Did you know that your book back cover information is, after the cover, the best way to sell more books? And, that most authors, emerging and experienced, miss this opportunity to engage more potential buyers?

Your book’s front cover and sizzling title must impress your buyers in four-eight seconds. If they like it, they will spend ten or so seconds on your cover-a great opportunity to convince them that your book is necessary for their success.

Does your cover pass the test?

Book Cover Tips – Best Solutions to the Biggest Mistakes

1. Mistake: Too many non-powerful words and too busy to have a focus.

Solutions: A back cover of 6 by 9 inches should have fewer than 70 words. Use sound bites; picture and emotional words; benefits, not features; and testimonials to capture your readers’ attention to keep your message focused. Make every word count and be willing to get five-fifteen edits.

2. Mistake: Too much superfluous material on it such a long author’s bio or large photo. Potential buyers want to know how the book will help them, teach them a skill, or entertain them.

Solutions: Print only a one or two-line bio on the back cover. Put your photo and more bio on the inside of the cover. Omit features such as format information, which belong in the mini sales letter short introduction.

Connect with your buyer emotionally with specific, powerful ad copy. For self-help books use bullets with specific benefits, and enough of the right kind of testimonials to sell your book in under 15 seconds. For fiction, modify to include a startling scene with snappy including a bit of plot, and maybe a powerful quote. Use bookstore models to assist you.

3. Mistake: Repeating the book’s title at the top of the book back cover.

Solutions: Since your potential buyers already know the title and are stimulated enough to look at the back cover, hook them with an emotional question or headline that gives them the #one benefit of your book.

Create a “Hot Headline” that compels your reader to buy. Notice the headlines in your newspaper. Visit your bookstore and notice other best selling authors’ headlines. “What’s So Tough About Writing?” by wordsmith Richard Lederer, author of The Write Way; “Imagine Being an Author,” in Dan Poynter’s Writing Nonfiction; or “To Age is Natural…To Grow Old is Not! In Rico Caveglia’s Ageless Living.

4. Mistake: Omitting testimonials.

Solutions: Testimonials sell more books than any other information on the cover. Put at least three up. Contact a variety of people. Use one from a top professional in your field, one from a satisfied reader, one from a celebrity who cares about your topic, and one from a top media person. These can be local contacts.

In her book, A Kick in Your Inspiration, Ruth Cleveland got one testimonial from an ex convict! Jacqueline Marcell, author of Elder Rage, took eight months to get forty testimonials from celebrities. Her book is endorsed by: Steve Allen, Ed Asner, Dr. Dean Edell, Dr. John Gray, Dr. Nancy Snyderman/ABC, Regis Philbin. Jacqueline Bisset, and Phyllis Diller.

Worth the effort? Yes, because in April 2001, she made the cover of the American Association of Retired Persons Bulletin distributed to over 35 million readers. It included a feature story, some how-tos and contacts and pictures of the author and her book. She had to dance fast, and order 10,000 books to get distributed by the time the piece came out. After it came out, she was inundated with speaking engagements. There’s a problem you might love to have!

After you write several books and become rich and famous, you, like other professionals, will fill your book back cover with testimonials. You won’t even need to add benefits, because people have already bought your other books and liked them.

Potential buyers will purchase when they see people they trust and know recommend the book. Besides filling the back cover with testimonials, you may want to even add extra testimonials in the front pages of the book. The more testimonials, the better!

If you are unsure how to ask for testimonials the easy way, contact a professional book coach.

5. Mistake. Independent publishers submitting galleys to reviewers, distributors, and wholesales without ANY cover information.

Solutions: “Make the back cover your first area of concern,” says Susan Howard, Director of Consulting Services at top publishing firm, The Jenkins Group Inc., who write “The Publishing Connection” She adds, “Waiting for testimonials is generally the reason the book back cover of a galley is left blank. Failure to realize the value of the cover seems to equate with the failure to realize that the text for the finished back cover can always be changed before the printing of the book.”

