POD, ASAP
Category: Publishing
Well, it's December and the new Print on Demand Publishers Directory is available for 2006. If you haven't got yours now, this is the time. Question: Is it a POD title itself? The squib doesn't say.I'm hearing more and more burbling up from the land of POD, however - it is such a sensible way of running a small house, and the quality of the publications now is indistinguishable from more "traditional" publications. So the question becomes: why is doing a print run in advance (which is a huge gamble, and if you're a small publisher, you want to reduce your gambling as much as you can) still THE way of doing things? Why such a stigma attached to POD?
I have a book coming out next year from Demimonde Books, which has used a POD model primarily for its first title, Girly. They are now moving to a more traditional model simply because of demand - a good reason! But my book will probably be released, initially, as a POD title - why print up more than you know you can sell? Cosimo Books is another small house that uses a POD model primarily. Again, all that PP&B is a huge investment of materials, and if you can postpone making that investment until you've got orders - and match the orders to the investment - it makes SO MUCH SENSE.
POD used to be derided as a form of vanity publishing, but now we've got Lulu. As The Bookseller points out, they don't do editorial or marketing, but they do take care of printing the actual product for you, and the royalty split is 80-20 in your favor. Obviously, who doesn't need an editor - but there are plenty of editorial services out there, and freelance publicists and marketers - publishing is not rocket science, or alchemy. Naturally traditional publishers try to make a big deal about how much more they offer in services and publicity - if you can get past the bouncers and the velvet ropes and actually get IN the damn club.
Yeah, well.
What I offer:
