It’s no secret that Medialoper loves disruptive media technologies. One of our favorites happens to be one that most consumers aren’t aware of — Print-On-Demand.
As the name implies, Print-On-Demand is a technology that allows publishers to print books as they’re needed. Imagine a world where books never go out of print, no matter how obscure they might be. That’s the promise of Print-On-Demand.
Print-On-Demand also provides authors with a relatively low-risk means of self-publishing. While self-publishing may or may not be a good idea for an unknown author, it could prove be a very profitable move for established authors or individuals who are well known in some other medium.
Today we use the occasion of our first ever Medialoper podcast to take deeper look at Print-On-Demand and the implications that it has for the publishing industry, as well as authors.
In the first segment I interview Timothy Sykes, author of An American Hedge Fund. Tim is a first-time author who happens to be in a rather unique position — he doesn’t really need a traditional book deal.
In the second segment, I talk with our own Kassia Krozser about self-publishing and the future of all media (yes, ALL media). Kassia, of course, usually covers the publishing world over at Booksquare.com.
[audio:http://media.medialoper.com/lopecast01.mp3]
I guess POD is relatively new, in that POD companies have been around for 10 years. In the overall Industrial Revolution side of things, that is relatively new. In the scheme of the Internet, that makes it a dinosaur. Nevertheless, I’m pleased to see it reaching further and further into the mainstream with posts like this.
PoddyMouth
http://poddymouth.wordpress.com
PoddyMouth, you’re right about POD being around for a while, however, it’s really only in the last couple of years that mainstream publishers have consider using it on a larger scale. Also, recent improvements in POD quality and cost have made it a more viable alternative for authors.
In other words, POD may have been around for a while, but it’s finally maturing as a technology.
Loper, congrats on your first podcast! Some feedback for you:
-The end was just kind of a trail off. Finish with a bang, not with bad jokes!
-The first 20 minutes were easier to get through than the last 10. This isn’t a comment on Kassia at all, but rather that the pace in your interview with her was wayyyyy slower than it was in your interview with Mr. Skyes.
-Please give more added value to your audience. A summary would be nice, and maybe even a transcript for people who read faster than most people speak. Links for further reading would be good too.
-Place your enclosure better, and make sure you make it clear what it is. I saw your post in my feedreader(Bloglines Beta is rocking), and the text caught my eye. But not until I read it completely did I realize you were offering a podcast. Even coming to your site, I think it’d be easy for a visitor to overlook the podcast enclosure as the usual junk that fills up the bottom of a post.
Best of luck with future podcasts; looking forward to hearing more!
Jay –
Thanks for the feedback and the constructive criticism. Obviously this was our first effort and we can use all the help we can get.
You’re absolutely right about the ending. After editing the show I was just too worn out to record a more formal conclusion — something I may actually fix now that you’ve brought it up.
I’ll tinker with the enclosure placement as well. Have to admit, I haven’t looked at this in a feed reader yet.
Thanks again.
I understand where Poddymouth is coming from, we both been out front on POD for many years. When I first tried to get my own books out with POD in the late 90’s, Lightning Source, who is the main provider for POD with distribution (via Ingram, their sister company), only wanted to deal with established trade publishers. That was the model. It is true that some trades were slower to adopt POD that others, and that’s what made room for the author services companies (subsidy presses) to put their stamp on the term POD. But they have been using POD all along for backlist, and it’s extremely common for academic press frontlist.
The pricing has been the same from Lightning Source since I’ve started using them in 2002. The model for both self publishing and trade publishing using Lightning Source, Replica, or the new services available through Amazon, has been widely discussed both online and in books.
I’ve been one of the leading advocates of this model for the past five years, and while I enjoy seeing it get new exposure, I’d caution your readers (and listeners) to take a deep breath. I’ve corresponded with thousands of authors who were pursuing publishing, thanks to my blog and Amazon analysis, and despite the sound-bite, trade publishing is not going to be the new vanity publishing.
The reason most authors seek a trade publisher rather than self publishing is because they aren’t interested in starting their own publishing business. It’s a lot of work, however the printing and distribution is done. If those authors can’t find a trade publisher, they usually turn to a subsidy press, so they can just pay a fee and get it done. The vast majority of books publishedthis way don’t sell, not because the quality, but because they aren’t commericial titles to start with and the authors don’t market them properly.
That said, I used to be a trade author with over 100,000 copies of my books sold, and I left it behind to become a self publisher using POD. I do it because I do make more money than I did as a trade author, and because have the freedom to do what I want rather than being the employee of a trade publisher. But I believe it’s very important that authors do their research before writing and publishing so they have reasonable expectations.
The vast majority of the books published with POD never see a bookstore shelf, even those printed for the trades and academic presses. They mainly sell through special order and through Amazon.
