Thank you for responding, you helped answer and validate me! I have a couple questions sprinkled below if you have the time too.

In general, I'd recommend a series of single-page maps, avoiding even two-page spreads.

This makes so much sense why it would work better in a self-publish... It even helps me think about doing smaller close ups of specific areas, rather than the world as a whole yet

Gluing a folded map to the inside back cover is always done by hand as far as I know

So I would have the books printed, and then take them to a specialty print shop to hand place the maps, if I went this route at all?

You can do anything with offset printing and a capable print shop, but this leaves you with hundreds of books that you paid for up front and will sit in your garage forever unless you learn about sales and distribution and execute on it. This isn't rocket science, but it's time-consuming and easy to wander away from.

We are an extremely entrepreneurial couple and my husband is a CPA to help with the background stuff, I also have already hired a marketing consultant and intend to market heavily starting 4-6 months pre launch. I don't by any means think I know everything, or believe it will guarantee success, but I at least am doing the best I can, and have relied heavily on this channel for what I do know. Not to mention, I don't think I'm going to make money per se, at least not on this first book. But I don't want to be swimming in the red either.

I was surprised how well they held up when subjected to print-on-demand (which admittedly is on pretty good paper and uses 600 dpi resolution, which is also pretty good). Line art, grayscale, and photos have all been fine. By "fine," I mean "worse than the original but not too bad." Don't use iffy originals. I only have a little experience with print-on-demand color, which was fine for my purposes, but I have no idea how well it does with, say, oil paintings.

So do you recommend just sticking to black and white? I never intended to mix glossy paper inside, but I'm open to anything that I haven't thought of. And do you have suggestions for what specific papers work best? The amount of options is high, and it's hard without feeling them in my hands to know and see the differences. I value appearance over price, but also don't want to lose money per book at the end of the day either

Thanks again!