Confused--Do small presses sometimes us POD technology?

DeniseK · May 19, 2006

I am a student of this publishing business, I've been collecting links for a couple of years, and trying to learn all I can. But somewhere along the way, I seem to have gotten the impression that small publishers or presses can still be considered traditional publishers because they farm out their printing to POD companies, that the author is not involved financially, like they would be if they were going the regular POD route, paying for the books upfront, the transaction is between the publisher and the printer. Am I wrong or right?

What prompted my question is that I have a list of potential traditional publishers to query for my novel, and I had Zumaya Publishing as one of them, but then I saw on another writer's site that they were considered POD. However, when I checked them out before that at P & E, they are simply listed as a book publisher. When I brought this up in the other forum, someone copied the section of their contract that mentions print-on-demand. If not for just happening to run across that post, I would have assumed all along that they were traditional, and might have assumed my information about small publishers using POD technology was correct.

I was pretty confident that I was only listing traditional publishers to query, but now I am a bit concerned and need a deeper understanding.

jchines · May 19, 2006

Print on Demand is a technology, nothing more and nothing less. It doesn't necessarily mean anything about the publisher.

Almost all of the scams use PoD, but so do some legitimate small presses. (Wildside is the first that comes to mind. Wheatland Press is another, I believe.)

There's a certain number of copies where it becomes more economical to do a large print run of 5000 or 10,000 copies. Small presses don't usually do huge print runs, so it's more economical for them to use PoD instead.

Does that help at all?

DeniseK · May 19, 2006

Yeah, that's what I thought, but where is the line drawn between traditionally published and POD published?

If the publisher uses POD technology but pays the author rather than the author paying them, is that considered traditionally published? Zumaya does pay royalties to their authors.

Now I'm more confused than ever, especially since P & E list them as "book publisher" period.

Argh.

jchines · May 19, 2006

I hate to be a smart-***, but it depends on how you define traditional. PoD is a relatively recent technology in the larger scheme of things, so you could argue that any publisher using PoD is not using a traditional approach.

It sounds to me like you're using "traditional" to mean legitimate. If that's the case, I would say that using PoD doesn't automatically disqualify a publisher.

DeniseK · May 19, 2006

Well, I hate to sound like a dumbass, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that my goal is to be published by, yes, a legitimate, commercial publisher, one that goes the same route as is traditionally accepted as far as printing, distribution, royalties paid on the cover price, etc. and that I am leery now that I've discovered that checking P & E still doesn't guarantee what I see is what I get. Maybe I should avoid the word digital?

veinglory · May 19, 2006

I think that a word nobody agrees the meanign of isn't much use, and 'traditional' is one of those. What you need is the best publisher you can get for your book. Companies using POD will typically sell fewer copies than a large company using offset. But this cannot be assumed in all cases. Rather than looking at the technology, look at the sales. Contact authors from the publishers that interest you. 5k is 5K, 50k is 50k no matter what kind of machine spits out the books.

DeniseK · May 19, 2006

That makes sense.

Deleted member 42 · May 19, 2006

POD, as others have said, is just one of many printing technologies -- and big name publishers use it, though they generally are paying more in order to get better quality output. You've probably purchased POD published/digitally printed books, and not known it, unless you're fairly clued in about print technology.
University publishers also use POD and digital printing technologies, so you can't judge by the technology.

Avoid the word "traditional"-- mostly it's used by scam publishers.

Look for:
Publishers whose books you can find in physical bookstores, bookstores you go to yourself and know.
Publishers who do not expect you to pay for a copyright registration, ISBN or LOC CIP number, but which do provide all three.
Publishers who pay royalties.
Publishers who pay genuine advances (sometimes perfectly good publishers do not pay advances, but do pay royalties).

