TWCL

Darth Strife · Joined: 29 Aug 2010 Posts: 112

Hi all,

I write a webcomic called Imagine Industries and I was hoping to pick your brain(s) for a second. We are a couple months into year 2 of my comic and I'm getting requests for "coffee table" books. Now, I had always intended to print collections of my comic (if for no other reason so I'd have them to look at when I'm 70) but I'm not sure where the best place to have that done is (in fact, I'm not even 100% sure what the exact term is for what I want done is).

Anyway, if you have any advice about where I might best take my business, it would most appreciated. If it helps, I do a full color comic that varies from 3 to as many as 12 panels and we have over 120 comics so far (I'd be willing to cut them into 2 or more books if need be). Also, I am (and have always been) a bit 'cash poor' so having the books order-able from the printing site by fans would be ideal.

Thanks again for your time, it is much appreciated!
Jordan

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Bjork · Joined: 23 Aug 2011 Posts: 41

theres a lot of good options but it mostly depends on how many you expect to sell? and also if you can give out a few free ones at the start so people can see how good a print job the books have?

iaviv · Joined: 03 Sep 2011 Posts: 251

The way I see it you have two options. One is POD - print on demand. The other is Kickstarter (or any other similar site). I've no experience with printing coffee table books, though, so keep that in mind.
For POD printing you have Lulu. I understand they do a good job on hard cover books - again, no way to back this up, never printed such a thing through them. There are more options, but I can't recall any names right now. I'm sure someone here will know more about this than me. Anyway, POD is basically what you described - "having the books order-able from the printing site by fans" - that's how it works, but of course the printing company gets a cut from every sale.
With Kickstarter (and the likes of) there's no guarantees. You need to have plenty of fans who are willing to back your project, but if you do have that - give it a try! Don't forget to make sure you're setting the goal high enough, make sure you know how much the printing and shipping would cost before you're launching the campaign.

A third option would be to print through a traditional printing house, but you don't have the money for that, right? So never mind that one.
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smbhax.com · Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 6:16 am Post subject:

If you post this in the "Gubbins" board you might get more responses. It's also been asked there a lot in the past and you could try searching for those older threads, although Search seemed to lose a lot of history a few months ago.

As far as POD goes, I seem to recall also hearing good things about some Amazon print service in those threads...hm...CreateSpace I guess? http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=13685731

(But yeah I haven't really looked into it or ever tried to print a book myself so this isn't worth much!)

These days with Kickstarter being so popular it seems like a lot of people go to a printer, get a quote on a 1000+ print run, do a Kickstarter campaign to get that money, and if that isn't successful...well I suppose maybe then they consider POD or something, I dunno.
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raines80 · Joined: 10 Jul 2011 Posts: 162

smbhax.com wrote:

If you post this in the "Gubbins" board you might get more responses. It's also been asked there a lot in the past and you could try searching for those older threads, although Search seemed to lose a lot of history a few months ago.

As far as POD goes, I seem to recall also hearing good things about some Amazon print service in those threads...hm...CreateSpace I guess? http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=13685731

(But yeah I haven't really looked into it or ever tried to print a book myself so this isn't worth much!)

These days with Kickstarter being so popular it seems like a lot of people go to a printer, get a quote on a 1000+ print run, do a Kickstarter campaign to get that money, and if that isn't successful...well I suppose maybe then they consider POD or something, I dunno.

As usual... SMB is right ( I hate that he is always right). If you are serious about this than you need to contact a printing company. ANY printing company will do. Get a quote and than try a Kickstarter campaign if you have the fan base to do so (I would say you would need at least 5000 readers and 500 DEDICATED fans for this to work).

If that fails... than.. if you have good credit (or none) ask a bank for the funds.
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Darth Strife · Joined: 29 Aug 2010 Posts: 112

Thanks for your advice, I am currently checking into CreateSpace and Lulu as well as adding this post to the Gubbins. Thanks for your help and I will post my progress for future generations...

