POD: Part 3 - Pros and Cons of Using a POD Subsidy Publisher

In the previous post, we talked about the pros and cons of using POD for a self-published book. Now, let’s talk about using a POD subsidy publisher.

Subsidy POD publishers generally do not call themselves subsidy publishers. They may describe themselves as POD publishers or even self-publishers. However, if they offer the services of a publisher and charge for their services, they are subsidy publishers. A subsidy POD publisher may be the right choice for you, but understand your options and know what you’re getting.

Pros

• A subsidy publisher relieves you of many of the responsibilities you have as a self-publisher. Depending on the company and the services you choose, you can avoid having to hire a cover designer, book designer, and possibly other professionals.
• You may save money on cover design and interior layout. Again, this depends on the company and package of services you choose, but most POD publishers use standard templates for covers and interior layout. If you are happy with using one of the standard templates, it should cost less than having the cover and interior custom designed.
• If you expect to sell only a few hundred copies of your book to a niche market, you can get those few hundred copies more efficiently - and perhaps more cost-effectively - with POD subsidy publishing.
• You may be able to bring your market faster, and you will save yourself time. Self-publishing, even using a POD printer, will generally take more time because you, the author, are learning the new business of publishing. You will spend a huge amount of time researching and contracting with a number of vendors. POD subsidy publishers can often move faster because they have efficient systems in place.

Cons

• Although you, the author, pay for publication, the POD company earns most of the revenue. You are paid royalties as you would be paid by a conventional publisher; however, with a conventional publisher, you would not pay upfront fees - in fact, you usually receive an advance.
• Reviewers for major review venues - newspapers and magazines - generally do not review books from POD subsidy publishers. Since most of these publishers provide no screening of the material they publish, reviewers and others in the publishing industry know that a large percentage of books are poorly written and often unedited. Your book may be outstanding, but you’ll have an uphill battle trying to convince reviewers and bookstores to even look at it.
• The price of books from POD subsidy publishers is usually too high to sell in bookstores. Book are usually discounted 55% in traditional distribution channels - bookstores and libraries. Either the retail price is too high to sell well to consumers or the subsidy publisher cannot offer the discounts required to get into bookstores.
• POD books are usually not returnable, and bookstores order only returnable books. In the very unusual business model that is publishing, books are shipped to bookstores when they are ordered. But unlike other products, if the books don’t sell, bookstores can “return” them for credit. Returning a mass market paperback actually consists of stripping the cover and sending it back to the publisher and discarding the rest of the book. About one-third of all books printed every year end up in landfills! Since most POD publishers don’t accept returns, bookstores generally won’t carry POD books … so you can order books as you need them, but you can’t sell them in a bookstore.
• The quality and pricing vary considerably among companies. If you decide this type of publishing is for you, you must research the various companies and compare the services they offer and the prices they charge. Order a few titles to see if they are the quality you expect for your book.
• Most titles from POD subsidy publishers sell fewer than 200 copies. There are exceptions, of course, and your book may be the exception, but many books sell only a handful of copies to the author. If you choose this publishing method, you must be prepared to promote your book heavily in venues other than bookstores. Of course, this applies to self-published books as well, but often, writers have the mistaken idea that if they pay a publisher to publish a book and put it on the publisher’s Web site, they will make lots of sales.

Other Opinions:

Ask Ron by Ron Pramschufer at Books Just Books

How to Choose a Print on Demand Publisher by Skylar Hamilton Burris at GoogoBits.com

The POD Quandary: How to Decide if Print-on-Demand Publishing Is Right for You by Brenda Rollins at Writing-World.com

Print on Demand by Writer Beware from Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc.

Print-on-Demand, One Year Later by Adam Barr - one author’s POD experience

The Supposed Problems with Self-Publishing by Richard Hoy at Booklocker’s Guide to POD and EBook Publishing

To POD or NOT to POD? Some Pros and Cons by Moira Allen at Writing-World.Com

The Truth About POD Publishing by David Taylor at PeakWriting.com

True Stories - stories of author experiences with PublishAmerica

Have you had experience with a subsidy POD company? If so, please share it in comments.

[tags]POD, print on demand publisher[/tags]

POD: Part 2 - Pros and Cons of Self-Publishing with POD

In the last post, we talked about what POD is. Although POD (print on demand) is a digital printing technology, some publishers who use the technology call themselves POD publishers. We’ll address the pros and cons of self-publishing with POD in this post and the pros and cons of using a POD subsidy publisher in the next post.

Note, these are the pros and cons of printing with POD technology rather than an offset press for an author who has already chosen to self-publish. For the pros and cons of self-publishing, see What are the pros and cons of self-publishing?