It’s important for writers to “market while they write” with the “Essential Hot-Selling Points”– To make each part of their book sell copies. The book’s back cover is all-important.

By: Judy Cullins

About the Author:

Self publishing is one of those activities where the old saying is true – “if you want a job done well, do it yourself”.

Consider the stages in self publishing: You write the book, you send it to a publisher or maybe to an independent printer and book binder. You collect the books and then try to sell them. Or maybe you leave the whole publishing job to a specialist publisher.

Look at the possibilities for something to go wrong: The printer is behind time, the costs per book are high, the appearance of the book is not to your liking. You are left with too many unsold copies. If you use a print on demand publisher they take a large cut of the price, and so on.

Now look at this scenario. You write the book. You market it. As you get orders you run off a copy of the book on your home printer. You create a cover for the book using card and do the artwork using a simple desk top publishing program (you can get one free). You bind the book using a simple wooden jig you can make yourself or get a handy woodworker to make for you for a few dollars. Each book takes only about 5 minutes to bind and the whole cost of the book is normally only about one dollar depending on the quality of paper used!

This is the ultimate simple, easy self publishing and self book binding dream.

The beauty of this method is that you are totally in control of everything. In fact if you are a fast writer you could have a book written, printed and published and in the post or the shelves in less than a week.

We are not talking here about some shoddy looking bunch of papers stapled together or a few sheets pressed into one of those school or office type binders. We are talking about an attractive, normal sized paperback book which can stand alongside normally published books and be practically indistinguishable from them. Except it will have your name or logo on it.

By: Joseph Kerrigan

About the Author:

How much should a print on demand book cost?

Book cost is critical to your success as an author. If the self-publishing company you choose charges too much for your book, you will be priced out of the market.

You need to know how to calculate a fair print on demand (POD) cost for your book. Most POD printers charge about $.015 per page plus $.90 for the cover for paperback books. Mark Levine, in his book, The Fine Print of Self Publishing, says authors should memorize this formula.

Mark is right. You should not only memorize it, you should pass it on to every author you meet. If every author knew how to calculate the cost of a POD book, they could put a stop to price gouging.

Self-publishing companies are entitled to charge reasonable fees for their services, but they should not increase book costs to the point they can not be sold. Using the formula that you just memorized, a 150 page book would cost $3.15 (150 X .015 = 2.25 plus .90 = 3.15) to print.

Add 15 percent service charge and your book would cost $3.62. To discover how much you would make, you have to subtract the standard discount of 55 percent (15% for the distributor/wholesaler; 40% for the bookseller) and the cost of your book from the retail price of the book.

For example, if you set the retail price of your book at $12.95, subtract the standard discount: $12.95 – 55% = $5.83; then subtract the cost of your book, $5.83 – $3.62 = $2.21. You would make $2.21.

But what if your book cost $8.00. Not unheard of, and some companies charge even more. That is why it is so important to know what your book is going to cost and do the math before you settle on a company.

Look at what happens: $12.95 – 55% = $5.83; $5.83 – $8.00 = – $2.17. You just lost $2.17. And remember, the standard discount is a percentage. If you increase the price, the amount of the discount also increases. For example, raise the price to $16.95: $16.95 – 55% = $7.63; $7.63 – $8.00 = $0.37. We still lost 37 cents. At $18.95, you would make 53 cents.

How much is your book worth?

The $8.00 is a real world figure. So, how do they get away with it? First, they stress how much you will make in their online bookstore. In other words, they act as the bookseller and share their 40 percent with you.

Second, they offer the distributor a short discount. Some publishers are getting discounts as low as 20 percent. Remember, it does not cost anything to store digital book files and we calculated around $3.15 to print our sample book. Bottom line: You will most likely make a couple of dollars even with outrageously priced books, but be careful with book signings.

A long time ago, I paid $8.21 each for my books that retailed for $14.95. I sold 29 copies at my first and last book signing. The bookstore made $5.98 on each book for a total of $173.42. I made $0.76 on each book for a total of $22.04. It was a valuable lesson.

