First,
let’s define what is Print on Demand (POD). It is a printing method
that allows production of one or more books at a time. Thus, a
publisher, for instance, does not have to keep a large inventory of
books that may never sell. In the POD world a book remains in print
until its owner or author decides to take it off the market.
Many publishers, including my own
FutureCycle Press,
have gone exclusively to POD for their printed materials. My press now
has 20 book and anthology titles produced with POD technology. Not only
is this method cheaper than conventional offset printing, at least for
small numbers, but it also has distribution advantages discussed below.
Authors are using POD to self-publish for many of the same reasons as
publishers.
How do you go about publishing a POD book? First, you need to select a
POD service company to produce your book. There are many such companies
now, but buyer beware. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. I have
used several of these services and do not have any hesitancy to deliver
my verdict on which ones I think are the best. I have learned the
lesson the hard and expensive way, unfortunately. Of course, your
experience may differ from mine with any particular POD company.
A few years ago I would have recommended
Lulu.com
as the company of choice. Over the years, however, they have become too
expensive and, worse, unreliable in quality. Technical and customer
support are awful.
Cutting to the chase, based on circumstances at the time of this writing, I recommend either
Createspace.com or
Lightningsource.com.
The former is better for most publishers or authors. The latter is the
more expensive. The only disadvantage I have found with Createspace is
that it does not allow text on the spine for books under 120 pages. That
mostly affects poetry books, since they tend to fall in the 40- to
80-page range. FutureCycle Press, however, has decided this limitation
is well offset by numerous other advantages of CreateSpace.
The typical method of producing a book follows these general steps:
Another
great advantage of POD publishing is that you do not have to fulfill
orders. That is handled by your POD provider, whether someone orders the
book directly from the POD provider or from other sources such as
Amazon. As a publisher or author, you need only purchase enough copies
to cover your upcoming events: workshops, book festivals, readings, etc.
Publishing your book is only one step. You need also to make it
available to others. Most POD companies automatically create an order
page for you and will handle the sales directly. However, you may want
to set up order pages with more options and information. One of the best
ways is to set up your own website (or blog) and create an order page
for your book. You can link to Amazon, for example, or one or more other
places. It is free and easy to set up a blog site. It is also easy to
find an inexpensive web host for any type of website. A web presence of
some kind is vital in today’s marketplace.
There is much more to be covered on the topics above. Future
installments of this blog will focus on each in turn, with more detail,
how-to, and how-not-to. One of those topics, related to both the
internet and the personal computer, will include the publishing of
ebooks, which now amounts to the majority of Amazon’s book sales.