Self publishing moving along

I'm learning a lot about self publishing as I get closer to publishing my first Chair Shibari Art book. I have some background in printing, having worked in journalism at various points in my past. I do have to say it feels good to get back into pagination and print design work. Even after a few decades my hands remember the shortcuts that make InDesign feel like an extension of my self.

I sent my final print files to the printer last night, and today they sent confirmation that I should receive unbound proof copies within a week. Things are moving quickly!

That's part of the reason I opted to go with a digital printer for this book. Since this is my first foray into printing, I spent some time researching different printing options including print-on-demand services and more traditional offset printers. The decision to go with digital printing over the other two was mostly economical. Offset printing, while potentially offering higher quality than digital, required a much larger initial run than I had room for in my budget, and print-on-demand services had per-unit costs that didn't give me the flexibility I wanted to set what I thought was a fair price for my final product. Plus, I'm a little nervous of shipping a product direct to a customer when I can't personally verify the quality. So, digital offered the best option for my circumstances with regard to price point and production run size. And, hey, if this whole publishing thing takes off, maybe I'll still make use of other printing techniques to support scaling it out.