This is the seventh (and final) post on my experiment comparing making a print-on-demand mini book with making a similar book by hand.
For my experiment, I made 4 books, all approx. 3.75″x2.5″, using 2 print on demand companies — Lulu and Apple (via iPhoto) — and 2 completely handmade — one using double sided photographic (coated) paper, the other with a non-coated text-weight paper. Is it cheaper and easier to print and assemble an edition of these small books by farming it out to a company like Lulu?
Below is a table comparing the books and production costs.

	cost	paper	construction	lies flat	max pages
Lulu	$5.45	slick/coated	glued	no	100
iPhoto	$6.02	slick/coated	glued	no	20
photo paper	$3.63	matte	sewn	yes	unlimited
text weight	$3.63	matte	sewn	yes	unlimited
Sold on Lulu	$0.00	slick/coated	glued	no	100

NOTES:

1. For the on-demand books, the cost includes shipping for the minimum number of books (minimum of 3 for iPhoto, 4 for Lulu). For iPhoto, the cost for 3 books with shipping was $18.06, so each book was 18.06/3 or $6.02. For the cost of the handmade books, I included materials and my labor ($25/hour). It takes 30 minutes to print, cut, assemble and sew 4 books There’s a cost savings in labor for me if I make multiple books at a go, since many tasks take practically the same time whether making one book or 4.
   
2. Lulu’s site is set up to sell books for publishers. So if I sold on their website, rather than having the books delivered first to my studio, the cost would actually be $0. However this doesn’t work for me for 2 reasons: Etsy, where I sell the majority of my books, doesn’t allow third party fulfillment, so I’d have to buy the books up-front to ship them myself. Second, buyers can’t purchase just one mini-book on Lulu, and I doubt I’d have very many sales of the minimum.
   
3. The cost is for a 20 page book. That’s the minimum for Lulu & iPhoto (and the maximum for iPhoto mini-books as well). Each extra page is $.25 on Lulu, less for the handmade books.

There’s one last criteria for my experiment: I showed the 4 books to several people and asked their opinion of the paper, construction, and feel. Each said they liked the iPhoto book best — the slick coated paper made the colors pop and they expected that sort of paper in a picture book, rather than a paper that might be in a book of text only. Lulu’s book was everyone’s second choice, but it was obvious to all that it was inferiorly made. The fact that the books didn’t lie flat concerned only me!
What’s next? Sadly the iPhoto book is too expensive to produce and then resell — I doubt I can get more than $10 per copy and the markup really should be 50% to cover my costs to market, store, etc. the book. It’s too bad the Lulu books didn’t work out, as they are on the cusp of being affordable. I may make a few handmade ones using photo paper and list them in my Etsy store and see how they do. I’m also going to think about what sort of larger dimension book I could make using Blurb — my current work doesn’t really suit their photo book format, but it’s an interesting challenge.

This is the sixth post on my experiment comparing making a print-on-demand mini book with making a similar book by hand.
After my disappointment with the books I made on Lulu, I opened the box containing my iPhoto-made books nervously. Happily they were an order of magnitude better! You have to buy 3 iPhoto books at a time ($11.97 + shipping). Each book came wrapped in a resealable cellophane sleeve. There’s no Apple or iPhoto logo on the back (although the back cover and inside cover pages are all white — doesn’t seem to be a way to put your artwork on those pages, unfortunately).
The big problem is that the book doesn’t really lie flat — the first half of the book has an approx. 1/4″ gutter, while the back half pretty much lies completely open. Since I didn’t take the gutter into account in my artwork, the immediate visual result is that the text, which should be centered on the page, isn’t quite. So if I’m going to print these again, I’d re-do my images to compensate. It also looks like the entire book should have the gutter, not just the front half. With only 3 books as a sample, I can’t tell whether this is a flaw in the production of only my books or all mini-books.

This is the fifth post on my experiment comparing making a print-on-demand mini book with making a similar book by hand.
The book I made using Lulu arrived the other day (this post relates my experience laying out the book). You can’t just buy one mini-book, you have to buy them in multiples of 4 (or $15.96 + shipping). They arrived in a ridiculously large box looking very forlorn.
And right they should look unhappy, as I was too when I opened the books. If you remember I was confused by the Lulu layout software and what the preview was showing me. After I ordered my books, a Lulu staff member answered the forum queries about this, confirming my assumption: “This is where you can expect the printer to trim the page. For this reason you should not put important text and/or images in this area [outside the rectangle].”
The image to the left is the Lulu preview with a dotted rectangle — anything outside that area might be trimmed. So I kept the parts of my images that mattered inside the rectangle. A photo of the book that arrived is below the preview — they trimmed inside this “safe area.”
And, unfortunately, that’s not all. The spreads are badly folded, so that the left-hand page is not completely pink, but has a white stripe (different width on every page) at the gutter. And the Lulu logo is emblazoned on the back of the book — can’t remove it or put my own logo. Finally, the preview that is available after the book is “published” — authors use this to promote their books, so prospective buyers can see inside the book before buying — shows the trim as about 1/4″ above and below the dotted rectangle. WYSIWYG it isn’t.
The books arrived last Friday (Jul 17) and over the weekend I submitted their complaint form stating the printing had gone awry, including pictures of the bad trim and gutter problems. After 5 days, I haven’t heard a peep back.
My conclusion: lousy production, lousy customer service, bad product. I won’t be making another book with them.