The story of our first printed travel book

Introduction

To self-publish our first printed travel book has been a key goal, ever since we started self-publishing our travel eBooks (five years ago).

The good news is that we have achieved this goal with the availability of our first printed travel book Six Days in Prague published on Blurb on the 24 May 2017.

So, two questions are:

Why has this taken so long? And
Why Blurb?

This post seeks to answer these questions.

Why has it taken so long to achieve our printed travel book?

Our travel books are based on our travels to various regions and cities. These books range from 10,000 – 15,000 words and contain between 10 and 35 photographs.

To continually improve the quality of our eBooks is an ongoing challenge. However, we’ve reached as point where we are about to embark on a new approach! But, this will be gradual and extend from our current method.

Improving my photography is another never-ending challenge. Only now, after working on the publication of our Prague eBook did I suddenly feel, I could “bite-the-bullet” so to speak and print my photos.

So, it is now time to embrace the printed world and publish our first printed travel book.

Why Blurb?

Our printed travel book requirements

We have five basic requirements for our printed travel books:

to print small numbers (single) of books (so print-on-demand);
to print a mixture of text and colour photos (predominately text);
to control of the final print layout;
to access a selling and payment infrastructure; and
to be competitive on price.

Surely, that isn’t too much to ask?

Looking at the providers

To be fair, I didn’t really survey the providers in any depth. Despite my hesitancy to date, I have looked at the providers over time and haven’t warmed to any of them. I didn’t feel they could meet our five criteria.

In February, I went to a self-publishing event in Brisbane (see My self-publishing ideas for 2017) where I mentioned my print problem to Joanna Penn and she said – “Try Blurb”. So, I did.

The printed book at Blurb

It is early days yet, but so far, my impressions are that Blurb offers:

print-on-demand
a range of formats; we chose the Trade Book format
a competitive on price for our type of book and chosen format
complete control over your book layout
online and offline book preparation software
online selling and payment infrastructure (this is often undervalued or taken for granted)
PDF distribution

A very helpful resource is their Swatch Kit (US$7.95) providing samples of the various paper and colour printing options for the various books. We didn’t know whether to select economy or standard colour for our Trade Book and these samples showed us that the economy colour was fine for our book. Thankfully, because standard colour is twice the price.

The Blurb process

Book preparation

Blurb provides a downloadable program called “BookWright” to prepare your book. In a previous life, I used Microsoft Publisher to prepare tenders and BookWright is very similar. Each program has its strengths and weaknesses. On this occasion I used BookWright but next time I intend to use MS Publisher. I think Publisher offers stronger formatting/style options and Blurb provides the necessary book specifications.

I found BookWright easy to use and help videos are available at Blurb. I would stress the need to back up your current the file – Blurb do recommend this. On one occasion, I walked away from the computer and left BookWright open and when I returned a couple of hours later it had crashed. Consequently, I always save two files periodically.

Selling and distribution

Blurb

The simplest and cheapest method to sell and distribute your book is with Blurb. The selling price is:

Blurb List Price = Blurb’s Base Cost + Your Profit

So, let’s consider the example of a 60-page Trade book using economy colour:

Blurb List Price (US$6.95) = Blurb’s Base Cost (US$5.79) + Your Profit (20% of base cost – US$1.16)

Blurb’s Base Cost is estimated on their pricing calculator.

Global retail network

Blurb also offers to distribute your book via their Global Retail Network. This means Blurb uses Ingram to distribute your book.

The formula for selling through the Global Retail Network is:

Minimum: List Price (US$ 10.86) = Blurb’s Basic Cost (US$5.79) + Your Profit (20% of Base Cost $1.16) + Ingram Fee (36% of List Price US$3.91)

Maximum: List Price (US$ 15.44) = Blurb’s Basic Cost (US$5.79) + Your Profit (20% of Base Cost $1.16) + Ingram Fee (55% of List Price US$8.49)

The higher the list price, the wider the exposure.