Bookstores, of course, will not carry books that only offer a short discount. That is okay. They do not like self-published books anyway. Some self-publishing companies will explain this to you. Some will not.

By: David W. Griffiths

About the Author:

Print on Demand or POD is a very popular way of printing books such as ebooks or other types of books. Print on demand publishing is really growing into its own industry. This type of printing allows you to print one book at a time versus having to print a thousand books at a time with traditional publishers. Print on demand publishing also has the advantage of not needing a warehouse or storage for books. This is also very cost efficient. While it does have a set-up cost, for many, it is the best way to publish their books.

Print on demand publishing also reduces the cost for book publishing. You don’t have to sit by the phone and fill orders which are a great relief. You also don’t have to go and collect the money that you have made from book chains. You get it immediately. Print on demand publishing also doesn’t require one big investment as far as getting your books printed. A book printed in this fashion is the same as one that has been published by a traditional book publishing company. You don’t have to store books, period.

So you can see immediately why print on demand publishing is running away with the crowd. Not many people in this economic time have a lot of money to put up to publish a book in the traditional fashion. Here is another thing that will make you smile about POD. Once it is set up in this fashion, for each copy sold you will receive more income from it. Smiling already? Here are more advantages to using print on demand publishing is that you can keep your book in stock and not worry about being eaten alive by publishing cost.

Print on demand publishing also is being used by major publishing houses to keep their books in stock, so it is a very viable way to keep your book out there in the public eye without costing a small fortune to produce and publish. With the advent of computer technology, it is also easier to print these books. So you really don’t have the drawbacks of using traditional publishers to market and sell your book. It also costs much less to do a POD than it would for a traditional publisher to get your money’s worth from publishing.

So you can see why it is simpler to use a print on demand publishing firm to publish your book and keep it. It can be ordered one at a time so no storage is needed. You can also have many different sites that will link your book to the POD so that anyone that wants one just needs to pay for it and poof, they have their book and you have money as a writer. So between publishing traditionally and using POD, POD is the best way to go for anyone wanting to publish a book. If you are interested in POD for yourself, then check out many different POD publishers listed on the internet.

By: Bill Boor

About the Author:

Even with the rise of the Internet, most people still turn toward printed materials for their day to day lives. Granted, print media are an age old craft that has persisted through such technological advances as touch screens, remote controls and e-books such as the Kindle. Indeed, printed calendars, booklets, brochures and other media, in addition to not needing any electronic know how to use, are also advantageous in the sense that they do not run out of batteries or electricity, as is sometimes the case during blackouts. Enter the saddle stitch stapler, undoubtedly the most powerful tool in the creation of both commercial and personal printed material.

This special stapler, which also goes by the name of the saddle stapler, is a very powerful little device used in the practice of bookbinding. It is used to stick staples into the spine of the book, which is also called the saddle (hence the name). This makes it a handy tool not only in most craft projects, but also in many different forms of print media. The following are just a few uses of the saddle stapler:

Brochures – These are always important in outlining the ins and outs of a business, in order to explain to potential customers as many things as possible without having to waste too much saliva on doing so. Fire up the layout software in your computer, or even write and draw it out by hand if you like. Once you have everything laid out, simply fasten everything together with your saddle stitch stapler. Easy, cheap advertising; is there anything to not like?

Calendars – These may be considered a step up from brochures, in the sense that they can also be given away, but unlike the former they are actually useful around the home and the office. Having a calendar advertising your business hanging around homes and offices of your clients may serve as a subtle yet very powerful form of advertising. Just remember to take note if you are planning to draw up a calendar of a leap year, though!

Independent comics – Feeling creative? Then try your hand at creating and putting together your very own comic book with the help of a saddle stapler. Whether for further promoting a business or simply for personal pleasure, comics are a contemporary medium that have the potential to entertain a huge audience, the perfect combination of writing and graphic art. Simply draw your comic, scan and print duplicates, and use the saddle stitching technique to bind them securely. Distribute to your friends and family, or even sell them for an honest buck or two.

