Print Nation - A Great Option for Self-Publishers?

Let's talk about printing your book. You've written something amazing and it's edited and it has a stunning layout, but now you want to make sure it's printed on paper that is worth your words. Print on Demand is convenient, sure, but it's limiting. Maybe you're craving something custom or you're tired of watching Amazon eat into your profits. Or maybe you're coming to Las Vegas and you want to have your books printed and sent to your conference. Well, whether you're looking for options beyond Print on Demand or you have something specific in mind, if you want to know about a company that could be a great option for for you to get your books printed whether you're in Las Vegas or the rest of the United States, well, this video is for you.

Hey there. I'm Julie the Book Broad. I'm founder of Book Launchers, a full service self publishing company helping nonfiction authors write, publish and promote a nonfiction book to grow their brand and their business. Now, our typical setup for most of our authors is using Print on Demand services to print a book like IngramSpark or KDP. In case you aren't familiar, Print on Demand allows books to be printed only when an order is received. Rather than producing large quantities in advance, books are stored digitally and printed as needed. When a customer places an order, the book is printed, bound, and shipped directly to them. Print on Demand minimizes upfront costs associated with traditional printing methods where large print runs are typically required. It's been revolutionary for self publishing authors because you do not need to maintain stock or storage and you aren't paying for a bunch of printed books up front, which can be a lot of money to outlay when you don't know how long it will take to sell them. It's also nice because books can be edited and changed fairly easily. You can't edit and change a book that's already been printed very easily. While Print on demand is our preferred way to get distribution and set up most authors, there are some drawbacks. Like the cost per book is generally higher compared to traditional offset printing. Especially when you order large quantities. You have a very limited ability to create really custom books. You're limited by trim, size, paper type and customized things like foil or even something as beautiful as this. Can you see this?

You cannot do this with Print on Demand.

So what do you want to do if you want to ensure the best quality or you have a custom need? Well, whether it's 2550 or even 5000, if you want to sell in bulk without losing control over Your pricing or you want your book to look and feel premium? Well, I am so excited to tell you about a local Las Vegas company that you can use anywhere in the US they're called Print Nation. Print Nation specializes in premium book printing, and it's reasonably priced, so you aren't forced to choose between customization and affordability. Want your book to feel like a collector's item? Well, they've got foil detailing for covers, dust jackets that make your book pop and turn heads on any bookshelf. Look at some of the samples I've got here. This is obviously not one of Book Launcher's books because it's a fiction, but they sent it as an example of what they can do. And I already showed you this beautiful detailing, but inside the COVID is also beautiful color cover. And when you flip through, it's just a wonderful reader experience. And then for this book, they have this gold foil on the COVID And inside, you can see how they have done just a great job printing with not color, but these kind of pages can bleed over a lot. And this is just really good feeling and a good reader experience. Now, Efren's book, they sent an example. The opposite is true. This is a book Launcher's client, and they sent a hardcover example, which you can compare to his soft cover. And wow, does this feel amazing. And inside each page, they've used thicker paper. Efren's gonna want this. When I see Efren next, I'm gonna have to give him that book. And then this one is a great example. They sent our client Susan Hensley's art for your sanity. So what's cool about Susan's book is she did do color on the inside. And afterwards, I'm gonna get a non book expert to hold these books and compare them. I have one from Ingram and one from Print Nation, and I'm gonna get him to say which one he thinks is better and by how much. Now, one other note. Again, not for our nonfiction people, but because people ask me all the time for information on options. If you're working on a children's book or an art book, they offer glossy interior pages that give your illustrations that extra wow factor. I was blown away by some of these samples. The quality of the printing can matter a lot for those kind of books, and doing it cost effectively can matter even more. Several years ago, one of our clients wanted a foil cover. He had to order the books from Singapore and ship them over. It delayed his launch by months, and he had to order five. His book was a fairly Niche book. And a lot of his market was international, which means 5,000 books were slow to sell through. And what if you just want custom books for a Kickstarter campaign or as gifts? You don't want to order 5,000 books of a specialty printed book. You probably want 50 or 100, and you certainly don't want to wait for them to come from halfway across the world. So Print Nation lets you print 50 books so you can have a much smaller cost outlay and a faster timeline. So whether you're looking to sell in bulk to bookstores or you want a high quality, quality custom batch for a book launch or a special event, they've got options for you and you can keep more profits in your own pocket. No middleman taking a big cut. Now, one of the reasons we ended up talking to them in the first place was because we had a client that had a unique cover size request and we were looking for options. And the good news was they could do it. So if you can imagine it for your book, they just might be able to make it happen. Multiple paper options, including coded for great images. As I mentioned, 50 copies is their minimum order. Their binding options are aplenty. Just look at this. They've got saddle stitch, perfect bound, case bound, which is case laminate. They have wiral bound and spiral bound. And spiral bound is especially important because we have had a lot of clients that want to do a book plus a spiral bound workbook and put them together. Well, voila, now you have a way to do it. And you can sell these direct through a store, like a Shopify store. By the way, if you don't have an amazing website with a direct store setup, we can do that for you. We have plenty of website, email funnel and other options to help you. Even if you're not a member of our full service. You can visit book launchers.com and check out our services or email us@teamoklaunchers.com and let us know you want some help with that. And if you want to sell this product bundle on Amazon, so say you've got a book and a workbook, you can get them printed at a place like Print Nation, and then you can set up your Amazon seller account and set it up. Now, if you're wondering how Print Nation compares to KDP and IngramSpark and even book Vault, well, make sure you're subscribed to the channel with notifications on because I've done a deep dive comparison and that video is coming out in just a few weeks. And if you're wondering what the quality is like. Well, let's just see what a non book expert has to say when I have him compare with what was printed from IngramSpark versus Print Nation.

We're ready for the taste test.

What?

This is a book. Mom gave us a book.

What?

What the.

How do we eat these? Oh, this feels better. Quality. Oh, wow. The colors are great.

Nice.

This one just feels kind of not as well made. You can see, you can see the printing on the other side.

Like it bled through a little bit. It just feels like regular paper. So yeah, this one's the best.

Printed by Print Nation.

Ah, Print Nation. There you go.

Great job.

The other one's IngramSpark.

Other one's IngramSpark, which was nice too. But yeah, this one's definitely better.

I think this one is the best.

This is the first book that's printed by Print Nation.

Printed by Print Nation.

So you picked the same one that I did.

I like how it's nice and heavy and you can't see the words or the pages and it doesn't look that burnt on the pages or something like that.

Like a yellow or whatever.

Yellowed white.

So nice.

Bright white.

Yeah. This feels new right here. This feels not so new.

Okay.

I think this one's the best.

I have a deviated septum. Does that count?

I think this one is the best.

All right, Print Nation for the snow win.

I think this one's the best.

Let's see if it's Print Nation. Print Nation smells and feels the best.

All right, so just a couple more details about Print Nation that I love. They have humans. Yes, humans work there. If there is an issue, you can call them. All right, I'm making fun because I've talked a lot about our challenges with KDP and how we have to go through a lot of bots to get to a human. But seriously, it is really great to be able to connect to their team directly and. And they'll make it right. If there is an issue that personal and hands on approach really matters when you have events tied to your book needs. And speaking of events, they will deliver to all major conference and convention centers in the Las Vegas area because they're based out of Henderson. If you don't know Las Vegas and you think it's just a strip, well, it's time to check out the rest of the city that I call home because it's kind of fabulous. If you want a custom quote on your project, just head to printnation.com and reach out to them. We worked with Robert, but their team is ready to help you.

