Staying In Control: The Pro's and Con's of Print-On-Demand Publishing

Staying in Control
The Pro's and Con's of Print-On-Demand

By Randy Jernigan

    
    When new author Tom Forest was ready to publish his first novel, Finish Line, he ended up publishing with a Print-on-Demand company. Why? And what exactly is a print-on-demand?

"To a large extent, the title explains the technology," explains Mr. Forest. "print-on-demand means that whenever a book is demanded (ordered or bought), a copy of the book is printed. To anyone who knows anything about traditional printing methods, this sounds ridiculous. Setting up a book on a traditional printing press is a long, costly process and to pring a copy of a book would cost thousands of dollors. The advent of digital technologies, however, has brought changes," explains Forest.

    Desktop publishing has been relatively common since the 1980's. To pring a book, however, the finished design was still created as film separations. From these, printers produced plates that were loaded on to the printing presses. When the press started rolling, it took a while to get the right amount of ink on the plate, so the first impressions printed on paper were always discarded. For full-color pages, the paper must be run through the presses four times, once for each of the colors that form the basis of four color printing. Once all this work was done, economics demanded that you produce hundreds or thousands of copies of a book at the same time

    The advent of high-quality digital printers in the late 1980's promised to change the economics of printing. Unlike a traditional press, a digital printer lays ink directly onto the pages in a pattern determined by the code sent to it by a computer. In this way even color digital printers can produce a good color print without running the paper through the press more than once.

    Forest explains, "the implications were not lost on printing professionals. The saw that it was becoming easier to print only as many copies of a document as you needed, instead of the standard 500 or 1000 copy minimun runs. The first commercial applications of this technology were in the area of manuals and reports: documents that required small quantities and frequent revisions." says Forest.

    In the late 1990's, a couple of new companies started to apply this technology to the area of trade book production. There was already a strong self-publishing movement in the U.S., using traditional printing presses. Using traditional presses, authors had to print hundreds of copies of their book at a time, on spec, at great expense. They then had to store their inventory, and hope they sold the hundreds of copies that would cover their costs. Even when your book costs $2.00 to print, 1000 copies represents a significant investment. Digital printing seemed to offer a practical alternative. But individual authors could not make enough to print single copies of their book and sell them at regular bookstore prices. Some consolidation was needed, to achieve the savings and discounts that came with bulk manufacturing.

"Print-on-demand companies send many titles to their printer at the same time," says Forest. "The content of each book is different, but because they print hundreds of books daily, they are able to minimize waste, time, and costs."

    The companies usually create a book 'container' one size, on one type of paper. They pour the digital content of each book onto that paper. After the press prints the pages for your neighbor's novel, it simply starts to lay ink on the next piece of paper in a new pattern--that of the words and pictures in your book. Printing one book at a time has suddenly become a snap.

    Therefore, most print-on-demand books are the same size. Each print-on-demand service providers offers standard sizes that their printers are expecting. Thus they achieve economics of scale.

"So what are the costs, really?" Forest goes on to explain. "well, in traditional printing thousands of copies of a book can cost as little as around 50 cents each--but we're talking tens of thousands of copies. Very few books have a market of tens of thousands. To print a single book traditionally--if you could find someone to do it for you--would cost as much as printing 200, because of the high set-up costs. Maybe even as much as a $1000."says Forest.

"To print a digital book in single quantities costs POD companies between $4 and $10 per book. Because they are printing so many, their average cost is usually around $6.50. Some companies use this cost to set an average price, losing money on the fattest books, making money on the medium and skinny books. Other companies charge prices based on page-count, allowing the author to set the price, as long as the price does not go below a certain minimum, that guarantees the company its profit." explains Forest.

    Print-on-demand books are not printed until ordered, that kind of goes with the concept of 'on demand.' that is not to say that they are not available through traditional channels such as bookstores. Most bookstores subscribe to databases of books 'in print' -- either online databases, cd-rom editions or the good old-fashioned quarterly catalog. This means that if someone walks into a bookstore and asks for your book, the staff will be able to look up the title, find out how to order the book, and obtain a copy for you.

    Other ways to obtain the books include: Directly from the producer. Most companies have an online bookstore such as iUniverse.com with a toll-free number. "This is the best way, because it cuts out the middlemen and generates the highest profits for you," says Forest, who published his first book through iUniverse. From online bookstores such as Amazone.com. Since these stores routinely list books even if they don't have them in a warehouse, they are great places to direct your customers. It costs the online bookstore next to nothing to list your book, and they can obtain it at any time. From you. This is probably the least preferable option. Why should you have to pay for and store copies, when you can just send your readers to an online bookstore or a toll-free number or spend none of your own money building a stock?

    Of course, you are quite justified in asking how readers will know about your book if it is not on bookstore shelves.

    "Thats where a publicist comes in," explains Forest. "One of the first things I did was hire a P.R. man to get the word out about my book and to let people know where they could get a copy." says Forest. "We've actually sold a good number of books and now it's being shopped around New York and Hollywood circles by and interested agent for a movie deal."

    And there are other ways of getting the book noticed. Since pod books aren't usually available on the shelves at first, you need to get the word out to people who are shopping in other locations--news groups, chatrooms, online stores, society newsletters, local newspapers and so on. Without promotion, even a book on a bookstore shelf will not sell many copies.

    The final indignity for the traditional published author is the concept of your book going out of print. This can happen within the first year. If the response to the first printing of your book is not rapturous and immediate, the publisher's accountants will happily demonstrate that your book is not worth a second printing. It will simply become unavailable.

    With print-on-demand, there is no need for your book to ever go out of print, since there is no need for a minimum print run and all the costs go along with it.

    Since the publishing of Finish Line, author Tom Forest has stepped out onto the public speaking stage, touring in support of his book and speaking to writers groups around the United States. Publishing print-on-demand has also given Mr. Forest other opportunities. He's now being looked at by a major agency in New York with the chance at being shopped around and published by a large publishing house, "And thats what I want," says Forest. "While POD is great when you want to stay in control of things, it also helps you get noticed by the larger publishing houses," says Forest. "and thats what it's all about."

     Another fact about POD, more than twenty print-on-demand titles have appeared on several national best seller lists. "That gives the POD industry great credibility," says Forest. At a recent Finish Line signing several fans approached Forest and compared his book with Robin Cook's "Prey." "They actually liked my book better than Cook's," said an amazed Forest. "Then I realized that all my hard work was worth it."