Morris Rosenthal
The Self Publishing Blog
Hi, over at Palgrave Macmillan we have been doing POD for a few years now and have around 5,000 titles on POD.
It’s a great system, as an academic publisher we often run short print runs on more niche titles, POD allows us to be more agile to consumer demand, if the demand out-strips the stock we can go to POD quickly and easily and effectively have our entire catalogue available for ever. We, the author and the customer benefits.
Hello.
I enjoyed your podcast interview on POD publishing and thought it was thought-provoking. As the moderator of Yahoo’s POD group, as well as an experienced POD publisher who has put out both profitable and non-profitable titles, I’d like to offer my response to the podcast.
I thought some of the information in the interview, and the post-interview wrap, was very much on track. I also thought there were some misconceptions that should be cleared up.
Let’s start with what was right on target: what everyone said about fiction not being a good option for self-publishing is absolutely correct. Self-publishing works much better for non-fiction topics, and those non-fiction topics should be marketable “niches” focused around a platform that the author is developing that might include consulting and speaking engagements and most certainly includes a content-rich web site at the heart of the marketing effort.
You touched on the importance of platform in your interview wrap and that’s absolutely spot-on. Also, Timothy smartly mentioned Lightning Source, which is far and away the best POD option for a number of reasons, primarily because it’s a powerful inroad into Amazon and allows you to control your own discount. However, you must be a publisher with your own ISBN block, not an author publishing an individual title, to work with Lightning Source.
Now let me touch on some misconceptions in the interview. I think some of the misconceptions come down to some evangelical zeal about POD as some kind of “disruptive technology” that is going to revolutionize publishing and put power in author’s hands. It’s true that POD lowers the overhead and barriers to entry into publishing, but publishing is still a tough business.
It’s important to understand that just because a distribution channel changes doesn’t mean that the deep-pocketed players of the existing industry won’t be on the inside track. For example, just because music ends up being delivered online doesn’t mean that the major record labels that exist today won’t get the lion’s share of the profits from that medium.
I think Timothy will end up regretting his decision to turn down his five figure book deal, but with a couple of disclaimers. His motivations for publishing aren’t always clear to me in the interview. If making money on this one individual book is his primary motivation, then he should have gone with the book deal he turned down. On the other hand, if he truly has a passion for publishing and wants to roll out a serious of books and make it a life’s work, then he may love his decision.
Self-publishing is a great business for those who have a passion for publishing, who are incorporating publishing into an existing consulting/Internet business, and/or who like to “live lean” and have a “lifestyle business” that gives them a lot of creative control over what they publish and how they live. But if I was a millionaire looking to make money, and that was my prime motivation, I’d be in real estate, or financing initial public offerings, or some other more lucrative business for upstarts with money than publishing. Publishing is a business with a vanishing middle class, and I don’t believe POD will change that fundamentally.
POD will boost the “lower classes” in publishing though, and that can make a difference for people who know how to live with a lower operating cost, where a modest income somewhere on the long tail is good enough for them. Another appealing scenario: self-publishing helps someone solidify their “expert brand” and generates lucrative consulting engagements. The wealthiest self-publishers I know all fit that description, and leverage their book sales for their bigger ticket sales in something else. This was not discussed in the podcast.
Here’s a major challenge that did not get fully addressed in the podcast: getting into bookstores. I have experienced first-hand, and have seen many other examples, of major national publicity awarded to a book that is self-published and available on Amazon, but not available in bookstores. I think Timothy will be shocked at how few book sales he gets on Amazon after major interviews and publicity pushes.
In order to capitalize on publicity, you need your book in bookstores, and not just in the back somewhere, but up front, where there is a “stumble factor.” This is something that self-publishers cannot accomplish unless they become major publishing companies. Perhaps Timothy will pull that off. But he is likely to lose a lot of money paying a marketing firm to get huge exposure and then find that the books he sells off the exposure from Amazon don’t come anywhere near to justifying the cost.
That’s why all the successful self-publishers I know either have a more lucrative option for some of their PR exposure (like turning web visitors into high-paying consulting gigs), or have a more affordable, Internet-based marketing strategy that doesn’t involve paying a PR firm huge money for great ego-feeding publicity that doesn’t result in sustained book sales. Successful self-publishing is not about big splashes but sustained, search-engine-driven sales momentum, year in, year out. And if a title starts to really take off, it often makes sense to work with a big player to really drive it across the airport bookstores and wherever else volume sales can happen. Sure, maybe you make less per book, but you sell a whole lot more books. And don’t forget, the branding value of that high volume exposure is a major market advantage also – another point that was not touched on in the discussion.