It may take some time to understand some unfamiliar terms especially if you choose to use the Global Retail Network (e.g. wholesale discount etc).

Both Blurb and Global Retail Network

You can sell your book on Blurb and through the Global Retail Network.

Amazon

One slight disappointment is that Blurb offers distribution through Blurb and/or Amazon for Photo Books but not for Trade Books. For Trade Books you can only reach Amazon through Ingram. Currently, I cannot work out the Amazon price using the Ingram channel.

ISBN

Blurb will provide a free ISBN – I like that. However, if you are happy to distribute your book through Blurb only, then an ISBN is not required.

Postage/Shipping Costs

I guess this depends on where you live. Some Trade Book examples:

Australia, Queensland: Express US$8.99

United Kingdom, London, Hackney: Standard US$8.99; Priority US$24.99

United States, Redmond: Economy US$3.99; Standard US$7.99; Express US$16.99

Postage/Shipping can cost more than Blurb’s Basic Cost and your added profit. This is disappointing. A little research suggests that this issue extends beyond Blurb to other distributors.

I’m not the only person alarmed at this situation and I’m sure Blurb is aware of the such sentiments. A quick search of the Help Centre shows that other people have raised this issue (some have been quite strident).

A useful link:

https://medium.com/@mwichary/my-experiences-printing-a-small-batch-of-books-c04141b63dfe

Payment

You can elect to receive payments by cheque or PayPal.

We elected to receive payments by PayPal. These payments can be made monthly if your profit reaches a predetermined level, otherwise it will keep rolling over to the next month until the level is reached. This level varies depending on the currency of payment. For Australian dollars the threshold is $30; a one dollar processing fee is charged.

Cheques will only be paid in US dollars and attract a US$5 processing fee. Payments occur after reaching a threshold of US$25. Payments will be made monthly if you have reached the threshold.

Paying monthly by PayPal is better than Amazon.

PDF distribution

I didn’t think I would find a printed solution and so I began to look at PDFs as a solution. Every photographer that I follow on Twitter or by email present their work in PDFs. They sell on their own websites (something we’re not going to do). However, I didn’t know how to distribute PDFs either.

I am pleased to note that Blurb offers to distribute a PDF version of your book – good stuff.

Support

I contacted Blurb support about using MS Publisher and they got back to me within a couple of days, which I thought was good.

I’ll be back in touch with them again about placing Trade Books on Amazon and how to estimate the price.

Conclusion

We are very pleased to have our first printed travel book available online at Blurb.

The Blurb experience has been good: BookWright was easy to download and use with online support available (videos); the website is easy to navigate and use; I setup an account easily; and I was able to use the Blurb for “selling” our book without any problems.

I have two disappointments: first, shipping costs are too high with limited options; secondly, I would like to publish our Trade Book on Amazon and not Ingram, and I don’t know how to do that, …..yet.

It will take some time to become fully cognisant of Blurb’s operation.

Another journey begins.

This is a link to all of our Ideas and Initiatives posts.

This is a link to all our eBook self-publishing posts.

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Going to Prague soon? Consider our first printed travel book:

Prefer an eBook?

Our eBook: Six Days in Prague can be found on:

Amazon (Kindle US), Amazon (Kindle UK), Amazon (Kindle AU), and Amazon (Kindle CA)

Smashwords (EPUB), Smashwords also distributes to Oyster, Scribd, Yuzu, Blio and Inktera (formerly Page Foundry) and reaches OverDrive (world’s largest library ebook platform serving 20,000+ libraries), Baker & Taylor Axis 360, Gardners (Askews & Holts and Browns Books for Students), and Odilo (2,100 public libraries in North America, South America and Europe)

Kobo

Apple iTunes

Barnes and Noble

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Visits: 2005

The story of our first printed travel book

The story of our first printed travel book

Introduction

Why has it taken so long to achieve our printed travel book?