How Real Publishing Works

They're actually getting ready for it earlier-- I think someone had a word with them.

How Publishing works

All of thisis very good, except for a few misconceptions. Originally, POD was a curse to publishing and one of the posters here is correct; they just took you word doc, put it all into single space and ran thepress when an order came in. However, it is now a widely used technology based on JIT business theory; instead of warehouses full of books that are going to go back to another warehouse to be discounted or destroyed, modern press houses can run one or one hundred thousand books at pretty much the same cost. There are obvious price points, but all of my books in four publishing houses were vetted, contracted with advances, edited, proofed, designed and then released and all of them are publish on demand. The book "Open Your Heart with Bicycling..." through Dreamtime Publishing was orignally run at 100 copies for promo, and now Meg runs them at 1000 at a shot as needed. The other notion that e-books are the equivalent of the Drudge Report (or just plain crappy writing) needs to be seriously examined. Many well established text book publishers see the market on campuses for e books growing and I will gladly sell one hundred thousand copies of my book, hard back, soft back or electronic in that environment. The University I work at is indicative of this growing market; electronic book readers sell as fast as books here. Ten years ago, I spearheaded an effort to grow a electronic library at NetLibrary in Boulder, Colorado. We took hard copies of back lists from University Presses and converted them to full linked and searchable electronic books. I now have twenty five books on my laptop that I need to read in the next few months and once I have the information, I do not need to store the hard copy of the book on a shelf in my office and never read it again. Publishing is changing.

Shawn Rohrbach
www.shawnrohrbach.com

POD has quite a few legitimate uses. For example, I recently bought a copy of my motorcycle's maintenance manual, and the dealer explained that Suzuki had been printing them to order (he didn't say POD specifically). The cost per book is still higher but it does mean lower inventories.

However, actually printing only once a book is ordered, as opposed to using digital printing technology, is still something that only makes sense for small niche things that sell very slowly but people who need them will buy even if it's not on a bookshelf, or for vanity publishing. The "on demand" part of POD still isn't quite ready for trade publishing.

Anybody who prints 1,000 copies of something at a time with POD printing is...well, forum decorum forbids me to complete that thought.

LloydBrown/POD

Not sure where you live Lloyd, but we here in san diego can express ourselves professionaly and effectively without resorting to cussing and swearing, so go ahead and think of an intelligent response that CAN be printed in this forum.

Actually, this school of digital printing is known as print TO demand, rather than print ON demand. Digital presses are perfect for small runs that are large enough to keep adequate replacement stock for fulfillment, but too small for offset presses (which generally begin at 2,500 in order to be profitable.) One start-up that used digital technology for this purpose was Ellora's Cave, which has now moved beyond the need through excellent sales and now uses conventional offset presses for all but a handful of their titles.

The technology is also useful for a number of the large mainstream publishers who are starting to re-print previously out of print titles for long-standing authors to excite a new generation of reader with classic books.

It definitely has its use and more than likely it will continue to grow as the technology improves.

Good luck with your book, shawnrohrbach. I hope it does well!

Cathy C

Thanks for the clarification. And also thanks for the kind words. As much as I would like to live the life portrayed in the move "capote" where I could receive large advances on a book I haven't written and tour the packed salons of New York, mine is a different reality and when I see more students reading ebooks than hardcover, I want my boat to rise with that tide.

I think it is also important to remember that the commercial houses are also "rising with that tide". My book has been available as an e-book almost as long as a print book, and does pretty well on the Kindle. While the publishers are always the last to change, they aren't adverse to it, and things are changing in the industry.

But I agree with Cathy, there are a great many uses for POD (or PTD?), and as the technology improves you will start to see those "print a book here" machines that have started popping up in some stores. In theory the technology is very environmentally friendly.

I'll also add my congrats and good luck to you sir with your book! And welcome to AW!

Maybe things work differently down here, but I was rather curious about your comments on editing. I was told in several submission guidelines for publishers here (Random House, Harper Collins, Scholastic etc) that they will not look at manuscripts unless they are 100% perfect (spelling, grammar, the works) and they recommend that you send your manuscript to an assessor before submitting to anyone - a service you have to pay for. Some will not even consider work that isn't laid out to their preference.

Wouldn't that make most of those editorial duties somewhat redundant? These aren't dodgy little publishers giving this advice, these are global brands. Am I missing something?

Also, I may be completely ignorant, but I've been reading through this thread (not all of it) and I have no idea what PA means! Apparentlyt it's not good, but can someone enlighten me please?

I can't speak as to how things work where you live but I can point you to where you can read about PA.

Here.

overtired said:

I was told in several submission guidelines for publishers here (Random House, Harper Collins, Scholastic etc) that they will not look at manuscripts unless they are 100% perfect (spelling, grammar, the works) and they recommend that you send your manuscript to an assessor before submitting to anyone - a service you have to pay for.
Am I missing something?

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The truth. Check the websites for yourself.

The ones cited you need to sub through an agent.

Random House Guidelines: "Random House, Inc. does not accept unsolicited submissions, proposals, manuscripts, or submission queries via e-mail at this time.

Harper Collins Guidelines: "with the exception of Avon romance, HarperCollins does not accept unsolicited submissions or query letters."

