Are you prepared to pay a lot of money?: Especially if you want color.

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that doesn't mean they'll give you much.

They sometimes do give advances, but that doesn't always happen either.

One bit of advice is to make sure your manuscript is no bigger than 100,000 words, because with most neophytes (new authors), they are immediately thrown out for that very reason. They don't even bother reading them.

Regardless, I wish you ALL the luck in the world.
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and I am thinking that POD is a good idea and digital copy for tablets...

I have a friend who is an artist and she was thinking it would be cool if the digital copy had little games in the pictures like "find the..."

That's more detailed than I can get at this point!

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count not...

I like your idea with the little picture games.

Anyway, good luck.
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I have self published several guide books. It’s been modestly profitable. Had I worked harder at promoting them it would have been more so. Your success depends on your goals and motivation

It’s hard to get a mainstream publisher interested in a new author. It’s easier if you can show them evidence of reader interest as you might be able to do if you self publish and find an audience. Remember, The Martian by Andy Weir was originally self published.

Dont worry about printing costs. These days you have many print-on-demand options available to you, including from Amazon, that don’t require a lot of out of pocket funds

My tips: 1) Get an excellent editor. You can’t copy edit yourself. No one can. 2) Use a real book designer to lay out the book and make sure they know what formats you intend to publish to, print, ebook, etc. 3) Have a marketing plan. Failing to plan is-in publishing as in all other areas of business-planning to fail. Then follow the plan. Following even a bad plan you’ll be more successful than just grabbing at straws, trying this or that.

Do it! There’s nothing like seeing your own work in print.

I definitely have a "marketing" plan in mind, but it needs serious details worked on.

Good think is that I have a couple writer's groups online Im friends with and I can find someone to edit pretty easily.
Guess the art is my last piece...

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You're so invested in your work that you don't see the mistakes, bad wording, or missing words.

It took me four years to proofread my first book, but I still didn't find ALL my mistakes until someone else actually read it.
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It's good for a few books that I wanted to pass around to folks and a lot cheaper than a printing shop. BUT you should have as many people proof your copy as possible. You can always make up one copy and edit the changes prior printing multiple books. The hardest part is to get backing unless your library have book fairs with author signings.

Last I heard, Walmart was planning an epublishing site to compete with Amazon. Sorry, I can't remember name.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/119316478#post15

If you are in the States, any community college's small business dept. Should have S.C.O.R.E. They can connect you with a mentor, folks to help.you with business plan, etc. All free!

Best of luck!

Little money but far more satisfaction. It rejuvenated me as a writer.

I've written a book to help people do it. My wife and I do editing and help people self-publish. Feel free to message me with questions.

This is our "company": https://www.dldbooks.com/