All right, back in my office, I'm reflecting on the Print Nation books and what the taste testers had to say as far as the books. And I wanted to add a couple of things for you. In fact, three particular things just to add clarity, give you more information and of course, if you have any other questions, just post them in the comments below. But first of all, price wise, when you look at Print Nation, KDP and ingramspark, Print Nation's cost for Self, Promote and Succeed, which is just a black and white book, you know, nothing fancy and you know, a soft book cover for printing 50 to 100 books, it was $5.23. Amazon is obviously way cheaper than that at $4.60 and Ingram is at $5.51. So still a little more expensive to go through Ingram. As you get up into higher quantities, Print Nation does become more affordable and almost the cheaper option. If you're over a thousand books, they can print a book like Self Promote and succeed for $4.78. Now keep in mind, Self Promote and Succeed is actually a pretty hefty book. There's 80 some thousand words in that book so it's bigger than your typical non fiction book. And of course there is always our video on book size if you're wondering about that. So when would I use Print Nation? Well, this is what I wanted to add because as I was driving to the office I thought about a couple of scenarios where I use IngramSpark right now or I have to date. But I am absolutely going to switch over to Print Nation and here's why. So obviously for distribution to bookstores, I'm still going to use Print on Demand because it's going to be the easiest, simplest way to fulfill and to sell those books. So I'm still using Ingram for all my bookstore distribution and I'm using KDP for Amazon.com distribution. But for Print Nation, whenever I need a bulk order, I'm going to go through them. And what happened recently was there was an EO Western Region, which is an entrepreneur organization event. There was a Western regional event and I sent them 500 books and I wanted to customize the first page inside of the book for everyone with a little letter to all my fellow EO members. Well, Ingram allows you to do that, but it costs you $1 per book. So it was an additional $500 for me to print that page in each of the 500 books. And I didn't get a much of a bulk discount because Technically, you are supposed to get 3 to 10% discount. But I went back and I didn't see. See that I got a discount on this order. And so I was paying $5.51 per book, plus a dollar per book for this. So I actually paid $6.51. If I had gone through Print Nation, I would have paid $4.89, and I would have just had to send them a slightly updated file that has that letter in it when I uploaded it. So for me, that's a substantial savings. You know, that would have been over $1,000 saved had I gone through Print Nation. And I have to tell you, the quality is substantially better. My son was talking about it all day long after the books. He was like, this is heavier, it's nicer. The paper's better, it feels better. It feels more like a heavier, good product. And check out this picture I took just to show you the difference. When you do have color, if you have a color book, if it is not too cost prohibitive. And Print Nation is more affordable to print color, the color just looks so much better on these coated pages and than it does with ingramsparks print. So those are the scenarios where I will be absolutely switching to Print Nation. And I love their team. They've been so kind and helpful. And, you know, they sent us all these book samples just so we could show you what they can do. Oh, and Ephron's cover, the opposite is true. When you look at this, and I don't know if you can see it through the COVID And again, it's hardcover versus soft cover, but the detail in the COVID it is just exceptionally good on Print Nations, Whereas a lot of these finer details that I know our designer spent a lot of time working on in effort and spent a lot of time going back and forth with our designer on these details, they are lost in the soft cover. And that is not our file that we have created. That is the printing process. And so, again, you know, ingramspark, kdp, they're fine. They have their issues from time to time. They don't have quality control. But as far as print on demand, doing it affordably, effectively, efficiently, it works. But when quality matters or you're ordering in larger quantities, Print Nation is the company to go through if you're ready.

To turn your book into something extraordinary. Print Nation makes it easy. So reach out to them to get your custom quote and make your book dream a reality now. Huge thanks to Print Nation for sending me books for this video and for the next one. I'm doing on a print comparison. If you're ready to take your book to the next level, whether it's foil detailing, glossy pages, or just high quality printing that fits your needs, head on over to printnation.com the link is below in the description if you need it. Now, if you want to learn more about things you should know about book printing, well, that is the perfect video. If not, this is the latest and quite possibly the greatest from the channel. After you check out Print Nation, check out these videos and comment when you get there. I always reply.