There are so many other uses for a saddle stitch stapler; you are only confined to the limits of your imagination. Anything that requires the easy, clean and proper fastening together of pieces of paper will find an easy solution in the technique of saddle stitching.

By: Frank K Cobert

About the Author:

Did your publisher give you a bad deal with your last book? Was your creative freedom compromised due to commercial interest of your publisher? These are some common problems in the publishing industry and it is the time you need to move to self publishing. In this mode you publish your own book and do not have to knock the doors of a publisher. You just need to take your book to a printer and get it published.

There is a myth that self publishing is a very difficult process and involves huge investment from your side. The reality however isn’t quite far from the myth. Self publishing definitely needs some investment upfront but it is nothing to be scared of. The printing technology has advanced and in this digital age you can go for the exact number of copies you require and not print in bulk, like in the days of manual printing.

Self publishing will allow you to keep the rights of your book and reap maximum benefits out of it unlike in the case of going to a publisher who pays you only a part of the profit. You can opt for small run of books to test it’s performance and go for a reprint in case it succeeds. You also get to keep the reprint rights of the book in case you go for republishing.

One of the most important factors in self publishing is choosing the printer. You need to opt for a very good printer to ensure high quality book printing. If the book doesn’t look good, it won’t be able to attract attention when placed among a crowd of books in a book store. Here are a few things that you should keep in mind while approaching a printer for your book printing:

Make sure that your manuscript is full proof. Many people get so carried away with self publishing that they mess up with the manuscript. Try to give the soft copy of your manuscript to the printer as this speeds up the printing process at the end.

Check out if the printing agency you are approaching, has editing and proof reading services. You should opt for these as this will refine your book and make it better. You can also get it done from a third party in case your printer doesn’t have these services available.

Design a proper cover for your book before you go to the printer for printing the book. You can also ask the printer to design it in case you are not able to do it yourself. The cover should be attractive and stand out when placed in a book store.

Get an ISBN number for your book before you approach the printer. This is kind of a recognition for your book and a must if you plan to sell your book through online platforms such as Amazon.

Make a good assessment of the market before you approach the printer with your book. You need to print according to the estimated demand. Try opting for short run book printing to reduce losses in case the book fails to do well.

These things will ensure that you will go to the printer fully prepared for your self published book. Remember, preparedness can reduce the time of printing and let you see your published book faster.

For More Information: http://www.printpapa.com/

By: Smith McGehan

About the Author:

The Bible is said to the bestselling book of all time with estimated figures of a whopping 6 billion prints to date. Doubtfully, if there is any other book that can ever surpass that. Truth is, the advent of book printing has dated back in history through the lives of what we read about today in the ancient scriptures.

New York City: known throughout the world for reviewing books and endorsing books with captions like “New York Times Bestseller” pays tribute to the magic that makes so many NY settlers bookworms. You can find people reading books literally anywhere, from kiosks to buses and trains. New Yorkers are known throughout the world as having so much passion in reading books.

There is something about books that make this hand stuff come handy to a lot of people. While the trend of reading through eBooks and PDF files in the computers have considerably risen, there are still those who find pleasure in ticking the pages of this age-old marvel.

The magic of books isn’t only true to the adult bookworms. Some of the young ones already expressed interest in books by flipping through pages even at dismal ages. They sort of just play through them and a mother can truly find such joy as little ones get so much happiness from such exercise. Could it be that even before children get their senses, they already have this innate connection with books? I begin to wonder so I started to ask around and sit with mothers. Gladly, they said one common thing. It is actually the mothers that established such connection early on they always love the idea of smart kids. The direct influence of youngsters having this predisposition to be connected to books are actually the significant others around the young one.

While this innate connection is under threat due to the recent technological advancements of the computer and the internet, books still deliver efficiently the very purpose they were bound for. Knowledge is power, and with that, books that deliver knowledge is a bridge that connects those that love knowledge and the power that comes along with it.

