I know there have been some other topics floating around about this, but my youngest son wrote a story in school which was actually pretty well thought out. When I read it I mentioned it would be a cute childerns book. He asked me if I could make one for him. So he has commissioned me to work for FREE! How dare he ask for free work. This will be a fun project to work together on, but I think if it turns out good we may want to print and sell them to kids at his school or elsewhere. My question is has anyone every printed their own books and if so who did you use? I have looked into blurb.com but they seem to be pricey. I also just found http://www.bookemon.com/ which seems to have a little more reasonable. Thoughts?
Really fun project to do with your son! I know some print on demands are easy to use, but the picture quality for the one my author used was terrible. I'll let you know which.
that bookemon site looks terrible. No clear pricing structure. No clear descriptions of the process or quality of the product. I'd steer clear there.
I can recommend http://www.printninja.com/
Price is good and quality is great. I'm doing a book with them now...
SVS Faculty Instructor
www.leewhiteillustration.com
@Lee-White LOL yeah I had a hard time looking for pricing as well but I did find it http://www.bookemon.com/help/section/order-related#product-offerings Thanks for the recommendation on printninja. Going to check it out.
Check out createspace by amazon -although I haven't actually seen their products in person, the nice thing is you don't have to bulk print-Back pat on the Awesome dad thing you are doing!!!!!
Hi Chip, sounds like a fun project. Createspace would be the easiest and cheapest route to take. When self publishing you need to factor in ISBn's and you can get a free one with CreateSpace.... It's really easy to use and you just upload your PDF, proof it and then get it sent to you.
The quality is pretty good. I can vouch for the Matt cover, which has a velvety texture. Feel free to ask if you need any help - I went through the process last year! 
Jacs
Magical, fairy tale art. Www.jacquelinewild.com
I will check out createspace. I was looked over the printninja which is really nice but it is bulk and I am not sure if we are ready for that. I was thinking on more of the lines of 25 to 50 books to see if people/friends are interested. I also came across this site: https://www.lulu.com/
Lulu are quite expensive if I remember right. If you register with create space you can put in the size of the book, number of pages and find out the cost per unit. Interestingly the cost per unit stays the same regardless of how many you purchase, but I think you will find its really reasonable.
Good luck x
Confused about something. Say I get 250-500 books printed and I want to try selling them at street fairs or after an event at a local library (basically out of the back of my car). Do I need an ISBN?
I really, really liked that PrintNinja (one of the options I was looking at was like $3/book!) but I set up an account on Createspace just to see what that was and they had a section on ISBNs but I'm not sure I followed it--maybe it was needed because Amazon would be the seller/distributor?
Not really sure what that is for.
@Chip-Valecek What a cool dad! Thanks for posting this query because I am interested in this too. Most of what I do will probably be for family and/or friends. I'll be interested in this conversation 
Chip and Matt, I am a new self-publish author and belong to an author's group. Write your book and get it formatted. To upload it to Kindle Children's Book Creator it needs to be in a mobi file. If you do not know how to do that, you can hire someone through Fiverr. If you want to email me let me know. For the paperback copy, CreateSpace only does paperbacks, I like CreateSpace. Then use Kindle KDP to market your book! Good luck!
@mattramsey the ISBN is for selling purpose. According to createspace the free one they offer is for selling on Amazon only. If you want to sell in stores then you will have to purchase one. Overall I believe i am going to go with createspace for this book project. I can order 25 copies to start. Sell them at $10 a piece and then sell on amazon for $12. Selling on amazon will only profit $3 where selling them in person at $10 will profit $6. I do not tend to be a #1 seller lol it is just for fun and all money earned will be used to help pay for my son's dance classes (since it is his story).
@Chip-Valecek said:
@mattramsey the ISBN is for selling purpose.
So I definitely need an ISBN even if I want to sell the books myself? Sorry for the confusion!
@mattramsey I think if you are going to print and sell yourself you don't need one. But if you are going to take them to a store and have them sell them I think you do.
For those who used create space, how do you get all of your files into one .pdf? I'm stuck on this one. I converted all the pages to pdf from jpeg but they only allow you to pick one file to send.
@bdyanne I used the Adobe pdf programme to do it... You can get 1 month free trial, thank goodness as it's expensive to buy!
I have self published on Createspace.com and have several friends that use them regularly for their self published books. It is free to publish with them and then you just order the number of copies you want. If you do need any of their services you can pay for those separately for each item like editing, cover design etc. Most of my friends set up their own books and just turn them in to them to publish. They are a Amazon company and very good.
BTW: a word of caution about self publishing. No matter which company you decide to use, read the fine print on anything you have to agree to. You don't want to grant them rights to the work in any form.
Lulu are quite expensive if I remember right. If you register with create space you can put in the size of the book, number of pages and find out the cost per unit. Interestingly the cost per unit stays the same regardless of how many you purchase, but I think you will find its really reasonable.
Good luck x