Come on, click the banner... It's not going to click itself.

AmyTFalcone · Joined: 03 Apr 2012 Posts: 2

Hey pals,

I did a lot of work with printing during my grueling time in an art program at University. I want to speak to POD sites such as LULU and Blurb Books.

You need to really CAREFULLY read the TOS on these sites. Our professors used to encourage us to use POD services to sell digital versions of our sketchbooks on these sites. It seemed like a great idea and we could even offer ebook versions. Crazy awesome. The problem is, no one thought to really read their service contract before printing with them. Well after I had already started selling mine, we all realized that legally, these printers own your material. That's right. They own it.

Everyone can check it out for themselves, and I'd be happy to be proven wrong. Right now my recomendation is for a place like Indigo Ink Printing,Keness, or even MoxieCopy. You can get a test print, give it the thumbs up and get a pretty decent deal on say, a box of comics. If anyone knows MoCCA Fest in NYC, I got those printer names from people who had great looking books. A lot used the same printers, too.

Good luck! Very Happy

I illustrate [citation needed] and more at cn-comics.com

microbrien · Joined: 23 Jul 2010 Posts: 69

AmyTFalcone wrote:

Hey pals,

I did a lot of work with printing during my grueling time in an art program at University. I want to speak to POD sites such as LULU and Blurb Books.

You need to really CAREFULLY read the TOS on these sites. Our professors used to encourage us to use POD services to sell digital versions of our sketchbooks on these sites. It seemed like a great idea and we could even offer ebook versions. Crazy awesome. The problem is, no one thought to really read their service contract before printing with them. Well after I had already started selling mine, we all realized that legally, these printers own your material. That's right. They own it.

Everyone can check it out for themselves, and I'd be happy to be proven wrong. Right now my recomendation is for a place like Indigo Ink Printing,Keness, or even MoxieCopy. You can get a test print, give it the thumbs up and get a pretty decent deal on say, a box of comics. If anyone knows MoCCA Fest in NYC, I got those printer names from people who had great looking books. A lot used the same printers, too.

Good luck! Very Happy

I illustrate [citation needed] and more at cn-comics.com

Yeah, I want to second this.

It's a really shitty thing a lot of sites do. Some (like pinterest) probably write their TOS that way as to protect themselves legally and have no interest in stealing your work and selling it for a profit.

Others are--they say where I'm from--not too much pretty good?

I write [citation needed] and more at cn-comics.com

Casual Notice · Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2012 5:34 pm Post subject:

Lulu Terms of use wrote:

Lulu is the owner of all intellectual property rights, including all copyright, patents, and trademarks, associated with the Site, with all rights reserved, exclusive of Content provided by third parties, which is owned by the licensors of such Content.

Emphasis mine to highlight the relevant phrase. Essentially what this says is that they own the copyright to everything they created, but do not own the copyright or trademark on items provided by "third-party" creators (the artists and authors that use them to print and distribute their works). They don't even claim standard serial rights from what I can tell.

Full Document here.
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What I lack in sincerity, I make up for in sarcasm.
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microbrien · Joined: 23 Jul 2010 Posts: 69

Casual Notice wrote:

Lulu Terms of use wrote:

Lulu is the owner of all intellectual property rights, including all copyright, patents, and trademarks, associated with the Site, with all rights reserved, exclusive of Content provided by third parties, which is owned by the licensors of such Content.

Emphasis mine to highlight the relevant phrase. Essentially what this says is that they own the copyright to everything they created, but do not own the copyright or trademark on items provided by "third-party" creators (the artists and authors that use them to print and distribute their works). They don't even claim standard serial rights from what I can tell.

Full Document here.

That's definitely a relief, though I know some other sites don't use as clear language--especially if they are smaller up-starts that couldn't afford a lawyer to write their legal materials.

I write [citation needed] and more at cn-comics.com