What are the best options and costs (fixed and variable) to
self-publish a paperback book of
non-fiction of 200-400 pages in quantity of 500-2,000?  I want to know
whether it makes more sense to print all at once, or utilize one of
the internet book publishing services.  It must by include fees for
copyrighting, ISBN number, and listed on Amazon for purchase.  This is
to be used for my business to give to clients and prospects and to
sell.

Print-on-demand is an option nowadays but I wanted to offer you this
link for a paperback publisher.  I sent away for one of their samples
and found the quality to be very good.  On the page
http://www.instantpublisher.com/pricing.htm, you'll see a publishing
calculator.  Experimenting with the calculator, you should be able to
get an idea of cost in self-publishing your book.

Best regards,
journalist-ga

PC Magazine did a detailed comparison of Print-on-Demand
self-publishing companies a month ago here is a link to the article:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1043161,00.asp
If that link does not work go to http://pcmag.com and search for
"Start the Presses"

A friend of mine published a book with 1stbooks and was very happy
with the experience.  Look around and ask lots of questions - books on
demand publishers are not all equal.

Ten years ago, I worked as an intern in that specific industry. At the
time, there was two way to self-publish a book.

The first way was to pay a publishing house to publish it for you.
That was called vanity publishing. And the second way was to become
your own publisher and contract out all the different jobs yourself
(editing, typesetting, indexing, printing, promotion, isbn,
categorization, etc.).

The authors who chose to simply pay the publishing house usually ended
up getting books that would simply fall apart in their hands. On the
other hand, the authors who chose to impersonate publishing companies
could usually get the standard 15% discount on printing and their
careful oversight would ensure a certain level of quality throughout
the entire process.

If I were to self-publish, I would carefully micromanage the entire
process myself. I don't trust publishers and I certainly wouldn't
trust any sample they'd send me.

I published with 1stBooks Library in 2001. I paid a small fee and they
do all the promotions and distribution, I have a contract that does
not expire and it is a print on demand company. I get quarterly
reports but they are not as detailed as I would like. The distributor
is Ingraham Books. I have my book on Amazon and Barnes and Noble as
well as many other book stores across the world. 1stBooks was recently
sold to AuthorHouse this year. Not contract changes are in effect. I'm
happy

A softcover book of, let's say, 300 pages will cost around $2.50 per
unit for a print run of 2,000 copies. So the total cost to you would
be $5,000. As the print run decreases, the unit cost rises
considerably. You would probably pay $4.00 per copy for a 1,000 print
run and around $6.00 per copy for a 500 print run.

Printing the books yourself though requires a much larger investment
than the print-run costs. You have to hire someone to edit, produce,
design and store the books. Without publishing experience this can be
a living nightmare.

For your purposes, I would recommend one of the print-on-demand (POD)
pay-to-publish services. They have the technology to publish one unit
at a time, thus eliminating the warehousing barriers. They also
provide editing and free design services, as well as Amazon.com
listings and all the Library-of-Congress registrations. If you want to
give away copies though, you have to buy them yourself, usually at an
author discount of between 25 and 50 percent depending on how many
units you buy.

Here are a couple reputable POD publishers:

Xlibris.com
AuthorHouse.com

I recommend you self publish and do not use one of the "publishing
services" you're hearing about. I've had so many clients use these
services only to end up very, very disappointed. Your contract with
these services often allow them to maintain control of the Copyright
and that is not something you want as a self publisher!

I struggle to understand exactly what the benefit of these services is
to the author. You are still paying fees to have your book designed
(usually poorly), edited and printed. Subsequently, you are giving up
profit and control, and in the end, the marketing and promotion of the
book will revert back to you. The problem lies in the fact that you
are giving up a huge chunk of the profits which means you are very
limited in your marketing and promotion options. We deal with large
volume buyers and often can't work with "self published" books from
such publishing services because there simply isn't enough profit
margin.

The services provided by such companies are nothing you can't easily
do for yourself while still maintaining project control and profit.

You will get the best value by going to a book printer for 500 to 2000
copies of a book. And then doing the copyright work yourself. It
doesn't take much time to get a copyright. POD companies will cost
about $7 to $10 per book for a book your size doing them 1 to 25
copies at a time. Book printers will charge about $2.00 per book for
2000 copies, maybe a little more or less, since you didn't give a
specific page count.

You are always better off with a real book printer if you can afford
to print a thousand copies or more right away.

For book printers, go to http://www.bookmarket.com/101print.html

For POD printers/publishers, go to http://www.bookmarket.com/ondemand.html

Some of the best PODers include Infinity Publishing, iUniverse,
AuthoerHouse, and Xlibris.

John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books

I can recommend Bookpublisher.com (Wheatmark) at
http://www.bookpublisher.com. You can calculate your costs online and
their books are returnable by resellers.