Print-on-Demand (also know as POD) is a publishing concept that helps lower costs. It also provides individual authors with easy access to international on-line retail outlets, such as Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
In brief: Contact Bookraft DTP if you want to have your book available for sale in big international online book retailers such as Amazon.com and Barnes and Nobles.com.
Explanation: POD services save costs. Traditionally, an author wishing to print a book would have to go through the expensive process of making plates. Offset printing would then be used to produce a print-run of at least 500 copies of the book. Although this does not perhaps sound like a lot, when confronted with the physical mass of this many books, most people are surprised. Obviously, no author wants to be stuck with the storage problem this entails, yet selling 500 copies of a book is not necessarily a quick or easy task.
POD provides an alternative setup. After “setting up” the title for a small fee with the POD service, the title is stored electronically in their database. The advent of digital, rather than offset, printing, means that it is practical and cost-effective to print a small number (even a single) copy of a book. This means that copies of the book do not need to be stored anywhere. The books are simply printed as needed.
What the snag? Well, POD services are geared to working with publishers, not with inidividual authors. They do not normally offer “Author services” — that is, they will not help you with the book design, with creating an electronic book file that meets their specifications, or with ensuring that the book will print correctly. They rely on the author to get that right, and advice him to turn to an Author Services company.
Bookraft DTP is such a company. We can prepare design and layout your book and cover to meet the specifications of the big POD companies. State-of-the-art technology allows us to check each electronic file before it is shipped to ensure that it will print correctly without a hitch.
Most excitingly, however, through our relationship with POD companies, we can offer authors the possibility of easily making their titles available on the major online retailers, such as Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. Working with us, your book will appear on searches, and, in many cases, “in stock”, ready to be ordered by customers worldwide. Also, the book be available on the lists carried by most big bookstores (though it will not necessarily be in stock). So a customer walking into most be bookshops in many parts of the world will be able to order your book at the till.
Another great advantage of the POD structure is that the author does not have the hassle of dealing with shipping the books. The books are shipped directly from the printer, and shipping costs are passed on to the customer.
So, Print-on-Demand offers a great opportunity for authors to actually make their books internationally available with minimum outlay and hassle. Contact Bookraft DTP today to see how we can help you take advantage of this latest technology!