MagCloud (an HP Service) has an interesting alternative to using LuLu or one of the other book publishers. It is a print-on-demand magazine publisher.
There are two advantages, as far as I can tell. If you are publishing smaller number of pages with lots of color graphics this would be cheaper than a paperback book. It has a larger form factor than a book so the same number of words can go on fewer pages.
At 20 cents a page it is still not cheap, but a 20 page eZine would be produced for $4. Most internet magazines would fit into this size.
It costs you next nothing. If you are an eZine publisher it would make sense to try it out.
I am thinking about producing a beekeeping magazine about my hives using text from my blog and filling it with pictures.
I am also thinking about publishing my short stories as a small magazine, but I would need an artist.
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I checked out magcloud as well a couple of months ago and was appalled at the retail price. For some very special applications, maybe, but under normal circumstances, when you buy a magazine, you’re looking for 120+ pages of content – which would cost 24 bucks. Not even Asimov’s is asking that much, lol.
I tried figuring a way to work it (perhaps a quarterly) but between the page price and content costs, I just can’t see it. Maybe the only way it would work is as the “hard copy” version of an e-zine….
Lulu and Ka-Blam and the other sites that do POD magazines are about the same price. The killer is full color pages. Even your local printer would charge 20 cents a page. On your home printer it costs more than 20 cents for a page with lots of color ink.
I have a friend from India with a cousin who will do a similar project for a few cents a page, but there is no feedback along the way, it takes 2 months to get the results by boat and what you get is what you’re stuck with so I haven’t tried him. I am trying to think of a good project to test out Indian printing. It could be a big deal, or a waste of money.