Note that neither CreateSpace nor Lightning Source provides software which typesets your books for you. You really do have to do this yourself or better yet, pay someone experienced to do it for you. I've seen SO many self published books ruined by poor or missing typesetting, and it makes such a difference to the final quality of the book.
If you ever buy physical books then chances are you have seen books from Lightning Source (not "Lightening"). Most of the big publishers use them, and many smaller ones too. Not all for POD, as they do offset too.
CreateSpace books are ok, but they do have their issues. I am pretty sure that Lightning Source offers wider variations on its POD: colour and weight of paper, for example, which make its books look better.
If you use POD the price of the books remains fixed no matter how many copies you order: it's the nature of the technology.
To get a reduced price based on an increased order you need to use offset printing, which means you have to pay for a print run.
Offset printing has large set-up and clean-up costs, but a very low price per copy printed. Those set-up and clean-up costs are divided among all the copies you print, so the more you print the cheaper each copy becomes.
The point at which it's cheaper per copy printed to pay for an offset run depends on the sort of book you're printing (large, highly-illustrated books are more expensive to print than novels). It's going to be a few hundred copies. And most self published books just don't sell that many, so it's not often worth doing. Which is why few self publishers opt for an offset run, and why digital books have revolutionised self publishing.
That's all good advice, thank you very much!
I think I may end up hiring someone to do the type-setting. I won't have a great deal of time for revisions on this, and it sounds challenging to get right. And if it's not right, it won't look professional.
I'll have to go to a bookstore soon and look around at the printing. That's good to know about LightING Source-- and thank you for the spell correction!
I've read that too, that LS does a better job with print than CreateSpace. At this point, I'm thinking of using both.
That was really helpful about POD vs. off-set printing. I had read about off-set printing, but with the information overload I've been putting myself through, I'm a little foggy on things before reading them a second time. So now it's solidified in my mind-- thank goodness because I have much more to learn! It makes sense too, that off-set printing would be less expensive. An ebook and POD is a definite for me, while off-set printing… I'll have to get further along in the process and then decide if I have the time and money to do the wheeling and dealing marketing it would take for ordering a bunch of books to be worthwhile. Poytner (from the book I'm reading) recommends ordering 300-500 print books to send out as review books. BUT… I'm not quite sure what the scale of my little operation here will be yet…
This nonfiction history book must be released at the start of the year, and it has a very narrow audience. The book after this one, though, has a wider target audience. The first book may be a good learning-the-ropes book. The second endeavor could potentially be more ambitious. We shall see, I guess!