Some Thoughts on Self-Publishing

HTML Giant highlights how to go about it.

From the piece...

Here is how I do it:
First of all, printing and publishing are two different things. You want to be a printer? Go buy a printing press*. You will also require ink, plates, solvents, large quantities of paper, a guillotine cutter, a bindery, reinforced floors, a loading dock, and numerous other things I know nothing about because I’m not a printer. If you think you can print large quantities of books all dirty and on the cheap, think again. I have syringed ink into my printer cartridges and trust me, it doesn’t work. Oh, but you’re going to use a Xerox? That’s nice, but we’re talking about books here, not zines. Even if you’ve discovered another way to print off thousands of pages, you still need to consider how you’ll be cutting all that paper down (your well-honed X-acto skills will not get you far), and most importantly how to bind it all together.

Bindings you will try and realize are futile or look like crap:
-ribbon
-thread
-linen tape
-book cloth
-other kinds of cloth
-all types of glue
-contact paper
-various rivets
-spiral binding
-hand-made perfect binding

All of these methods fail because you need to go bigger; you need to outsource**. Sending your book to a professional printer will mean less time spent printing/cutting/collating/binding, much higher quality overall, and you may be pleasantly surprised by the cost difference. Making books by hand seems cheaper, but often it’s not.

I currently have my books printed at Cushing-Malloy in Ann Arbor, MI. However, there are tons of printers out there, and which one is best for you depends on the specs of your print run. This includes the quantity of books, number of ink colors, dimensions, binding and cover type, paper stock, coatings, freight cost, and so on. Some small publishers like doing print-on-demand, which is exactly what it sounds like. Rather than ordering a full print run (usually anywhere from 250-1000 and up), you pay for copies as you go, or as you sell. The benefit here is that you don’t have to store or cart around hundreds or thousands of books, or worry as much about financial loss if the book doesn’t sell. Unfortunately, print-on-demand limits you to a narrow range of dimensions, page count, paper stock, and other specs. Personally, I find print-on-demand books lacking in quality as far as visual and tactile prettiness; they’re not typically gorgeous, but they do the job.