Pros

• You can start your self-publishing business with only a small investment for printing, though you will have other expenses as described in How much does self-publishing cost? POD printers (not publishers) usually charge a nominal set-up fee, then the unit cost per book remains the same regardless of how many books are ordered. Although you can start business with little or no inventory, I recommend you order enough books initially to send out review copies and have some books available to handsell.
• You can test-market your book and make changes to your text. You can experiment with different covers or titles to see what sells best. If your book is on a topic where information changes often, you can update the information and start selling a new edition immediately without any concern about existing inventory.
• You can save on the unit cost of books compared to doing an offset press run for small quantities; however, the unit cost goes down with larger quantities in offset printing and stays the same in POD.
• You don’t have to maintain an inventory, which means you don’t have to fill your garage or spare bedroom with books or spend money to rent storage space.
• You will use your own ISBN numbers and be in control of your book as the publisher of record in Books in Print for the book. This is true for self-published books regardless of the printing method, but it is not true of books published by subsidy POD companies.

Cons

• If you expect to sell large quantities of books, you will pay a higher unit cost than if you used an offset printer for a larger print run.
• The quality of printing varies, so be sure to ask for samples before contracting with a POD printer.
• The higher cost of POD printing will make it difficult to sell your book through distribution channels such as bookstores and distributors, who usually require a 55% discount.

These are what I see as the major advantages and disadvantages of having your self-published book printed by a digital/print on demand printer.

Do you have experience with POD printing for a self-published book? What other pros and cons can you suggest?

[tags]POD, self-publishing[/tags]

POD: Part 1 - What It Is

At a recent Weekend Writers Cafe at Grow Your Writing Business, Genesis of At Home Mom Blog asked this question:

What do you think of using POD publishers? Which ones are good?

I pointed out that I wrote a little about POD in the Self-Publishing Primer but promised to write more about it. This is a topic of both great interest and great confusion to many writers.

POD stands for Print on Demand, sometimes called Publish on Demand.

It is simply a printing method, digital technology that enables a single book to be printed and bound very quickly. The unit cost is higher than other printing methods for medium to large quantities. However, small print runs (and even printing individual books) are feasible, and the unit cost is less for small quantities. You can read a case study at Foner Books Print on Demand.

Large commercial publishers, small press publishers, and self-publishers all use POD, but it’s often used by so-called POD publishers. Some call themselves self-publishing POD companies. However, they are really subsidy publishers, and some are probably vanity publishers. If you self-publish, the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) is assigned to you (in the name of the publishing company you establish). If the ISBN for your book is assigned to another company, that someone is the publisher, not you.

You may decide that subsidy publishing is the best publishing method for you and your book, but make sure you base your decision on accurate information and a real understanding of the publishing industry. Don’t be misled into believing that you are self-publishing if you are, in fact, subsidy publishing.

You will find pros and cons of various kinds of publishing in the Self-Publishing Primer. In the next two installments in this series, we’ll assume you have made a choice. We’ll talk about the pros and cons of POD for self-publishing authors in the next post, then about the pros and cons of using a POD subsidy publisher.

[tags]POD, print on demand, publishing[/tags]

Build Your Vocabulary and Feed the Hungry

Thanks to a recent post at One Step Forward, I’ve discovered Free Rice.

The site offers a vocabulary quiz, requiring you to click on one of four definitions for the word given. The degree of difficulty of the words you are asked is determined by your answers. If you miss an answer, you are given words at the next lower level of difficulty. If you get three right answers in a row, you move to the next level of difficulty. This is a fun and innovative way to increase your vocabulary.

But there’s an added benefit: for every right answer you give, Free Rice will donate 10 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program. Ten grains doesn’t sound like much, but if thousands of people participate, the amount of rice grows rapidly. Free Rice started October 7th and has already donated nearly 300 million grains of rice. The rice is paid for by advertisers on the site.

The Hunger Site has been online since 1999 and has raised more than 500 million cups of food. The donations go to Mercy Corps and America’s Second Harvest. All you have to do to donate a cup of food is to click on a link, and advertisers contribute the cost of the food. On the same site, you can click to donate for other causes: breast cancer, children’s health, literacy (a favorite of mine as a writer and reader), rainforest, and animal rescue.

Several years ago, I wrote an article about click-to-give Web sites. Many sites have come and gone through the years, but this advice from that article is still sound:

As with offline charities, you need to do a little research to determine which charitable sites to frequent. First, you want to be sure the money is going to a cause and an organization you support. The button may say “click to help children” or “click to fight cancer,” but you may have delve a little deeper to find exactly which organizations receive the funds. The best sites include detailed information about each organization that receives support, so take a few minutes the first time you visit to ensure that you agree with the group’s philosophy.

