Tips for printing and circulating your work
Our living guide to getting your self-published work printed
In the spirit of collaboration we’re committed to sharing knowledge, resources, and opportunities that support creative people across all disciplines.
This resource guide is a (living) list of people, organizations, printers, and distributors that we’ve either worked with or have been recommended to us.
No discount codes are possible for the following services, but if you have a business to add to the list send us a note at hello@metalabel.com
What are you printing?
When it comes to self-publishing, there are lots of avenues to explore. This guide is broken into four sections:
Digital publishing
Print-on-demand
Working with a printer
Printer Resource Guide (living doc)
Not sure which direction to go in? See what we learned printing The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet for some first-hand experience and inspiration.
Option 1: Digital publishing
One option for distributing your printed work — whether it's a book, zine, or magazine — is actually to not print at all. We’ve seen friends and strangers on Metalabel have success releasing a zine or essays as a PDF to gauge interest, or build momentum to something in print. This is also a great avenue for a publication that’s already out of print.
Digital releases can be free, pay-what-you-wish, or a price you set (we recommend $10 or less). We’ve used digital releasing in both ways, even offering a PDF version someone could take to a printer themselves if they wanted to. This is a great way to give a digital piece of writing more tangibility and weight.
Option 2: Print-on-demand
Another option is to work with a service that prints as orders are received. This option trades flexibility with ease of printing, sometimes with less of a focus on quality.
IngramSpark
A print and publishing on demand service that’s operated by one of the major publishers. Allows you to publish straight into Amazon and other book sellers. We’re planning to use this for softcover editions of our books (while using some of the printing options below for the hardcover, first editions).
Mixam
Has a print on demand service called Print Link (available in the US and UK). Unfortunately this service does not allow for integrations to feed into it. It does have one-off printing, but you have to input each address manually as a new order. Mixam also has no ShipStation integration — there is also no bulk order uploading that would allow you to put in different shipping addresses as part of the same order.
Printful
Has a Shipstation integration but does not print books.
Amazon KDP
Print on demand (limited to selling through Amazon) that sometimes has misprints. Publishes to Kindle as well. Limited print sizes and not very zine-y, more here.
Lulu Direct
Connects with Shopify. You can import orders into Shopify for print on demand with Lulu.
Blurb
More limited conventional book sizes (8x10, 12x12).
Option 3: Work with a printer
The most traditional route is to work with a printer. This, it’s important to note, often requires a nominal fee, shipping costs, and a designer (or someone with some knowhow) who can set up your book for printing.
If you’re choosing to go this route, it’s important to consider a few questions: are you printing hardcover or soft? Black and white or color? How many copies? How much lead and production time are you working with?
These are all questions a printer will look for you to answer to get a first quote from them.
Printer resource guide (living doc)
Here’s our living list of printers around the world to get you started. We have accepted no payment for this placement and do not officially endorse these services. Just places we know others have used.