Update - POD
I used MyPublisher one morning to put together a book with my father’s birthday pictures. I should have it tomorrow. The whole layout process probably took less than two hours. The books is about 30 pages with a lot of pictures.
[the birthday book arrived on 4/17. it’s fine. no problems. okay, slight magenta cast on the b&w images under incandescent light, but that’s to be expected.]
So now I’m getting requests again for catalogs from design firms - so I started making one in MyPublisher and should have it finished tomorrow. You might ask - if I had been saying that SharedInk was so good why I wasn’t using them for these projects: too expensive, and a little bit too long in terms of turn around time.
MyPublisher almost always has some deep discount going on — right now it’s 40% off for orders over $100 so that makes doing the catalog very feasible. Their b&w printing is not as good as SharedInk - but you can’t have everything - can you? And I think the software that you get with MyPublisher makes it very easy to layout a book if you don’t get too picky.
So the procedure: I create a collection in Lightroom; and then export it to a folder as jpgs, 80%, Adobe RGB, 300 dpi, at about 8 x 12. That gives me plenty of info for each picture. Mostly, for the catalog I’m sticking at least 4 on a page, sometimes 6. If I upload it tomorrow - I’ll have the books in about a week. Only other downside is that they charge tax for New York orders. If I’m doing a lot of this I’ll talk to them about changing that since I have a resale certificate.
The book will have 30 pages, with about 105 pictures, and with their 40% discount will cost about $25 each.
* * *
I placed the order last night (uploaded the book); this morning (next day) I received email that book was shipped. Uh - that is fast.
Catalog books arrived today (two day turnaround) from MyPublisher. Exactly the same as the first batch of my father’s birthday, which means slight magenta cast under warm light; and neutral in daylight. For this price and turnaround - I think this is the best choice for me right now.
Here’s the link to all the research I’ve done (which is a lot):
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Comments
Comment from Calvin Hill
Time: April 16, 2008, 3:02 pm
It shows that you should look around before posting a comment :). I found your post on the different Photo Book companies. Very nice review.
Calvin
Comment from Rick
Time: April 16, 2008, 9:43 pm
Dave - After reading your column on PODs last November, I settled on MyPublisher for a book I was doing on my wife’s parents who both passed away in September, trying to strike a balance between quality, price, and delivery time (I wanted to get it to her and her siblings for Christmas). The book came out rather surprisingly good given the quick turnaround time, but I did find some minor issues with 2 out of 5 ordered. They quickly shipped me out another 2 and I still had a problem with 1 of them. Unfortunately, this replacement did not make it in time. Bottom line was it took them some time to get it right, but they kept trying until they did. I’d use them again.
Good luck with yours,
Rick
Comment from Calvin Hill
Time: April 16, 2008, 2:57 pm
Hello,
I know you are mostly done with your books. Have you ever heard of Blurb? I have published one book from them and felt like they did a good job. I am not sure about black and white but the color look really good. There website is http://www.blurb.com. You are welcome to visit my book too, http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/182443. They also have a very good application that works on the Mac and PC. They just updated and I have not gotten a chance to play with it. So, I am not sure about the new version, but the old version forced you to use their own layouts(which they have a lot of). There were times I need to do my own but like you said “…but you can’t have everything - can you?”. Thanks for a great blog.
Calvin
http://blog.reflectionsbythehill.info