Printing Resources for Melbourne Indie Authors
My thanks to Michelle Lovi, David Prosser, and Suzanne Newnham for all the wonderful information they shared with me. Armed with this information, I went researching and found some resources that may be of use to others as well.
The following are by no means all the POD printers there are in Melbourne, but they are the ones that seemed to provide the best match to my needs.
In order of discovery:
Bookpod
http://www.bookpod.com.au/book_printing.html
This printer is based in Melbourne and requires a minimum 10 books.
Print on Demand
http://www.printondemand.net.au/content/books-manuals-reports-training-materials
This printer is based in South Melbourne. No info. on costs or shipping.
Blurb Australia?
This company rang a bell, but when I investigated further, I discovered that you have to use their own proprietary software and fonts. And they only seem to offer one trim size : 6 x 9
Shipping — Express only. Cost in AUD 14.99 [that was for shipping only; no idea what the print costs would be on top of that].
The shipping cost is pretty much the same as for CreateSpace so I was disappointed. :(
IngramSpark
IngramSpark have an Australian print facility but they do not have an Australian website [yet]. This was very confusing and I spent about half an hour following links all over the place, trying to find the Aussie site.
In the end, I rang the Lightning Source phone number and the very nice voice at the other end explained that:
- Lightning Source is for big print jobs
- IngramSpark is for small to tiny print jobs
- One account to bind them all
- Printing processed according to actual, physical location — i.e. in Australia for Australian Indies.
So, to have your book printed in Australia [with IngramSpark], you have to setup an account via the international website [shown above]. Processing the print order is the same for everyone, everywhere, but if you’re in Australia, the printing and shipping will be done from /here/.
To check the shipping costs, click on the IngramSpark website, then click on Resources followed by Tools.
You will now see a whole range of tools available for selfpublishers — including templates and the shipping calculator. I had a little bit of trouble with the shipping calculator because it didn’t seem to like the page count of 370. -shrug- When I entered 380 instead, everything was fine. This is the info I entered for the calculator [the book is Nabatea]:
I have to say, the results made me very happy. :)
The shipping costs for 1 book gave this result:
The per book cost is almost double what the CreateSpace eStore would charge [buying at cost], however the shipping and handling work out to be more than 2/3 less. Thus, printing here works out to be quite a bit cheaper than shipping in 1 book from the US.
When I looked at 10 books, the savings were even greater:
The per book cost remains the same but so does the shipping! This means that each book costs only 44c to ship. Colour me laughing all the way to the bank. :D
And finally, just out of curiosity, I looked up the cost of 100 books:
Clearly, the economies of scale just don’t stack up with POD as the reduction in per book cost was tiny. Nevertheless, it was heartening to see that the shipping costs worked out to be 25c per book.
So there you have it. The local copies of the Innerscape saga will be printed here in Australia, by IngramSpark. This will mean another learning curve for me, but even that has an upside as I’ll be able to publish a second how-to book titled “How to print your book [using Word and IngramSpark]”. lol
I may even offer workshops as well… Guess who’s going to be a very busy girl? -dance-
Hope this is of use to others out there.
cheers
Meeks
