A printing house that specializes in self-publishing. I used them to print Game Quest, my 500 page epic, and they were very helpful, friendly and responsive. They know what they're doing and I never once got the feeling that they were trying to screw me around. They even underquoted my book by a couple hundred dollars by accident and stuck with it! They provide cover design and a bar code free of charge, if needed. Based in Winnipeg. I can't recommend them enough, if you're a Canadian Independent writer.

Another Manitoba printer. Their Print On Demand seems reasonable, although I haven't worked with them. Do research before going with POD books, as there is a lot of bias against them. P.O.D. is a process (digital printing, essentially) that more and more printers are using to do books. The bias comes from the fact that this process has become associated with vanity presses (which most people also confuse with self-publishers). The process isn't a problem, but the perception is.

Out of Michigan. Not, I don't think, associated with THE Doubleday. This printer was recommended to me by Jeff Potter of Out Your Backdoor for small run, Print on Demand jobs.

A New York Press specializing in comic books. This means they don't have great prices for LONG books, but are good with graphics and smaller page counts. They do good work, although, at this point in time, it's hard to get same quality of shade reproduction from a digital printer as from the offset. On the other hand, offset requires LARGE print runs to be profitable. It looks like they do great work, though, and are willing to work on anything.

According to their byline this place is the "#1 Self Publishing Site on the Internet!" If you don't know anything at all about printing or the technical side of self-publishing, this is probably a good place to start for basic Information. If you don't really want be that involved with the production of your book, these people, like most POD printers, will handle mostly everything. You can just send your word document. This means they are working in mass and never expect someone else, who hasn't read nor cares about your book, to do an amazing job. They are getting paid for turn-around. This isn't to disparage their service, it's probably just right for a lot of people. It's very focused, I think, towards hobby writers and probably isn't the best place for serious underground writers in that sense. (I've been put on their mail list for all sorts of 'motivational' speeches about how to get your book into fairs all over the world, sell your script to hollywood, etc...) But if you still want to do it yourself, but get a cheap price and have someone else handle the bulk of it, these guys might be an option.

There are loads of these sites on the web, offering full-scale publishing services to authors from editing, to design and layout, to marketing. Some of them wade awfully close, if not deep into, the realm of vanity publishing. They're easy to find and Lulu is the only one I'll mention here because I know several authors who have used them, so they can't be that bad. Make no mistake, like all the others Lulu is a middleman who will take a large cut of your book to provide services most authors don't have enough time, understanding or dedication to do themselves. That said, there are big advantages: they sell your book on their site, can get it listed on Amazon.com, promote it for you, print books only as they are needed. They have a vested interest in your book selling, because they get a good cut, so that probably keeps them honest. It means, though, that your book will be more costly and you'll get a much smaller cut. Don't think that just because they'll do some minor marketing of your book that it will take off, though. It's proselytizing that has sold the Bible, not the quality of the Bible itself. Quality of content has very little to do with a book taking off in the short term. The only person who can really market your book effectively, assuming you have a quality book, is you.