: Re: Cheap ways a young person can get paper books printed/bound from their manuscript? (Please incl sample costs) Some budding authors (school aged young people) want to see their creative works in

@Murray165

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I think your best bet would be to go to Amazon's CreateSpace print-on-demand service and take advantage of their self-publishing package. They don't charge you anything for setup or publishing, and they provide a free distribution channel for all your books. They also provide the ISBN and barcodes and they have templates you can use for the cover design. They really are a one-stop shop for publishing on a shoestring. The only cost associated with this is the purchasing of a proof copy of the book that you use to verify the finished product meets your expectations. I believe they have even started waiving that, so you actually have no costs at all. They do provide a discount to authors who want to purchase their own books for reselling locally or on their web sites, but again, that is not required.

I found a review of their services that provides some additional information. It's about a year old, but it looks like it addresses all the key features. I also found another link that discusses how to self-publish with CreateSpace. It is much more current and provides a different perspective. I really believe this will be the most cost-effective approach for your students.

Amazon does provide a separate option called the Pro Plan that allows you to obtain a higher discount on your own books and also provides a larger possibility for distribution. This only costs and is definitely worth the cost if you plan to purchase a lot of your own books and self-promote. Other than that, there are no other costs tied to their self-publishing packages.

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