DTP 2 PRINT – Best Service in Years!

I had to respond to the Daily Prompt on WordPress today ‘Are you being served?’, it is so relevant to my week. 

I am a whinger, I am irritated on almost a daily basis by shoddy quality and non existant customer care.  I dream wistfully of the days when not everything was made in China and companies at least pretended to give half a toss about the customer. This week I’ve had a consumer experience which had me doing somersaults of glee (well I would do them if I were younger and / or more co-ordinated than I am.   The company which has given me the warm fuzzies is DTP 2 PRINT in Alberton, Johannesburg.

I have worked on a Children’s picture book ‘Snuffles and the Cloud People’ for years.  My mother who is an artist did stunning paintings and my Dad and husband have worked on the layout and design.  I have nit picked over every one of the 1000 words of text.  It has been polished and fine tuned to as near as dammit to perfection.  In July I put the book on Amazon KDP for sale in digital format but it has languished there amidst what must be millions of books.  The feedback which I have had repeatedly from those who bought the book is that they want a hard copy. 

A friend has come up with a project which may see the book printed through an organisation and tomorrow he is doing a presentation to them regarding this project.  If this falls through, I am exploring other self publishing options. 

I have exchanged no less than 35 e-mails with Erik from DTP 2 PRINT with a range of questions, at this point the only order which I have given him was for 2 samples!  Each reply to my questions has been friendly, helpful and informative.  This is not going the extra mile, it goes way beyond that.  Most businesses would have told me to sod off, they are not interested in small quantities.  There are many factors which make a business special and a key element is when the owner takes a personal pride in what he does, the passion and dedication cannot be matched by a big impersonal corporate.  I collected my 2 samples yesterday, oooh they are so lovely!  I don’t want to part with them when they have to go to the meeting tomorrow.  Whatever happens these will not be the only 2 copies of the book printed,  I’ll be Back.