[stoppingdown]

If you don't mind, I'd like to recap some points from my past experience in case they can be useful for others (but also for me):

• my latest printer was Epson Photo Stylus 2100 and I was pretty satisfied by the prints;
  
• the ink cost per A4 print was roughly 1€ (take it as a reference, I don't have written notes and I'm recalling by heart; it could even be the cost per A3 print);
  
• I see that e.g. Blurb asks $205 for 33×28 cm, 200 pages, dust jacket hardcover (the cheaper softcover is not available for this format) — that's roughly 1€ per page and I have roughly 200 photos to print per year; so 1€ per page is my cost reference;
  
• the problems were the extreme slowness and the fact that the printer didn't work well in unattended mode (I have a dedicated computer to handle printers and technically I could submit dozens of prints to the print queue, leaving me free to do other things with the laptop): I mean that when an ink cartridge was empty and I replaced it typically the current unfinished print was ruined;
  
• also, the low capacity of the cartridges caused the replace operation to happen often; I'd like to be able to submit 20/30 prints to the queue early in the morning and have the prints complete by the evening, with — say — at max. 1/2. cartridge operation changes per day;
  
• of course services such as Blurb also include cover and binding, but it's no something I need; the print I did in the past are stored in the original paper box and I'm fine with that;
  
• on the other side, printing by myself would allow me to select the desired paper for each print; and of course the print quality would be higher.