With Free Rice , you can help feed the hungry, have some fun, and increase your own vocabulary - surely worth a few minutes of your time.

[tags]Free Rice, charity Web sites, vocabulary[/tags]

Happy Birthday, Liz and Successful Blog

Today is the second birthday of Liz Strauss’ Successful Blog, and she’s invited every SOB (Successful and Outstanding Blogger) she has named in the last two years to her party. That’s 646 bloggers … and I’m proud to be one of them.

Happy birthday, Liz. Thank you for your inspiration, your wisdom, your caring. Thank you for blogging with soul. You make us believe: We can change the world — just like that.

Liz has made such a positive impact on the blogosphere, it’s hard to believe Successful Blog is only two years old. Imagine how much she will accomplish in the coming years.

In her usual generous way, Liz has asked that her “gifts” be links to great posts, free e-books, and words of wisdom. Stop by the party, congratulate Liz, and pick up your gifts. Be prepared for a long visit - there’s a lot going on!

[tags]Successful Blog, Liz Strauss, SOB bloggers[/tags]

Deadline Nears for Writing Competition for Middle School and High School Students

Although I doubt many junior high and high school students read this blog, many of you are the parents of teens. Some of you may be teachers or friends, mentors, or relatives of aspiring young writers. Please pass on this reminder and give them a chance to win prizes, which include cash, e-book readers, and gift certificates, and have their work published in an anthology of winning entries.

EPIC sponsors an annual writing competition for students in middle school and high school in public, private, or home schools. The contest is open to students anywhere in the world, but entries must be in English. The deadline for New Voices 2008 is less than two weeks away on November 1. (Updated 10/28/07 - Correction: Deadline is November 30.) Young aspiring writers can enter fiction (short stories), poetry, or nonfiction (essays) - even something already written for a class assignment or their own pleasure.

There is no fee to enter, and the anthology e-books are distributed free. Students receive copies of the score sheets from the three judges in the first round of the competition - published authors, editors, and educators. Some teachers have said the feedback, honest critiques of the work with a healthy dose of encouragement, is more valuable than the prizes, and even students who don’t win prizes benefit from the feedback.

I wrote about New Voices when the contest first opened for entries this year. You can download guidelines and entry forms on the EPIC Web site.

If you’re a writer yourself, you can understand what an impact feedback from a published author can make on a young writer. You can imagine the thrill of the winners to see their names and their work published in the anthology of winning entries. So please encourage young writers to enter EPIC New Voices 2008.

Related Posts:
EPIC New Voices 2008 Writing Competition
Young Winners Become Published Authors in EPIC’s Second Annual New Voices Contest
Do You Know Any Aspiring Teen Writers?
A Favorite Project: Calling Young Writers
EPIC New Voices

Self-Publishing Primer

The Self-Publishing Primer started as a series of fourteen posts early this year.

To make the primer more convenient and accessible, I have compiled the posts into an e-book (PDF). You can download the file here.

If you download the primer, please let me know if you find any errors. As I’ve said many times, it’s difficult even for an editor to edit her own work.

Ask any questions you have or let me know what other information you’d like in comments. I’m planning to write more about POD as this subject has come up at the Weekend Writers Cafe at Grow Your Writing Business.

[tags]self-publishing[/tags]

I’ll Be Back

Just wanted to post a note to let you know I’m playing catch up and will miss a few days of blogging. My husband had a heart problem, and I’m catching up from spending time with him at the hospital and dealing with side-effects of his medication after he came home. He’s doing much better now, and I hope to be back on a regular schedule next week.

Christian Living: On the Wings of the Wind

On the Wings of the Wind is scheduled to be released on November 1, 2007. The book is the story of Patricia Eytcheson Taylor’s spiritual journey, but it is not hers alone. It is the story of the relationship anyone can have with a loving God who wants to guide the lives of all His children as He guides Pat’s.

Although she never lost the Christian faith her parents instilled in her, in adulthood she allowed marriage, family, and business to overshadow her walk with God. After the death of her husband, she cried out to the Lord, and He answered. From that moment, the Holy Spirit has guided her life. Pat later married and participated in the ministry of an Army chaplain.

When Pat first came to me for editing, the book was her project. However, as we worked on the manuscript, her husband, The Reverend Doctor James C. Taylor, became intrigued and joined Pat as co-author. Having been a Lutheran clergyman for 40 years, James contributed significantly to the book.

Several chapters are devoted to military life and the sacrifices military families as well as service members make. The book would be an excellent gift for military spouses and families to show appreciation for their service.

Here is a snippet from the back cover:

On the Wings of the Wind is a profoundly biblical easy-to-read story of entering each new phase of life guided by the Holy Spirit. This is a love story: a story of longtime love of spouse and family, the devastating heartbreak of loss, and a new love that now binds two people together as they embrace each day with enthusiasm, a sense of mission, and, foremost and center, with the all-encompassing presence of the living God.

