Geek's Guide to Publishing a Book Part 6...

...Printing Options

To create a physical (non-electronic) book, you must put ink to paper. Today, there are two primary technologies available to do this: traditional offset printing and print on demand (or POD.) Both have pros and cons and your choice is mainly based on what you are trying to accomplish.

Traditional Offset Printing - Traditional offset printing involves using a large printing press to print many pages (24, 36, 48-depending on the size of the sheet and the size of the pages) on both sides of the sheet. The pages are printed such that that the sheet can be folded into a signature which will have three sides trimmed off. Multiple signatures are then assembled into a book body. This type of printing is very cost effective ($1-$2 per copy) when quantities of more then ~2000 are printed. The problem is how to store 2000+ copies of a book, especially a large hard cover.

Print on Demand (POD) - POD is made possible by computers and laser printer technologies. There are systems available today that can literally turn out a single copy of a book, complete with cover, in less then an hour. There is some thought that someday bookstores will only contain electronic copies of books which will only be printed when a customer orders them. The downside is that the selection of book types and sizes are limited, though this is changing. Also, the cost of POD printed books are much higher then the cost of comparable traditionally printed books when the trad books are printed in quantity.

So, which one should you use? The answer totally depends on which publishing route (Traditional, Vanity, Self, or LuLu/Blurb) you take, the type of book you want, the size of the final product, and the number you plan to sell in the first run. For example: you are printing a black and white, hardcover tome of standard size and you are positive that you are going to sell 5000 in no time. In this case traditional offset printing would be a good first choice as long as you had the money to pay the up-front costs, a place to store all of those books and had a plan on how to ship them. On the other hand, LuLu.com or Blurb.com may be a better choice if you didn't have the startup funds or the storage capability, though you would have to take a long, hard look at the costs versus the cover price.

Remember: each project is different. There is no single best answer.

Technorati tags: publishing, writing