Michael, I used Blurb to put together my photo collection into book form. I tried lulu and was frustrated with the format. With Blurb, for a photo book, they have a program that you down load onto your computer and work on the book at your pace. when its ready you upload it and they give you a page as a store.
My book doesnt have much text, because I only included the info that was on the photos or what I could learn about the photos. I didnt find working with their text to be a problem.
I used a open source program, Gimp2, as a photo editer and was happy with that too.
Pros for me, Work at my own pace, Easy to use book creator program, I dont have to invest in a the printing or ever handle the books. They give me a base price and I set the price depending on what I want to make per book. People who want it can go and buy it. Printing and binding have been first rate.
Cons,
I lost my hard drive shortly after uploading and hadnt done a final backup. If I wanted to make any changes, Id have to recreate the the book from that point that I had last backed up. I can not down load a copy from them.
At the time I uploaded mine, they did not sell ISBNs.(I dont know if they do now, they where working on that) If I wanted to buy one now, and have it printed on the cover, Id have to redo the book, delete it from their server, and re upload it with the ISBN on the cover.
Base price of the book is high. I think it would be different for one of your books that provide information and represent many hours of research. Its easier to see the value in that. Some people find a 50.00 book of photos to be a little much
