There are 2 different PODs floating around in the literary world. One POD stands for print-on-demand. The other stands for publish-on-demand. They are two different processes but rather closely related.
Print-on-demand is when a company like Lightening Source keeps a book stored electronically then prints it whenever there is a request for the book.
Publish-on-demand is when a company will publish just about anything sent to them by authors regardless of editorial standard.
How are they related? Generally, the publish-on-demand companies use a print-on-demand company to fulfill orders for books. Traditional publishers have been known to utilize print-on-demand companies but not for new releases. Traditional publishers use print-on-demand for books that people are still buying once in a while but not enough to justify printing another run of books.
My issue with publish-on-demand should be transparent. Generally publish-on-demand gets authors' hopes up then sets them up for extreme disappointment when they aren't a best-seller. I think there is a definite place for print-on-demand in the literary world so that classics are still accessible to the general public. I don't think print-on-demand will ever be able to match the cover prices of traditional publishers for new works and should be avoided for a new release.
Showing posts with label publishers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label publishers. Show all posts
Friday, April 20, 2007
Monday, April 16, 2007
When is a POD/self-publishing/vanity press OK?
There are some situations where printers like Publish America have their place. These situations are when the authors are not looking to sell a lot of copies or only sell copies to family members. You may want to write your memoir for your children, your children's children, your children's children's children and so on. In this case, you don't necessarily want to sell thousands to strangers but you're not interested in paying thousands to a publisher either.
Maybe you just want to write something, print it then have a book with your name as the author. This is a good time to choose companies like Publish America.
I strongly encourage serious authors to avoid these options even if they want to retain editorial control. If the book idea is good enough, the editor lets you keep control. If your idea is close but not close enough, that's when you run into editors that take over and bring other people in. If you are serious about your idea, fight for the traditional publishing route first. You'll never regret it.
I honestly have never understood why an author would choose a company like iUniverse where you pay between $300 and $1000 to see your book in print, usually get pressured into mediocre editing services, end up with a high cover price and find out it's nonreturnable (which is a no-no for bookstores) when you try to set up a book signing.
I know, if I didn't work in the industry, I wouldn't know any better. This is exactly why I am posting this blog. I hope authors will enter the industry knowing what to look for and avoid these common traps.
Maybe you just want to write something, print it then have a book with your name as the author. This is a good time to choose companies like Publish America.
I strongly encourage serious authors to avoid these options even if they want to retain editorial control. If the book idea is good enough, the editor lets you keep control. If your idea is close but not close enough, that's when you run into editors that take over and bring other people in. If you are serious about your idea, fight for the traditional publishing route first. You'll never regret it.
I honestly have never understood why an author would choose a company like iUniverse where you pay between $300 and $1000 to see your book in print, usually get pressured into mediocre editing services, end up with a high cover price and find out it's nonreturnable (which is a no-no for bookstores) when you try to set up a book signing.
I know, if I didn't work in the industry, I wouldn't know any better. This is exactly why I am posting this blog. I hope authors will enter the industry knowing what to look for and avoid these common traps.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Small Publishing Houses
This is a gray area between a traditional publishing house and self-publishing. The best small publishing house to find is one in your genre. I know of a couple small publishing houses that only publish religious books. They are set up as large publishers where you pay no upfront fees, they have high editorial standards, they do as much publicity as reasonable within budget and they print runs of books.
Upfront fees:
If a publisher is asking for upfront fees they are either subsidy publishing or they are a vanity press. If you want to be a best seller, run away from vanity presses. You really want to find a smaller traditional publishing house if you want to make sales but short of a good one, a subsidy publisher might be OK if you ask them the hard questions and they have satisfactory responses.
High Editorial Standards:
This means they don't accept your book then tell you there are editorial problems later. Beware in-house editors of self-publishers, POD publishers and vanity press editors. They have motivation to let many typos and storyline problems slide just to keep moving authors through the printing process. Am I saying that all of those editors poor editors? No. I'm sure those companies find budding talent but they are hampered by the pressure their employers put on them to meet the bottom line.
