As some of you know, I have made my books available on Amazon through print-on-demand, which allows authors to publish and sell physical books without upfront costs, as copies are only printed when a customer places an order. I am not involved in processing any orders. The quality is generally OK, although there have been a few issues.
I receive many requests from the public for both regular and metal wall prints. To date I have turned all of them down, simply because I don’t want the hassle and I don’t think the money is worth the time it would take. But I feel bad about that. I don’t need the money, but if people want to hang space pictures on their wall, I would like to help them do that.
Do any of you have experience with a print-on-demand service for wall prints? I see that some sites are cropping up for that service but I have been reluctant to jump in yet. I am concerned about the quality of the wall prints, especially if someone purchases a large print for a serious amount of money.
For clarification, I am looking for a service where we would upload some of our images, the public could see them, and then select one and print it out at a reasonable price and quality, without our involvement in the purchase or product review process. Printing astrophotography is very demanding in terms of contrast, brightness and color control, so a general service provider (who provides on-demand landscape and portrait prints, for example), may not be capable of doing the job well.
Steve Mandel