The Whys and Wherefores of Print on Demand

Sadie, who you've met if you've read the previous entries, has been nagging me: "Oy, so write already. Too long it's been taking you between postings." Sorry Sadie. I intended to write every week. For the last two weeks, Life has intervened. First there was Thanksgiving. My house. Fifteen people. Need I say more?

Then I opened my e-mail to find a little message from my PSA at iUniverse--the angel who is guiding my book through the publishing process--telling me that my proofs were ready. Expert that I am, it only took two days and key by key instruction from my PSA to open the Adobe file and access the proofs. Once I had them, I had to re-read every word of the book, cover to cover, with a magnifying glass and a mind on hyper-alert to weed out any typos or glitches that had escaped all previous prunings. So now I'm done, and am here to answer the question I promised to answer the last time I blogged: What is Print on Demand (POD) publishing?

To publish traditionally, an author has to find an agent, the agent has to find a publisher where an editor has to fall in love with a book and convince the marketing department that the book will be a bestseller. The book has to be produced, then sold and shipped to stores. If the books ordered don't sell out in a timely fashion, they are returned to the publisher, and ultimately destroyed. The print-set-up for Print on Demand books is paid for by the author. The POD company--in my case, iUniverse--offers a variety of services, all for a fee. I chose to have them design a cover for my book, and to have an editorial evaluation. (If this hadn't been positive, I would have aborted the publication process, or hired an editor.) Of course, they also produce the books. Instead of producing a set number, they print only those books that have been ordered.

Books are available from the publisher (iUniverse.com) or from Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, etc. Autographed copies of Perchance to Feast can be ordered from me at Belbook1@gmail.com when they become available, probably by mid-January.

In my next posting, I'll give my top five reasons for choosing POD over traditional publishing. Anyone want to guess? I'll give a free book to anyone who guesses all five reasons correctly (send guesses to Belbook1@gmail.com)