Scholastic Guidelines: "Scholastic accepts unsolicited ideas in the area of Professional Books only."

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DAW Books guidelines. They will look at unsolicited MS. No where on the page does it state that the MS must be 100% perfect or sent to an assessor--editor?--before sending it in.

Some will not even consider work that isn't laid out to their preference.

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Which isn't rocket science:

Tor Books Guidelines.

I see a concern that writers use one side of the paper, that the paper be the right size, the font be large enough to read, and to include postage if you want it back.

It is a professional courtesy to run the MS through spell and grammar check to take out the worst plonkers, but no publisher rejects something that's less than perfect or else nothing would get published, ever.

They DO want something they think they can sell.

I shudder at what the Tor editors have been through to inspire this paragraph:

Don't send jewelry, food, toys, 3-dimensional representations of anything, or anything that might be construed as a bribe. Over the years, we've seen all of the following and more: handmade bracelets and earrings, anatomical models, home-baked cookies, fine fabrics, fancy bookmarks, coconuts, fancy manuscript boxes . . ..None of this has any impact on our consideration of your work. The work has to sink or swim on its own merits.

(My emphasis.)

I'm wondering if it's these "assessors" putting out that rumor so they can get more business.

I've seen many websites--usually vanity houses--repeat that fib or else say subbing to a big house means you've signed away your rights, the editors will change your words on a whim, and a lot of other lies. It's all to scare neos into buying their services.

Just use the tools that came with the WP program, use Strunk and White's Elements of Style for the rest, get a good beta reader for feedback, and send something in.

When I worked as an editor I was once sent a banana as part of a bizarre pre-submission publicity thing. If only the writer had spent as much time polishing his work as he spent on sending people bananas, he might have had something worth publishing.

Here's the thing about manuscripts. They have to be as good as a writer can possibly get them before they're submitted. But then the editor might well have a few suggestions to make to improve the text even further and often, someone who is not as emotionally involved in a text can spot things that a writer (who has an immense, personal investment in the text) can't see clearly for themselves.

Working with a good editor is one of those brilliantly rewarding things that a writer can do and no matter how good a book is when it's submitted, there's almost always going to be more that can be done to improve it. Which doesn't mean it shouldn't be darn-near perfect before it's sent out: just get it as close to that as you possibly can.

Old Hack said:

When I worked as an editor I was once sent a banana as part of a bizarre pre-submission publicity thing.

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Dare I ask... were bananas prominently featured in the book?

Gillhoughly, Overtired is not in the US, and things are different. A friend of mine in Europe is working at getting in the business of editing manuscripts because it seems to be more common over there. She has some experience that I think will be helpful.

And what CaoPaux said.

Old Hack said:

When I worked as an editor I was once sent a banana as part of a bizarre pre-submission publicity thing.

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Hackie, I defy you to beat out the coconut I received. It was the return envelope, actually. Had a hole drilled into the top and a baggie for me to put my letter inside so it wouldn't get all gooey. If only he'd put that much cleverness into his writing than his return-freaking-envelope!

priceless1 said:

Hackie, I defy you to beat out the coconut I received. It was the return envelope, actually. Had a hole drilled into the top and a baggie for me to put my letter inside so it wouldn't get all gooey. If only he'd put that much cleverness into his writing than his return-freaking-envelope!

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What? It didn't arrive by swallow?

JulieB said:

What? It didn't arrive by swallow?

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African or European?

Huh? I don't know that! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Beth Bernobich said:

African or European?

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I thought I'd leave that as an exercise to the reader. Or, perhaps, the person sending the coconut. ;-)

The banana was part of a staged campaign. The first part was a gift-wrapped, oversized photo of a gorilla. Then came a card bearing a photo of another gorilla, with a personalised greeting which managed to seem impersonal and slightly creepy. The banana came next, and after all that I got a "press release" which told me of the writer's wonderful book--which, sadly, wasn't a genre I dealt with. So it was all for nothing. The same package was sent to a number of young publishing lovelies, and did garner some attention from the trade press at the time but mostly because one of my good friends was a journalist who was keen to fill a few column inches.

As far as I know, the book was never picked up, and didn't even get representation.

Creepiest of all inappropriate actions by a writer, though, was the one who sent me photos of me arriving for work in the mornings, and going out to get my lunch from Bumblebees. The photos came with notes asking how I'd enjoyed my potato salad, that sort of thing. That taught me to not send personalised rejections--which was what had set the writer off in the first place (and no, I didn't take his book on either).

I shall now return this thread to its original topic, with apologies. Carry on.

Yikes, Hack--that's totally creepy! I'd be freaked if anyone did that to me.

OTOH I'm paranoid to start with and they'd be taking their chances.

Scary people owe me favors.

Gillhoughly, the publishers I cited were the New Zealand branches, which do accept unsolicited manuscripts. Sorry for any confusion.

I figured that out, but my post was geared for neos in the States.

I'd check those sites in your area just to be sure about guidelines. 100% perfection means no one gets in!

:Going back to figuring out the air speed velocity of both African and European swallows burdened and unburdened by coconuts.:

JulieB said:

What? It didn't arrive by swallow?

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No, it arrived by a very confused UPS man.