Invasion of the PODs
Filed under Blog Tours on September 24, 2008
Tagged: Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy blog tour, Jeff Gerke, Marcher Lord Press, print on demand
I’ve decided to leave the drive-bys to the professionals. There’s something else I want to talk about.
The interview with Jeff Gerke, founder of Marcher Lord Press, over at The Least Read Blog on the Web has been my favorite post so far from this month’s Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy blog tour. One question, in particular, (and its answer) grabbed me:
LRB: And that’s why you went with print-on-demand also?
JG: People hear print-on-demand and they think, “Oh, vanity press, subsidy publisher, self-publishing!” I guess that’s because the first companies to embrace print-on-demand were those kind of companies.
Print-on-demand is just technology. I had been in the publishing industry for twelve years and I kind of knew the different parts of publishing. And I knew the headaches. Some of the big ones are the big discounts you have to give to retail chains and distributors to get them to take your book. And then, after they’ve ordered fewer copies than you wish at lower discounts than you want, then they send them all back and demand their money back. And sometimes, they send them back to you in an unusable condition. You’ve got warehousing, you’ve got shipping, you’ve got warehouse staff, you’ve got the whole distribution thing, you’ve got to get sales staff to go out and meet with all the chains to see if they’ll take your book at all, you’ve got returns, you’ve got refunds … it’s just crazy. Why are we doing this? So I said, if I ever do a company, it won’t play that game at all.
So what about print-on-demand? Then I could print exactly how many copies as I have orders. No warehousing, no sales staff, no returns, no big discounts. The problem is, I don’t have stores all over the country featuring the book, but I saw how that worked and it usually didn’t work. If you’re not Tyndale or if your book isn’t by Jerry Jenkins or whatever, it’s not going to get big coverage, so why would I even go there at all? So that definitely influenced my decision to use print on demand.
It’s an unfortunate truth that POD technology has a stigma attached to it because of its early adopters. As, Jeff pointed out, the current publishing model is broken, slanted too far in the favor of retailers, and writers suffer for it. Other industries, like music and software, are being forced to change their models because of digital distribution. Why isn’t print-on-demand having the same effect on books?
Public perception is one aspect of that. POD publishers aren’t viewed as legitimate. That’s only a part of the reason, however, and a small one.
Cost is another factor. POD books generally retail for $3-$6 more than mass market paperback. That’s a tough sell, unless you have a vested interest in the product.
Visibility is perhaps the greatest challenge to the success of POD. Brick-and-mortars won’t purchase from POD publishers, which relegates them to the Internet, and the awareness of John Q. Bookreader of what sites sell books is restricted to Amazon and Barnes & Nobles. The latter works under the broken model and the former runs its own POD service, not to mention the fact that Amazon accounts for just a small portion of any title’s total sales (i.e., brick-and-mortar retail sells more than online).
What do you think it will take for print-on-demand to take off as a model? Or will it? Is there another answer to breaking the current model of publishing? Post your theories in the comments. Then check out the other stops on the last day of this tour:
- Brandon Barr
- Justin Boyer
- Keanan Brand
- Kathy Brasby
- Jackie Castle
- Valerie Comer
- Karri Compton
- Courtney
- CSFF Blog Tour
- Stacey Dale
- D. G. D. Davidson
- Janey DeMeo
- Jeff Draper
- April Erwin
- Karina Fabian
- Andrea Graham
- Todd Michael Greene
- Katie Hart
- Timothy Hicks
- Joleen Howell
- Jason Joyner
- Kait
- Tina Kulesa
- Mike Lynch
- Terri Main
- Margaret
- Shannon McNear
- Rebecca LuElla Miller
- Nissa
- John W. Otte
- Steve Rice
- Ashley Rutherford
- Hanna Sandvig
- Mirtika or Mir’s Here
- Greg Slade
- James Somers
- Steve Trower
- Speculative Faith
- Jason Waguespac
- Laura Williams
- Timothy Wise
September 27th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Kameron, great post. I’ve had to rethink the whole POD thing, especially with the development of other technology such as Amazon’s Kindle. How long before all books are sold via the internet alone? OK, maybe not all …
On another subject, I’m sure you’ll be happy to learn that I tagged you over at A Christian Worldview of Fiction. It’s an easy meme. Hope you have fun with it.
Becky
Rebecca LuElla Miller´s last blog post was Fall into Reading and a Game of Tag