Print on Demand Companies

Hi there,

We are looking for good print on demand companies & so far we’ve come up blank.

Lulu is too expensive
Another one discriminates against tons of topics
Others won’t do loose packaging (we need to put one of the books in a stationary box loose).

I also tried to search for printing forums & couldn’t find anything.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Michelle

I don’t think Mimeo contracts out to anyone, but I’m happy with their quality, pricing & service.

Thank you

Michelle

Several years ago I had a bit of experience with POD companies and found, as you have, that most have severe limitations. Why not go to a local printer and see if they can help and what they are willing to work out?

I do understand that POD seems attractive because of the quickness of the Internet, but I believe you’ll have better results with a local company if you can find one.

Hi Shy,

Well we might have found one. He’s going to talk to an Account Executive tomorrow re: pricing & a few other things.

I don’t have a local printer, nor do I want to travel to one just to ship out one book. Not to mention I’d have to drive there, then drive to the post office & by the time I do all of that, I either have to charge the client more for my time, or take a loss.

What was it that you needed done that they couldn’t do?

Thanks

Michelle :slight_smile:

Linda, I happened across your site on copywriting & then saw your right nav recommending companies.

I was with 1and1 for 3 years until I ran into HUGE problems with them.

After investigating them online, I was shocked by what I saw. I finally managed to get all my domains away from them, but at a huge cost both financially & with my time.

I’m still not sure what’s going to happen, b/c they may still try & come after me for domains I no longer have with them, they’ve pulled those stunts before.

You can read over my thread here…

Just thought you should know b/c I wouldn’t recommend them to my worst enemy after not only what they did to me, but all the stories I read online & I posted a ton of their links in my links area, but after 1-2 hours I finally had to stop b/c it would have gone on forever.

Take care

Michelle

Since this is your thread, your reply about one and one isn’t off topic. However, I have been with them since they first offered shared hosting and have never had any problem. 1 and 1 is the third web host I have had since beginnng work on the web 9 years ago and I have had far less problems with them than with other hosts I have used and some popular hosts that some of my clients have used.

No matter what company you choose for what ever kind of product or service you want, there are always nay sayers as well as proponents. PayPal, Microsoft, and believe it or not, even Site Point. Ford buyers dis GM and vice versa. Mac users can’t understand why anyone would use a pc. I’m sorry if your user experience was unsatisfactory. Mine has been just dandy.

As to problems I had with POD, they included mishandling of funds, buggy upload applications, poor support, and unexplained delays in publication. However, my experience was 7 years ago, so perhaps POD providers have improved since that time.

I don’t believe that companies who are ethical do the things that 1and1 does, nor has millions of complaints. Every company has complaints, but not to this degree.

I too thought they were great until I had problems trying to cancel.

It’s your choice, I’m not here to change your mind, just tell you what I experienced & what others experienced.

Thanks for the POD information.

Michelle

Hi,

Have you tried to contact Harte-Hanks? I have used them in the past and their POD services and nearly flawless! They also offer a large amount of other services including data management and fulfillment. The nice thing with Harte-Hanks is that even though I didn’t have enough mail to get a bulk discount they were able to commingle my pieces with other mail to get me and the other customers the bulk discount - very cool!

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Sorry, what do you mean by “mail”?

These are books for printing.

Actually I ended up going with Mimeo & they are so far fantastic.

Their sales guy was great, their c/s is great, & while I didn’t like the binder that the test book was sent in, the surlux binded one was nice.

Thanks :slight_smile:

Michelle

I can recommend LightningSource.com, div. of Ingram. Many of the “lulu”-type companies actually contract out their printing to LightningSource. I’ve had a great self-publishing experience with them.