The magic that brings have might be strong enough for it to endure this long. The first recorded manuscripts ever written would have to be the first five books of the Hebrew torah. What’s amazing is that even through all the length of time since that first time when those books were first written, they have never lost their luster. Today, the magic of books is still very much alive as the world finds the greatest guidance, inspiration and hope from the pages of the world’s oldest— the Bible.

By: Greg Pierce

About the Author:

I just finished reading the “Green Collar Economy: How one solution can fix our two biggest problems” by Van Jones. As the founder of a job board and blog that focuses on green ideas and green careers, I read almost every book that is related to the topic. This book is one of the best out there and it is not surprise because in my opinion Van Jones is one of the best speakers, authors and advocates for the green job movement. I just heard him speak at the Powershift Conference and I rushed out to pick up his book. I am glad I did.

This book is very well written and delivers a concise and compelling message. The basic message of the book is that to reducing our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels, we will be saving our planet and also saving our economy by creating a new green collar industry and along with that millions of jobs.

What I like best about the book is that the author focuses on the solutions and not the problems. The author has some tremendous ideas that although difficult are not impossible to implement. Another great part of the book is that at the end the author provides a comprehensive directory of resources and businesses that are part of the green jobs movement. It would have taken me weeks to accumulate all those resources on my own.

In closing, this is a must read for anyone that is in the green collar industry or anyone that is looking to break in.

By: Dan Keller

About the Author:

As far as I know, there are currently 3 printers being used for print on demand Photo books:

Xerox iGen (toner-based); HP Indigo (4 color inks, though it is possible to upgrade this to a 6 color printer); and Kodak NexPress (toner).

I don’t believe that any of the books ordered are using NexPress.

There are some things I’ll never know – such as how the quality of the book changes from one order to the next, since as I rule out various POD publishers, I’m not ordering any books from them.

I began with Lulu.com (3 years ago) and wasn’t happy with the results. I then decided on SharedINK.com as the best solution for me. I have signed up for their Premium Professional Photograper Program. Although this has all taken a lot of time and effort, if you are serious about giving your prints a good home – then SharedInk is the place. Second on the list would be MyPublisher. (Since writing this, I’ve switched to MyPublisher.com for all my printing).

With all of these printers, a lot of the quality depends on paper choices, and especially on often and carefully the machines are calibrated. This is a major issue with print on demand technology as opposed to traditional off-set printing. I don’t imagine it’s such a big deal if you’re printing your latest novel, but it is a big deal with professional-looking photo books and even more of an issue if you are using a four-color system for a black and white printing.

For black and white printing, you have two choices: 4 color (cyan, magenta, yellow, black); or strictly black and white with either one toner color or ink (black).

The tonal range with four color is wider than with all grayscale printing – but you then take the chance of color shifts, or various types of color added to the b&w photo.

Grades are from A+ (the best) to F (awful) and are slanted towards the final result. Ease of use, turnaround time, price, I don’t give these as much weight as I give the final quality of the final product. For example, if the turnaround time is great, and the book looks like crap, then I don’t give turnaround time much credit. Somebody else might look at these grades and say, I loved my Blurb book. Or I couldn’t stand using SharedInk. In short, as much as I’m trying to quantify this, a lot has to do with my own biases, and esp. my biases towards black and white printing (which is a big factor).

VioVio was a softcover book, not hardcover like the rest. And I haven’t put Lulu into the grid because I tried them almost two years ago. I still have the physical book I did with them, and they were the worst: streaking magenta, grainy, and thin paper. But as I say, that was two years ago, and so I haven’t included them in this chart. This grid includes books produced during the last two months or so. The other

Online vs. Client software. Online means that you upload Jpegs, or PDF file (could be both) and arrange the book online. Client side means that you download and install software on your PC / Mac and eventually upload it through the software to make the book.

Blurb is sort of odd because their client software still is marked as Beta. Although I didn’t have any major issues with it, their forums are filled with people who are having issues going from one version to the next; along with program lockups etc. Sometimes these issues don’t arise until you’ve done a book with lots of pages. On the other hand, some of the other forums have more moderation, so there could be similar issues that I’m not aware of.