Jaws · May 21, 2006

A couple of definitions:

A commercial publisher relies on the ordinary stream of commerce for distribution of its books. That includes mail-order, specialty stores, academic outlets, discounters, and trade stores, in some combination. A commercial publisher has legal title to each copy as it comes off the press, and the guaranteed flow of money is toward the author in some combination of advance and royalty.
A self-publisher does all of the distribution of its books itself, although it may subcontract individual jobs. A self-publisher is the author, and has legal title to each copy as it comes off the press; the guaranteed flow of money is away from the author, because the self-publisher is paying all of the costs of PPP (production, printing, and packaging). About 10-15% of all self-publishing efforts break even or better for the author after considering the value of the author's intellectual property.
A vanity press does all of the distribution of its books itself, although it may subcontract individual jobs and almost always requires a substantial proportion (or all) orders to be direct from the publisher. A vanity press is not the author; the press has legal title to each copy as it comes off the press. The guaranteed flow of money is away from the author; of late, hiding this in back-end costs has become more popular, although this is hardly a new phenomenon. Less than 1% of all vanity-press efforts break even or better for the author, without even considering the value of the author's intellectual property.
A traditional publisher is usually a vanity press trying to pretend to be something else. The same goes for "cooperative press," "subsidy press," and all too often "POD publisher."

"Print on demand" is a printing technology; so are "offset", "direct lithography", "web", "thermography", "xerography", and "engraving" (to name those technologies currently in widespread use). POD is not a business model; it is a marker for vanity presses in the sense that it calls for closer scrutiny of the publisher's real business model.

Be like Woodstein and follow Deep Throat's advice: follow the money. That's the first clue as to the real nature of a given publisher. Figuring out the legal title requires looking at the actual publishing contract, and if the money flow is too obvious you won't need to go there.

Note: There are some limited circumstances in which a vanity-press model may be the most appropriate approach to a particular project. For example, a family history written by someone who can't use a computer for a family that might, if the author is lucky, buy 35-50 copies can actually be more cost-effective in some circumstances than self-publishing. However, these limited circumstances are extremely rare.

maestrowork · May 21, 2006

DeniseK said:
Yeah, that's what I thought, but where is the line drawn between traditionally published and POD published?

If the publisher uses POD technology but pays the author rather than the author paying them, is that considered traditionally published? Zumaya does pay royalties to their authors.

Now I'm more confused than ever, especially since P & E list them as "book publisher" period.

Argh.

I think a better way to look at it is the business model.

Using digital printing (aka POD to many people) TECHNOLOGY is a legit way of printing books in small runs (under 500). It's simply an economic decision because offset printing has high set-up cost and also it's cheaper to print and warehouse 500 copies than 5000. Large and small presses alike use digital printing technology when necessary. They also do offset printings when the demand is there.

When book stores say they don't accept "POD" books it generally means the business model:

- vanity/subsidiary presses that charges authors to print their books
- no quality control and editing
- print on demand, sometimes one book at a time
- no return policies because, well, it's one book at a time...
- no discounts
etc. etc.

But as others have said, and as a Barnes & Nobel manager told me: follow the money.

The money should always flow TO the author's pocket. The rest is just finer details.

Deleted member 42 · May 21, 2006

maestrowork said:
When book stores say they don't accept "POD" books it generally means the business model:

- vanity/subsidiary presses that charges authors to print their books
- no quality control and editing
- print on demand, sometimes one book at a time
- no return policies because, well, it's one book at a time...
- no discounts
etc. etc.

The reason bookstores tie the technology, POD, to the publisher, is that quite often when a clerk/manager looks up a book on the computer, they're looking at the stock carried by their BigNameDistributor/Stockhose.

These distributors are HUGE, and quite often the vanity/subsidy and scam presses (like PublishAmerica) deliver directly to them.

But what actually happens is that the PRINTER for PublishAmerica or whomever delivers to the distributor--so when the clerk looks up a book in the distributor's database it says the name of the printer--and there are only a handful of really big ones, like Lightning Source.

Hence the technology gets the bad rap, rather than, say, PublishAmerica.

Lauri B · May 22, 2006

Denise,
I wouldn't worry about how Zumaya prints its books, but rather how it distributes its books. Are Zumaya books in bookstores? Does it have national distribution? Do you recognize any of the authors or books it publishes? Those are more important considerations than whether or not the publisher uses POD or offset to print.

Confused--Do small presses sometimes us POD technology?

DeniseK

jchines

Got the hang of it, here

DeniseK

jchines

Got the hang of it, here

DeniseK

veinglory

volitare nequeo

DeniseK

Deleted member 42

Jaws

Apex Predator

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

Deleted member 42

Lauri B

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