One thing I really disagree with is that idea that authors with an established following are ideally cut out for self-publishing. Actually, the reverse is true. It’s authors who have an emerging niche but not a huge following who are ideal candidates to break into publishing via self-publishing. Once you have a nice following and an agent who actually returns your phone calls, you are in a much better position to leverage a good deal with the bigger publishing houses, and the real way to make money in publishing is through high volume sales. Timothy seems to have an appetite for the big bucks. You get there by doing Harry Potter or by being a Dr. Phil type of non-fiction person, and that is about selling a ton of books for less royalty rather than selling a much smaller amount on your own, albeit at a higher percentage.
Another misconception of your podcast is that the “long tail” is some kind of amazing opportunity for an entrepreneur. POD’s ability to extend the long tail by keeping thousands of books in print means great business for Amazon, and for big publishers who own thousands of titles, but for a small publisher, having a few books somewhere on the long tail is not a big money proposition, nor is it some kind of publishing revolution. It’s merely a new business opportunity – a great one for those who have a passion for creative control and doing things “their way,” but not for the next Bill Gates. If that’s what you want, you’re better off starting a software company.
I couldn’t disagree more about the comments regarding disrupting the music industry. I agree that the delivery of music will change more dramatically than books, it already has – simply because iPods are a lot more fun that portable electronic book readers. But the music industry is as “locked up corporate” as you can get. I have known a lot of promising local bands who tried to “do it yourself” and attempted to sell songs themselves without a label.
Very very tough road. Music is so subjective – you have to get your music out to a ton of listeners to build your percentage of loyal followers. At least book marketing can be driven by keywords, a more objective assessment. If you’re interested in SAP consulting, for example, there’s a pretty decent chance you might be interested in my book on that topic, but it’s much more difficult to establish a direct relevance through a musical description. People like what they like, and they won’t know it until they hear it. That takes marketing skill and muscle. The former can be learned, the latter takes big bucks.
The idea that there aren’t many big recording artists today is crazy. True, rock is struggling, but that’s not because the music business isn’t making money. Justin Timberlake, 50 Cent, Kanye West, Jack Johnson – the list of hugely successful recording artists goes on, and I haven’t even mentioned the American Idol success stories. Success in music requires big time marketing muscle. It’s hard for artists to do that themselves.
The scenario you described of an artist breaking away from labels to do it themselves was tried by Prince, and it was a recipe for obscurity. Without the marketing muscle of a label, his music died on the vine. And don’t think for a minute that a big artist can divorce their label and still get all the lucrative tour money as you suggested. Labels control tours through their exclusives with companies like TicketMaster. Pearl Jam valiantly tried to fight this system and lost. I’m sure they have no regrets, but if Pearl Jam with all their power and conviction couldn’t change the system, we should at least respect the ferocity of entrenched corporate interests, rather than assuming that technical innovations will easily bowl them over.
Ironically, of the three entertainment industries you touched on, the one you mentioned the least, film, may be the one with the biggest financial upside in the short term – though the upfront investment is still the highest of the three. There are far more “break out” independent film success stories of films put out on a budget using new technology than we have seen in publishing and music combined. True, these successful films were picked up by established distributors, but technology does level some playing fields in film for those with creative vision, while at the same time promising a bigger financial upside to the creators who are successful.
I am all in favor of folks taking up new technology to change their world. I chose to get involved in POD precisely because of that. I believe in independent media and do believe we can have an impact on our world through such a commitment. I hope that Timothy has that same passion, because being a pioneer in an industry rarely means cashing out.
If you look at the history of the modern high-tech and Internet booms, many of the earliest and most important innovators did not cash out. Their ideas were leveraged by those with deep pockets who understood mass marketing. The same is likely to be true for many of these publishing and POD innovations.
It can be very rewarding and challenging, in a good sense, to be on the cutting edge, as long as you realize what you are up against. I know Timothy will find success as he has too many resources and skills not to. But I do hope he will come back and do a podcast in a year or two to share what he has learned. And I hope folks without Timothy’s resources who are thinking about POD will go into it appreciating its potential, but also with their eyes wide open.
By the way, I’m not sure how this comment page is archived, but since I put a lot of time into the response, I’m adding a version of my recent comment above to my own blog, where I will continue to update it if more relevant info comes up. Thanks again for doing this podcast on POD publishing and look forward to your next one.
Jon Reed
Jon,
Thanks for your comments. Since I contacted you off-blog, I’m only going to respond to a few things here. I hope we can talk in more detail about everything you’ve mentioned.
Starting at the end first, I cannot agree with your final sentiment more! While I am a firm supporter of self-publishing and POD, I cannot overemphasize the importance of going in with eyes wide open. You touch on some of the pitfalls and perils — Lightning Source, obviously, has limitations, getting into bookstores, garnering reviews — but there are many, many more issues to consider. If an author thinks going the self-publishing/POD route is an easy entre into being published, it’s gonna end in heartbreak.
