Print On Demand Publishing
From LoveToKnow Online
Print on demand (POD) publishing is a fast-growing segment of the publishing industry. With sudden accessibility to hundreds of thousands of previously out-of-print books, POD technology is fast changing the face of the publishing industry.
How Print On Demand Works
With traditional offset printing, which includes most of the books you get in stores, the publisher must print books in large quantities running well into the thousands. This allows them to offer good discounts to bookstores and online booksellers, but it also means a significant investment each time a book is published. Add in the cost of printing, editing, artwork, typesetting, marketing, etc., and you can see why traditionally-published books cost as much as they do today!
With print on demand technologies, on the other hand, the vendor prints only one book at a time. Instead of having books prepared, as a traditional publisher would, the POD vendor creates a fresh book every time an order is placed.
This has both drawbacks and advantages. The cost per book printed is higher with print on demand, and usually this cost is passed on to the consumer. But you have a better-quality paper and ink, too, so your book will last longer. There is also less risk of too many books being printed, causing the extra books to be sold on the clearance table at bookstores or online.
If you want only a small print run, or if you're self-publishing something -- for instance, a family history or class project -- POD can be an excellent choice.
Where You Can Find It
Many ebook publishers today are moving to a POD business model, providing readers with their choice of ebook or printed book. There are also new print on demand/ebook publishers like LightningSource springing up to provide services for publishers and independent writers alike. Barnes & Noble is moving into the scene as well, selling many titles online and on its shelves, notably those from romantica publisher Ellora's Cave. Many publishers are also working on a kiosk-type system for creating books on demand in bookstores around the world. With book kiosks, you could browse online, locate the book you want, pay with a credit card, and stand by the machine as it prints your book, binds it, and delivers it to you. Prototypes have been around for almost ten years, but so far no one has introduced a successful store model.
Helping Marketers and Businesses
POD and ebook publishing are both perfect for one purpose in particular: promotion of a niche market. If you make cornhusk dolls or grow shrimp in a fishtank, you probably won't find many books anywhere that help you with those tasks. But you might find a vendor -- the same person you buy your supplies from -- who has printed ebooks on the topic. This means if you run a business targeting a small niche market, you can turn yourself into a bona-fide expert by writing, self-producing, and selling books and ebooks to your customers.
The Future
Right now dozens of business models are experimenting with printing books on demand. The largest innovations are being worked out through Amazon.com and other large online booksellers, who are offering small vendors with ISBN numbers for their publications the opportunity to sell online through Amazon's Booksurge arm.
Small publishers are springing up all over the Internet to take advantage of the small print run possibilities. And kiosks are eventually going to be cost-effective enough to sell to coffee houses and others who might benefit from being able to sell you books without maintaining an inventory.
Legal Issues
No new technology is complete without legal problems. In this case, it's authors' rights. In traditional publishing, rights generally revert back to an author after the book has been out of print for several years, which means the author can resell or reprint the book himself. With print on demand, however, it's arguable that the book never really goes out of print. Many writers are already aligning legal cases, even though the issue hasn't yet caused problems.
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This page has been accessed 1,550 times. This page was last modified 01:35, 29 September 2009.
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