All book store owners/managers see POD on your books when ordering through Ingram's and they tend to issue a swift, "NO!" for a request for a signing. That doesn't make sense.
When I wrote for Dorchester, they'd do a print run of 25,000 or more copies at a time. These books were stored in a warehouse down South as I understand it until they were sold and more had to be printed. Bear in mind that I wasn't their only author. So paying for the cost of a warehouse for storage was hardly cost effective.
A couple of years back, POD copiers were invented and they took off. When they first arrived on the scene, they were extremely expensive. So large publishing houses would chip in and buy a copier and share it. Thus the top ten stepped into the future and into POD publishing.
So here's the question? How come a POD book by say Stephen King, Patricia Cornwell or another top ten seller is a good idea, but POD books by average authors are ostracized? Is is because they're allegedly supposed to be self-published? Not all are but so what?
Know what these well known authors
have in common? Henry David Thoreau * Alexander Dumas * Carl Sandburg
Virginia Woolf * William Blake * ohn Muir * Pat Conroy * Upton Sinclair * Walt Whitman * Ezra Pound * Leo Tolstoi* Mark Twain * Robert Bly * Rudyard Kipling * Zane Grey* TS Eliot * Steven King * Louis L'Amour * Steven Crane * Ernest Hemmingway They were all self-published at one time or another.
Therefore, what is the big deal here?
As an end note: Lightening Source is now doing POD novels for most publishing houses and self-published authors. Big business.
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Reviewed by Malcolm Watts (Reader)
Reviewed on August 7, 2006
You are right Dana. We self-published authors are often thought to be second class or vanity publishers. The reality is, a lot of great books are self-published. The book industry has a lot to learn about publishing and book promotion in the 21st century. Malcolm
Reviewed by Elizabeth Taylor (Reader)
Reviewed on August 4, 2006
It's called a monopoly by the NY publishers. They threaten to withdraw their books if bookstores do not comply with boycotting POD, yet they use POD publishing methods themselves.
Will it change any time soon. No, not unless it is taken to court.
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Will it change any time soon. No, not unless it is taken to court.
They have deep pockets.