None of the client software is perfect. For example, MyPublisher is easy to use, and seems stable and well-thought out. But the supplied templates aren’t as flexible as say the Blurb or Digilabs software. But MyPublisher has many features that Blurb doesn’t offer. If you are doing your project with client-side software and haven’t done an upload and the program stops working for you – then you could be in the position of losing your work. On the other hand, none of the web-based interfaces were as easy to use as the client-side software.

Turnaround time is more important than I first realized. If you are doing Print on Demand and it takes two weeks to get a book produced, and you are shipping to clients, than this can be an issue. You may decide that you need to order a bunch of books at one time, rather than order one each time someone requests a book. On the other hand, if you have “built-in” clients, such as what a wedding photographer has, and you know about how many books you’ll need, then slight differences in turnaround time may not be a big deal.

In my own case, MyPublisher was so quick, that I’d feel comfortable ordering individual books as the orders came in. The other plus, and an issue to keep in mind, is where the company ships from. MyPublisher, shipping from New York, saves me money on shipping since I’m in New York. Also, if you are doing a bunch of test printings, then cost and time to get the book is equally important. At any rate – turnaround time in the grid doesn’t include ship time. Also to keep in mind, is that turnaround time may be related to the complexity of the book, and of course – time of year.

Consistency from Order to Order. This is something I can only guess at. But as a general rule, the larger and more diverse the POD publisher, the less likely that you are going to get consistency from order to order. Blurb books are sent out to various printers, as was Lulu. And whenever two books were ordered at different times, the color management and printing were different. I still have two books done by Lulu, one leaning towards magenta, the other one towards green. With Blurb, I returned the first book because it was overly magenta, and the next book arrived, with still traces of magenta – but with better (less grainy) printing.

Other notes: SharedInk – I’m using the Professional Photographer program.

PRINT ON DEMAND PHOTO BOOKS: CONCLUSION

I’ll fill in some of the empty cells in the grid, at least for Digilabs as I go along. But the bottom line, is that I’m hooked on SharedInk. It’s true that they don’t supply client software, but the process is also very simple. You create the page according to their specs as a ” 10 quality” jpg and upload it. This can be via FTP or through their web interface. You can rearrange the pages online with drag / drop.

You preview the book, make your material choices, and in about ten days you receive a very beautiful book.
SHAREINK also offers the use of the G7 curve, which is a relatively new way of getting neutral gray. I just order a few sheets printed this way to see what the difference looks like, along with a swatch package which includes sample paper and sample covers, etc. Read more about the GrACol G7 process.

The old saw about Garbage in, Garbage Out, still goes; and one of the things that you need to realize about making POD fine art books, is that you’ve become the printer. You need to know how to “open the shadows” for printing; the best sharpening techniques; and of course – how to make an interesting book. If you were working with a good fine-art printer, you’d be looking at proofs and teling them what you’d like done to tweak the images. Now there’s no one to tell – that’s going to be your job. You’re responsible for calibrating your monitor. You’re in charge of page layout. The more you know – technically – the better your chance of producing a high-end book – so long as the folks on the other end are also artisans.

Other quirks: Blurb was especially annoying because they give you an estimated ship date, and then miss their own estimation by a couple of days. You pay 10% extra for their “silk paper”but frankly this paper crinkles easily. As you turn the pages, if you are doing double-sided printing, the image from the backside shows though. They say that there product is like a coffee table book you’d buy in a store. This isn’t true. At least VioVio is honest about what you should expect.

MyPublisher has the best client software, but unlike some of the other client software you can’t move the template containers around on th page. MyPublisher also forces you to pay (order) before uploading. You also can’t add fames to the image container.

[Note, since I wrote this I've also ordered a book from Picaboo. Haven't received it yet - but their client-side software is every bit as good as MyPublisher, maybe better. However, I haven't figured out if there's a way to have automatic page numbers inserted. Their pricing is about halfway between MyPublisher and SharedInk. MyPublisher just has so many discounts that it's hard for anyone else to compete. But, it should be noted that Picaboo does have a professional photographers program with a 20% discount on all orders. Not quite the 40% discount that MyPublisher routinely offers, plus MyPublisher cost per page is cheaper - still if Picaboo quality is better than it's worth a look.]

