neilslade
Getting Fingers Dirty
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2004
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Greetings y'all!
Well, these days I'm down to 4 Canon InkJet printers, and a Brother Laser Jet.
The days of me printing out thousands of books are over--- as my online ebook sales and DVDS and CDS have pretty much covered things.
I did recently begin online PRINT on Demand services for PRINTED versions of my #1 hit Easy Paint Your Car Manual, as well as my
#1 Brain Book, The Frontal Lobes Supercharge.
I've found that LULU offers the easiest to manage interface, they turn out wonderful looking books, and they give you roughly 50% of the retail price. Not bad at all. Not as good as printing the books yourself, but they do all the work, and now that I can afford to farm out the labor again, it makes the most sense.
I've also looked into print on demand via BookSurge, a subsidirary of Amazon--- Book Surge charges a $100 set up fee for each book, but does give you a free ISBN number. Bear in mind, I've sold my books for 10 years, and got a major publishing deal from one of Europes largest publishers Rowholt Verlage, and never had an ISBN. Further, Book Surge through Amazon only gives you 25% of the retail selling prince--- can we say "rip off".
Now, the only think is, if being on Amazon turns out to be a HUGE marketing advantage-- i.e. if I more than double the amount of books I am selling off of my own site and Lulu, then it pays off. Otherwise, if book sales remain the same, or I do not ADDITIONALLY double my book sales-- being on Amazon via book surge is NOT A GOOD IDEA. So, I will be watching this very carefully and reporting back.
IF HOWEVER you want to print small numbers of books on your own for any reason, I printed thousands of copies of my books at home, and bound them with plastic comb rings, and did very well economically for a year. But it was very time consuming and labor intensive. Here;s a few tips to make it easier:
Don't use OEM ink for gods sake, either refill ( I swear by MIS Associates) or use G&G ink. Each has its advantages and disadvantages
1) MIS is about $1 to refill a cart. That's about is cheap as it gets for good waterproof accurate color ink. Spend less, you'll get crap.
NOTE: The large Canon carts like 3 or 5 bci carts MUS HAVE PIGMENT INK or the prints will be sub quality, and may even run. DON"T PUT PHOTO INK in these carts. MIS makes both photo and pigment ink black--- get the right one. The small 6BCI carts take the PHOTO ink, but the larger capacity 3 and 5 carts take pigment ink. Get it RIGHT!
One note--- this issue of pigment ink is really most concern when printing on PLAIN PAPER. It is of less concern on PHOTO paper, although you will have to reduce the amount of black by -18 or so to render the same amount of black flowing on the print. This is because photo black is thinner ink that dries slower. So if you put photo ink in a cartridge designed to release pigment ink, the print will show too much black, and on plain paper appear more fuzzy.
This is in fact the problem with all of the other vender's, unfortunately including G&G *who generally makes the most superior third party rpre-filled carts I have ever found-- G&G sill puts photo ink in ALL its Canon carts---- this creates text that is more fuzzy than it should be on plain paper, and occasionally leakgin 3 and 5 carts. If this is problematic for you-- and it seems this is related to the age of the printer and how much use its gotten, you can grin and bear it, or refill this one cart with proper MIS ink.
I am constantly being told about cheaper inks common out all the time.
Been there done that. PLEASE SEE http://www.neilslade.com/Papers/inktest.html where I do extensive testing on a dozen cheap inks. Most of them BLEEEEECHH.
in addition to my main page at http://www.neilslade.com/Papers/inkjetstuff.html
You get what you pay for. And although inkgrabber and G&G ink is certainly not the cheapest ink you can get nowadays, it is certainly a very good quality that I have come to depend on for years, and its the only third party pre-filled carts I recommend. In general they've always provided me and my friends with good service, but nobody is perfect, so if you have order trouble, just politely inform them, and I am sure they will help you.
This is in fact the problem with all of the other vender's, unfortunately including G&G *who generally makes the most superior third party rpre-filled carts I have ever found-- G&G sill puts photo ink in ALL its Canon carts---- this creates text that is more fuzzy than it should be on plain paper, and occasionally leakgin 3 and 5 carts. If this is problematic for you-- and it seems this is related to the age of the printer and how much use its gotten, you can grin and bear it, or refill this one cart with proper MIS ink.
2) In the case of new Canon printers that take the new CHIPPED CARTS from HELL--- like ip4200, ip4300 and others, I've tried removing and refitting the chips--and puting on G&G carts. it rarely works.
The best solution is simply to REFILL the carts with MIS ink (like I said, its the best) and by drilling a hole in the top, getting those wonderful little blue plugs from Computer Friends (these are much easier than the round rubber plugs or using sealing wax or glue or screws).
And of course you can always go broke buying official Canon ink which works wonderfully, but is ridiculously expensive and impractical for lots of printing, although it probably has the best lighfast qualities by far.
MIS has decent enough lighfast qualities-- but doesn't seem to score in tests as high as the high priced spred, and G&G is good for casual use, don't bank on it to preserver family heirloom photos.
By the way, I have the #1 page on Yahoo and Google on EASY PAINT YOUR CAR check it out! http://www.neilslade.com/Papers/Painting.html
and I also have a new DVD out, THE WHOLE UNIVERSE DVD-- 40 Hours of Stupendous Brain Magic at http://www.neilslade.com/cds.html
Yes, I print all the labels and make all the CDs and DVDs here in my littly cozy office.
I continue to make my entire living off of my own books, movies, and DVDS.
Have fun at my YOUTube page at http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=neilslade000
See UFOS, Kate Bush, Film Clips, Funny Music, Erfie and Chloem and my lates video for the icelandic superstar Bjork.