The proper response should be something along the lines of, "You have a very interesting story idea. Unfortunately, there are many grammatical and storyline problems that need to be addressed before we can consider working with you." They may refer you to some editors and they may not. Their in-house editors should be busy with repeat authors working on another manuscript.
Think of it this way, how many typos do you find in the Harry Potter series? Until your manuscript is that clean, your book should not go to press. I said in another post, "Edit, Edit, Edit!" Don't take the company's word you have a clean script. Hand it around and make sure!
Publicity:
Now we are touching on my area of expertise. Publicity is FREE advertising in different media venues. This ranges from radio interviews to newspaper and magazine reviews or articles to online reviews to television appearances and book events.
If you found a genuine small publisher, they are going to send out press releases to different papers in your area as well as papers that have sections dealing with your topic. Then they FOLLOW UP! I can't tell you the number of times I have heard an author tell me that a publisher sent their press release to the New York Times Book Review and they are waiting for a call back. First of all, if you are a first time author, you have to write something earth shattering for the New York Times Book Review to take notice.
This is where a pristine manuscript makes a difference. If you possibly have a revolutionary new idea that catches the notice of a top reviewing article, they may excuse one typo. They may even be lenient with a second but if you have more than that, they are going to lose interest. Typos make you look like an ameature and you want to be a professional as possible.
Don't waste your time with a company who is going to waste your publicity time. If they ask you for a list of your friends and family to contact, they are wasting your time. You are perfectly capable of telling people you know about your book. The publisher/publicist needs to be spending their time contacting people you don't know. Smaller publishing houses don't have the huge budgets that large houses have so expecting them to fly you to Hawaii for a book signing is unreasonable. They are going to send posters, review copies, bookmarks and press releases.
Printing a run of books:
If you are dealing with an actual small publisher, they are going to print a small run of books because they think they can sell all those books. It saves them money to print that way and they can always print another run if they run out of books.
The major reason you want runs of books printed is because there is usually a lower cover price which means more people will buy your book. POD and vanity presses bump the cover price 2-3 times what competitive books are selling for. They do this because they expect fewer sales and they want to make the author think they're making a lot of money. A typical POD author makes about $1.00 a book. Publishers also need to make it worth their while so they take at least $10.00 of the cover price of the book. A traditionally published author is lucky to make $0.25 per book. It's worth their while because they will sell thousands if not hundreds of thousands of books.
Upfront fees:
If a publisher is asking for upfront fees they are either subsidy publishing or they are a vanity press. If you want to be a best seller, run away from vanity presses. You really want to find a smaller traditional publishing house if you want to make sales but short of a good one, a subsidy publisher might be OK if you ask them the hard questions and they have satisfactory responses.
High Editorial Standards:
This means they don't accept your book then tell you there are editorial problems later. Beware in-house editors of self-publishers, POD publishers and vanity press editors. They have motivation to let many typos and storyline problems slide just to keep moving authors through the printing process. Am I saying that all of those editors poor editors? No. I'm sure those companies find budding talent but they are hampered by the pressure their employers put on them to meet the bottom line.
The proper response should be something along the lines of, "You have a very interesting story idea. Unfortunately, there are many grammatical and storyline problems that need to be addressed before we can consider working with you." They may refer you to some editors and they may not. Their in-house editors should be busy with repeat authors working on another manuscript.
Think of it this way, how many typos do you find in the Harry Potter series? Until your manuscript is that clean, your book should not go to press. I said in another post, "Edit, Edit, Edit!" Don't take the company's word you have a clean script. Hand it around and make sure!
Publicity:
Now we are touching on my area of expertise. Publicity is FREE advertising in different media venues. This ranges from radio interviews to newspaper and magazine reviews or articles to online reviews to television appearances and book events.
