I know that this might seem like jumping the gun a little bit, but I’m thinking about what to do with The Revenge of the Books of Hay when it’s done. From the reading I’ve been doing, novellas aren’t a popular format with agents and publishers, and given I don’t exactly have anything else ready to show them, it seems a bit premature to try the traditional route. But it does strike me as an interesting opportunity to do a little bit of experimentation.
I’ve always planned to release the story electronically under a Creative Commons license, but I’m thinking too that it might be fun to release via a print-on-demand too. I’ve started looking at the options, and I’d love to hear what people’s experiences have been with the different services. I’d do it pretty cheap – say a quid or two over their base cost – to see if people would then be willing to take a chance on it.
Assuming that it would top out at 100 pages, the different services looks like this:
Lulu
Paperback, B&W, perfect bound, 6″ x 9″, one off: £2.98, tax not mentioned, (shipping ~£3.75 to UK, according to a friend)
Blurb
Paperback, B&W, 5″ x 8″, one off: £3.50 + tax, (shipping £3.66 to UK)
Createspace (Amazon)
B&W, 6″ x 9″, one off: roughly £2.69 depending on exchange rate, tax not mentioned, (shipping has various options)
Cafepress
Paperback, B&W, perfect bound, 5″ x 8″, one off: roughly £7.16 + tax, (various shipping options)
WordClay, Authors Online, BookSurge all also have offerings, but none of them very simple or attractive.
To be honest, Lulu or Blurb certainly seems like the way to go. Their models are simple and their prices attractive. I like the idea of specialist software to design my book, rather than just fiddling about in a PDF and hoping for the best, but Blurb’s BookSmart really seems struggles to cope with my novella even at just 23,000 words. I hate to think what it would do with a full length novel.
Anyway, I’ve love to hear your experiences with PoD, so me me with ’em in the comments!
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