Working with Pat and James has been a delight, and I’m thrilled the book will soon be available.

I recommend the book to Christians seeking a closer walk with God, military members and families, and non-Christians who would like to know more about the Christian faith.

You can place your order now and receive the book shortly after publication. You will even get a discount for ordering early.

[tags]Christian living, On the Wings of the Wind, Pat & James Taylor[/tags]

Blog Action Day: Publishing and the Environment

Fifteen thousand bloggers are joining together on Blog Action Day to write about the environment. No doubt many of the participating bloggers will be rabid environmentalists, but the majority of probably aren’t. I’m no tree hugger, and the hype hasn’t convinced me that man causes global warming. However, as a Christian, I believe that we must be good stewards of the earth that God has given us.

Genesis 1:26:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

My husband and I do not create hardships for ourselves for the sake of conservation. Both of us find relief from chronic pain in hot showers, and sometimes we take several showers a day. However, we are otherwise careful when using hot water, such as running the dishwasher and washing machine with full loads.

As much as possible, we reduce, recycle, and re-use. We don’t have to have the shiniest new gadgets. We drive cars that get good mileage, and we don’t drive a lot. We started recycling when the only things that could be recycled (at least as far as I knew) were newspapers and cans. Now, we recycle glass, plastic, metal, and all kinds of paper. Even before anything goes to the recycling bin, we’ve used it as much as possible. Instead of buying storage containers, we re-use plastic dishes and glass jars. We use the back side of paper for drafts, and after both sides are printed, I cut up less-than-full pages into notepaper.

Unfortunately, the publishing industry in general isn’t friendly to the environment.

I’ve heard that one-third of all the paperback books published end up in landfills without being sold. Books are sold to bookstores as returnable. If a bookstore orders more copies of a title than it sells in what it determines to be a reasonable time, the store can return the unsold units to the publisher. However, in the case of mass market paperbacks, only the cover, not the book, is returned. The stores strip the covers, send the covers back for credit, and throw away the rest of the books. That’s why you sometimes see a notice that if you bought this book without a cover, the publisher and author aren’t making any money. Imagine how many trees are being destroyed and how many garbage dumps are being filled with books no one has ever read! This problem is inherent in the publishing business model, and individual authors and consumers aren’t in a position to do much about it.

Some publishers are beginning to use recycled paper. While this doesn’t solve the problem of excess copies of the books being discarded, at least it does reduce the number of trees destroyed. And if paper recycling becomes more common, maybe the publishers will decide it’s more cost-effective to recycle the unsold books than to discard them.

Digital printing can make small print runs more cost-effective, and print-on-demand (POD) eliminates excess inventory. Using POD technology, books can be printed as needed. Instead of printing thousands of copies and hoping they sell, publishers can print only the number of copies that are actually sold to consumers. The term POD is confusing, because some subsidy publishers call themselves POD publishers. People sometimes confuse the subsidy business model with the printing technology, but any publisher can use the POD technology. Small presses and self-publishing authors, especially, can benefit from digital printing, either in small press runs or in print-on-demand, to avoid large unsold inventories. Anyone looking at POD needs to do due diligence as there are some less-than-scrupulous companies taking advantage of the POD term.

E-books can eliminate the need for paper completely. Electronic books, read on computer or hand-held reading devices, save trees and unsold copies don’t end up in landfills. You can read more in several other posts here, especially my e-book series. Of course, there are environmental issues with electronic devices themselves. However, according to the article E-Waste: The Final Frontier on Earth911:

“A full 99 percent of all materials that go through our doors are recycled—meaning that they go into reuse of some sort,” says John Shegerian, Chairman & CEO of Electronic Recyclers.

Eco-Libris is working to balance out the environmental impacts of the book publishing industry. You can plant a tree for every book you read. Sign up at Eco-Libris, decide how many books you want to balance out, and donate $1 each to have a tree planted.

Eco-Libris works with its planting partners to plant your trees in developing countries
Our planting partners are organizations that work in developing countries. Their planting and conservation activities are an integral part of their efforts to help local communities in these countries move towards a sustainable future. We make sure that your trees will be planted where they provide significant value for both the environment and the local communities, who are very much involved and play an important part in the planting projects.

You can make a positive impact on the environment without giving up any of the pleasures of reading. Look for books printed on recycled paper, patronize companies that use technology to avoid waste, read e-books, contribute to Eco-Libris, trade books with friends, or read books from the library.

Related Posts:
E-Book Series

[tags]Blog Action Day, environment, publishing[/tags]

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