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.