If you found a genuine small publisher, they are going to send out press releases to different papers in your area as well as papers that have sections dealing with your topic. Then they FOLLOW UP! I can't tell you the number of times I have heard an author tell me that a publisher sent their press release to the New York Times Book Review and they are waiting for a call back. First of all, if you are a first time author, you have to write something earth shattering for the New York Times Book Review to take notice.
This is where a pristine manuscript makes a difference. If you possibly have a revolutionary new idea that catches the notice of a top reviewing article, they may excuse one typo. They may even be lenient with a second but if you have more than that, they are going to lose interest. Typos make you look like an ameature and you want to be a professional as possible.
Don't waste your time with a company who is going to waste your publicity time. If they ask you for a list of your friends and family to contact, they are wasting your time. You are perfectly capable of telling people you know about your book. The publisher/publicist needs to be spending their time contacting people you don't know. Smaller publishing houses don't have the huge budgets that large houses have so expecting them to fly you to Hawaii for a book signing is unreasonable. They are going to send posters, review copies, bookmarks and press releases.
Printing a run of books:
If you are dealing with an actual small publisher, they are going to print a small run of books because they think they can sell all those books. It saves them money to print that way and they can always print another run if they run out of books.
The major reason you want runs of books printed is because there is usually a lower cover price which means more people will buy your book. POD and vanity presses bump the cover price 2-3 times what competitive books are selling for. They do this because they expect fewer sales and they want to make the author think they're making a lot of money. A typical POD author makes about $1.00 a book. Publishers also need to make it worth their while so they take at least $10.00 of the cover price of the book. A traditionally published author is lucky to make $0.25 per book. It's worth their while because they will sell thousands if not hundreds of thousands of books.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Publishing Houses
If you are wanting to be a best seller, your publisher will have a lot of say in whether that dream will be a reality or not. You should have read about agents already and I strongly encourage everyone that wants to top the best seller list to find an agent and refuse to publish with any company that does not go through an agent.
BUT... Say you don't want to wait the 2-3 years before seeing your book in print. Maybe you aren't interested in selling to anyone beyond your group of friends. Maybe you just want to print something for your grandchildren to have. Now we enter the part of the industry that I deem the most wrought with scams.
The first thing I suggest when looking into publishers is to realize that the big publishing houses are not going to be actively searching for submissions. They are only going to look at ideas from established agents with non-disclosure agreements in the ready. If you are determined to make it to the top of the literary industry, you don't need to continue reading this post.
OK, you don't feel the need to submit your book to the top publishers for whatever reason. Maybe you have been told by an agent that the idea is good but you have to prove sales and the drive to make your book succeed before they will pick you up. What you need to find is a smaller publishing house, a print on demand (POD) publisher, a self publishing company or a subsidy publisher to bring your words onto the printed and bound page.
Of all these options, look for a smaller publishing house first. There are many good ones but look into them in detail before signing on ANY dotted lines.
BUT... Say you don't want to wait the 2-3 years before seeing your book in print. Maybe you aren't interested in selling to anyone beyond your group of friends. Maybe you just want to print something for your grandchildren to have. Now we enter the part of the industry that I deem the most wrought with scams.
The first thing I suggest when looking into publishers is to realize that the big publishing houses are not going to be actively searching for submissions. They are only going to look at ideas from established agents with non-disclosure agreements in the ready. If you are determined to make it to the top of the literary industry, you don't need to continue reading this post.
OK, you don't feel the need to submit your book to the top publishers for whatever reason. Maybe you have been told by an agent that the idea is good but you have to prove sales and the drive to make your book succeed before they will pick you up. What you need to find is a smaller publishing house, a print on demand (POD) publisher, a self publishing company or a subsidy publisher to bring your words onto the printed and bound page.
Of all these options, look for a smaller publishing house first. There are many good ones but look into them in detail before signing on ANY dotted lines.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)