Self Publishing and Manufacture

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Sites like Moo and Moonpig have become ubiquitous even being advertised on mainstream TV. I like and have used both of these online print tools.

Recently I was researching online printing of leaflets and came with some other resources that I have not yet tried out – I have bookmarked them here.

I’m fascinated by this area. Someone recently gave me a Lulu produced and Amazon distributed, self published book. It’s lovely, indistinguishable from those on the mainstream book outlet bookshelves.

Just this week I wanted to produce a short run book for my grand-daughter and friends. I didn’t want to produce loads of copies and I didn’t want to sell online so we’re probably not looking at Lulu or other mainstream sites. I looked at Blurb which downloads a free application “Booksmart” and myphotobook which also has a down-loadable app. However both of these have minimum page runs of 20+ so I eventually hit upon Solentro which will do books with as few as 4 pages even though, in the end my page count actually came to 18. I’ve made my book in Solentro and ordered 3 copies. They’ll come from Sweden so I must wait 2/3 weeks to see how they’ve turned out. The interface is quite basic and simple, reminiscent  of the early days of desk top publishing.

Fingers crossed. I’d love to hear in the comments reviews of services you know of, links or opinions.