Okay, thats about it till my new book comes out
Stay tuned :
Neil Slade
www.BrainRadar.com
:|:/
e
Well, these days I'm down to 4 Canon InkJet printers, and a Brother Laser Jet.
The days of me printing out thousands of books are over--- as my online ebook sales and DVDS and CDS have pretty much covered things.
I did recently begin online PRINT on Demand services for PRINTED versions of my #1 hit Easy Paint Your Car Manual, as well as my
#1 Brain Book, The Frontal Lobes Supercharge.
I've found that LULU offers the easiest to manage interface, they turn out wonderful looking books, and they give you roughly 50% of the retail price. Not bad at all. Not as good as printing the books yourself, but they do all the work, and now that I can afford to farm out the labor again, it makes the most sense.
I've also looked into print on demand via BookSurge, a subsidirary of Amazon--- Book Surge charges a $100 set up fee for each book, but does give you a free ISBN number. Bear in mind, I've sold my books for 10 years, and got a major publishing deal from one of Europes largest publishers Rowholt Verlage, and never had an ISBN. Further, Book Surge through Amazon only gives you 25% of the retail selling prince--- can we say "rip off".
Now, the only think is, if being on Amazon turns out to be a HUGE marketing advantage-- i.e. if I more than double the amount of books I am selling off of my own site and Lulu, then it pays off. Otherwise, if book sales remain the same, or I do not ADDITIONALLY double my book sales-- being on Amazon via book surge is NOT A GOOD IDEA. So, I will be watching this very carefully and reporting back.
IF HOWEVER you want to print small numbers of books on your own for any reason, I printed thousands of copies of my books at home, and bound them with plastic comb rings, and did very well economically for a year. But it was very time consuming and labor intensive. Here;s a few tips to make it easier:
Don't use OEM ink for gods sake, either refill ( I swear by MIS Associates) or use G&G ink. Each has its advantages and disadvantages
1) MIS is about $1 to refill a cart. That's about is cheap as it gets for good waterproof accurate color ink. Spend less, you'll get crap.
NOTE: The large Canon carts like 3 or 5 bci carts MUS HAVE PIGMENT INK or the prints will be sub quality, and may even run. DON"T PUT PHOTO INK in these carts. MIS makes both photo and pigment ink black--- get the right one. The small 6BCI carts take the PHOTO ink, but the larger capacity 3 and 5 carts take pigment ink. Get it RIGHT!
One note--- this issue of pigment ink is really most concern when printing on PLAIN PAPER. It is of less concern on PHOTO paper, although you will have to reduce the amount of black by -18 or so to render the same amount of black flowing on the print. This is because photo black is thinner ink that dries slower. So if you put photo ink in a cartridge designed to release pigment ink, the print will show too much black, and on plain paper appear more fuzzy.
This is in fact the problem with all of the other vender's, unfortunately including G&G *who generally makes the most superior third party rpre-filled carts I have ever found-- G&G sill puts photo ink in ALL its Canon carts---- this creates text that is more fuzzy than it should be on plain paper, and occasionally leakgin 3 and 5 carts. If this is problematic for you-- and it seems this is related to the age of the printer and how much use its gotten, you can grin and bear it, or refill this one cart with proper MIS ink.
I am constantly being told about cheaper inks common out all the time.
Been there done that. PLEASE SEE http://www.neilslade.com/Papers/inktest.html where I do extensive testing on a dozen cheap inks. Most of them BLEEEEECHH.
in addition to my main page at http://www.neilslade.com/Papers/inkjetstuff.html
You get what you pay for. And although inkgrabber and G&G ink is certainly not the cheapest ink you can get nowadays, it is certainly a very good quality that I have come to depend on for years, and its the only third party pre-filled carts I recommend. In general they've always provided me and my friends with good service, but nobody is perfect, so if you have order trouble, just politely inform them, and I am sure they will help you.
This is in fact the problem with all of the other vender's, unfortunately including G&G *who generally makes the most superior third party rpre-filled carts I have ever found-- G&G sill puts photo ink in ALL its Canon carts---- this creates text that is more fuzzy than it should be on plain paper, and occasionally leakgin 3 and 5 carts. If this is problematic for you-- and it seems this is related to the age of the printer and how much use its gotten, you can grin and bear it, or refill this one cart with proper MIS ink.
2) In the case of new Canon printers that take the new CHIPPED CARTS from HELL--- like ip4200, ip4300 and others, I've tried removing and refitting the chips--and puting on G&G carts. it rarely works.
The best solution is simply to REFILL the carts with MIS ink (like I said, its the best) and by drilling a hole in the top, getting those wonderful little blue plugs from Computer Friends (these are much easier than the round rubber plugs or using sealing wax or glue or screws).
And of course you can always go broke buying official Canon ink which works wonderfully, but is ridiculously expensive and impractical for lots of printing, although it probably has the best lighfast qualities by far.
MIS has decent enough lighfast qualities-- but doesn't seem to score in tests as high as the high priced spred, and G&G is good for casual use, don't bank on it to preserver family heirloom photos.
By the way, I have the #1 page on Yahoo and Google on EASY PAINT YOUR CAR check it out! http://www.neilslade.com/Papers/Painting.html
and I also have a new DVD out, THE WHOLE UNIVERSE DVD-- 40 Hours of Stupendous Brain Magic at http://www.neilslade.com/cds.html
Yes, I print all the labels and make all the CDs and DVDs here in my littly cozy office.
I continue to make my entire living off of my own books, movies, and DVDS.
Have fun at my YOUTube page at http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=neilslade000
See UFOS, Kate Bush, Film Clips, Funny Music, Erfie and Chloem and my lates video for the icelandic superstar Bjork.
Okay, thats about it till my new book comes out
Stay tuned :
Neil Slade
www.BrainRadar.com
:|:/e
