn them up because that phrase is so common.

I think its 'the writers cooperative' (TM). Ruth Simms is with them.

Oops, yes, you're probably right. Sorry about that. :oops:

LuLu and Promotion
In my opinion it makes no sense to pay for a POD service when you've got Lulu. Do the research and figure out how to market your own book. Don't expect others to sell lots of books for you. I'm self publishing in 2006. My first effort will be a collection of lesbian erotica. Jolie http://www.joliedupre.com

The reasons it can make sense are mainly 1) many of them reduce the cover price by 50% or more--with a resulting increase in saleability (as a customer I just won't oay much more than $10 for a paperback) and 2) they aren't obviously self-pub which gets around a lot of distribuot prejudice and may allow you to get into brick and mortar stores/

I'm a bit confused as to what we're contrasting here, since Lulu does POD. Could you folks clarify? POD (for anyone else reading this) is a method of printing, not a type of business. Print-on-demand is used by small presses, local printers, self-publishing companies such as Lulu and Café Press, and companies that offer publishing services for a fee (subsidy publishers or vanity publishers). Jolie wrote: "I'm self publishing in 2006. My first effort will be a collection of lesbian erotica." Cool! We've got one other Lulu author here (K. M. Frontain), and I'm likely to take that route next year. Do keep us posted on how things go for you.

I was repsonding to "In my opinion it makes no sense to pay for a POD " but mentioning some things PODs with up front fees (e.g. Aventine) are better at IMHO than Lulu/cafepress.

"they aren't obviously self-pub" Well, I just visited the Aventine Website, and they say right on their home page that they do self-publishing. Do you mean that Lulu and Café Press are better known as self-publishing companies? "many of them reduce the cover price by 50% or more" I'd love to hear more discussion about book prices, as this is an area where I feel I have a lot of learning to do. Probably it's been quite a few years since I bought a new book, so I don't know what the current prices are. :) Are you talking about discounts to retailers, or something else?

Oops, the forum ate my first reply. In breif, yes Aventine often slips buy distributors and store managers who have a 'no self-pub' rule or guidelines as it isn't well known as a company. I costed a standrad paperback with ISBN and amazon listing as part of the deal. In thsi case lulu with retail the book at well over $20 (remember what amazon adds even without the cost of ISBN), but Aventine was $10. I figured that $10 books would sell much, much more oftne. So the only gamble was whether I would be able to sell the 1000 or so copies needed to recoup the upfrnt fee Aventine charges (100s of dollars). With a smaller distribution using using lulus own store I think lulu has the edge.

(And I'm supposed to be a math major, *grumble, grumble*.) Would love to see your figures, because I can't work it out on my own. What I'm getting so far is that (1) Aventine's printing costs are much lower, and (2) Lulu's author fees are much lower. I gather that your reasoning is that, if you carry the burden of the cost rather than the reader doing so, you'll sell more books. I want to know, by the way, why Lulu's binding fee is much, much bigger than Aventine's. Either Lulu is gouging, or Aventine is stinting. Either way, there's something interesting going on there. One other thing I notice about Aventine is that the author has much less control over what the finished product looks like. That's good if one needs help, bad if one wants a different type of layout than Aventine offers.

There is a real range of prices across the 8-9 company I prices my project for. I wish I had kep the figures but as I never went a head it was a low priority files to save when my disk was crashing. My feeling is that the upfront fee is covering the lower printing cost. If you sell less than about 1000 copies they end up costing you more than lulu. Most self-published books would be in this box but I was feeling optimistic.