Picaboo: The first book I received from Picaboo had some ink smear on two pages. The quality of the printing is good, on par with MyPublisher. One thing I’m not crazy about is that the window in the cover opens onto the first page of the book. That’s not great in terms of protection. All-in-all, since their pricing is higher than MyPublisher, and the print quality is about the same, I can’t rate them highly. (I’m not taking points off for the smeared ink, which I guess can happen with any printer, though it never happened with MyPublisher and I’ve done many more books with them as of this writing.)

In short, I’d cross Blurb off the list. VioVio is a maybe for a softcover book. MyPublisher for a hardcover book that is moderately priced. The MyPublisher softcover is small, and the cover isn’t great – not a laminated cover – but the print quality is the same as the medium-sized book and the price is right.

SharedInk for the best quality (and support – assuming you are doing this through their Professional Photographer program. I don’t know what if any are the differences for the general consumer process). But pick two PODs and do sample books that are as close to the “real” book you’re planning. That’s the best advise I can offer.

One note about Digilabs. I don’t know what paper / printer they used, but it had a distinct “photo quality” look and fairly heavy sepia tone. None of this is bad if that’s what you want; but it didn’t feel like a book to me, more like a collection of photographs that had been bound together.

CONCLUSION: The best bang for the buck is the Deluxe book from MyPublisher. It uses the heaviest paper (other than SharedInk) and the overall quality is great. You can usually get it at a 50% discounted price.

By: Dave Beckerman

About the Author:

A lot of printing companies already offer online printing services. You just need to upload your project on their website, talk to their customer service representatives, talk about the price, and then if they deliver as well, you would only be waiting for that project of yours right at your doorstep. And while all of these might sound very easy, it is not.

Online printing have a lot more advantages to think about. But in trusting the correct printing company to handle your project would take a little more research.

Choosing the best online printing company would take a lot of time but it would all be worth it. The first step you would need to make in order to help you decide on which online printing company you would be trusting you project to would be to limit your list to companies that specializes on the project that you have.

If you are producing a book, find a highly regarded book printing company that specializes in book printing. If you want to make postcards, find a decent postcard printing company. In this way you would be sure that they would really know how to handle that project of yours because it is their specialty.

After you have toned down your list to these companies that specializes on your project, ask for a quote. Most printing companies already offer easy online printing quote to help you determine how much it would cost you to have your project printed.

Asking for a quote would also help you decide which companies provide low prices for small printing jobs and which gives discount on big volume printing. If you only have a limited budget and not really concerned on producing a very large volume, you can look into small printing companies because they may be able to provide you cheaper price for your printing job. Don’t necessarily choose the one that would be providing you the lowest price. This could very well indicate that they would not be using materials of high quality.

This is the reason why you need to ask for samples as well from the printing companies on your list. This is one way to determine the quality of their work. Look into samples that are closest to the project that you have. Check on the paper they use, ask what kind of equipments they have. If you are producing a large quantity of your project, make sure that the printing company you are going to hire would be able to provide what you need within the amount of time you specified.

Once you were able to determine these factors, what you need to do now is to do the things mentioned a while ago. After you have settled with a couple of printing companies, talk to their customer service representatives and ask them questions that you may still have like if ever you would need to do some modifications on your project, how much more would this cost? Or if you want to add more colors to your printing job, would this do a lot in regards to the printing cost? These questions may seem simple but this could greatly affect the outcome of your project.

After being settled with all these, since most printing companies want to provide their customers the best customer service, they would also be delivering the projects right at your doorstep. This would further help customers save on the trip to the location of the printing company and thus save on time, money for the gas and effort to commute.

These are just some of the benefits of online printing. So why not try this now? The money that you will be spending on your gas, you could put to more valuable use like add it to your budget for printing.

By: Carla San Gaspar

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