That being said, I personally know self-publishing successes, so for the right person with the right book with the right talent with the right timing, good things can happen. Sure, there are lots of variables, but even for fiction authors, it can be the smart choice. But absolutely it’s tough.
I also believe that POD *can* be a disruptive technology. When Stephen King did his epub experiment several years ago, it didn’t fail because of lack of interest, it failed due to lousy execution. Start to finish, it was not a well-conceived experiment. Given the relatively small numbers of units it takes to make a “bestseller” in the publishing industry, savvy authors might very well figure out how to game this particular system. Most will not; the effort involved in self-publishing/POD (and I’m deliberately lumping these together to distinguish from other types of POD applications which I think have more direct impact on traditional publishing models) is not where most major authors want to put their energy. They write, the publishing house does the editing, printing, distribution, fulfillment, marketing, accounting, etc.
That makes perfect sense. When you weigh risks of going out on your own, those elements cannot be underestimated. Writing, in some ways, is the easy part.
Non-fiction authors, especially those authors who are using their books to bolster, supplement, or enhance other aspects of their careers can benefit from self-publishing. The technology is there to create high quality products at a reasonable profit. We spent an evening talking to a high-end gym owner who wanted to self-publish a fitness book for her clients. Money was not her goal with this book. She had a clear idea of what and how she wanted to go about using this book to build her brand. That kind of focus is essential.
I do think that Timothy touched on the idea that he planned to leverage his book for other successes, though I do agree that there was an element of thinking out loud about his future plans. And it wasn’t something we explored either. I found one of the more interesting thoughts on this topic came from Chris Anderson, who has gone the traditional publishing route. He noted (and I’m paraphrasing wildly) that his real income comes from speaking engagements. The book merely builds his credentials. He also noted that those were the kinds of sentiments that made his publisher cringe. I’m guessing he’s getting a decent advance from his house; most authors don’t. So if you’re in a place where your book gets you better speaking fees, that’s a smart career move. The royalties will be gravy.
i’ll definitely come back in a year or so and I’ll either be begging for spare change or king of the world (at least in finance). Exaggeration, but you get the point. One thign we didn’t talk about was how Facebook and other social networks are going to revolutionize the publishing industry. I believe Facebook and Amazon already announced a partnership, but no product has come to market yet. When that hits, POD and ‘Aiming at amazon’ is gonna be the place to be. Also, you guys really need to understand that there is 0 non-sugarcoated information regarding hedge funds and stock trading–if you read my book, you’ll understand that I hold nothing back and in doing so, I expect nothing less than taking the finance world and more specifically the financial reviewers by storm. This is not just some side project book, this is now my life. And to think you can succeed in POD without devoting 24/7 to constant promotion, blogging, following up with emails would be a mistake.
We’ll see on Sept 15, 2008, my ambitious prediction is for 50,000 copies of my book to have sold, 2,000 DVDs and countless speaking appearances—whether I fail or succeed, it’s gonna be a wild ride, with lessons aplenty, just the way I like it 🙂
Jon,
Thanks for your extremely detailed and thoughtful comments on our podcast.
You’re absolutely right that marketing is key, and that authors who are in a position to use self-publishing to promote high paying consulting gigs are in a much better position to see a return on their self-publishing investment.
We’re also in agreement about the value of an affordable internet marketing strategy. For some experts/authors a regularly maintained blog will be the most effective, and profitable, form of self-publishing.
However, we couldn’t have more different views of the music industry. Any lock the major labels had on the business is dwindling. I believe the transition to digital distribution is a huge opportunity for independent labels and artists.
Not long ago, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah literally came out of nowhere with a self-produced album, refused all label offers (large and small) and sold 300,000 units of their debut album. Granted, this is an uncommon example, but it’s also proof of what’s possible for a self-published artist.
Would they have done better releasing their album on a major label? Possibly. But then again, they might have done worse.
The key for any artist is finding the right audience — and these days that’s done by finding the right combination of promotional vehicles. For a self-published musician or author that means using blogs, social networks, live appearances, and even traditional media.
While it’s true that there are still “major” recording artists, it’s also true that today’s artists sell a fraction of what major artists sold even a decade ago. The labels blame piracy, but that’s only part of the problem. I think a larger issue is that there’s just so much more media available to consumers today.
The competition for a reader/viewer/listener’s limited attention is greater than ever before. Music, motion pictures, television, newspapers, and book are all competing with each other, in addition to all of the new forms of media that are emerging online. Recording companies don’t seem to get this yet, and I tend to think that most publishers haven’t come to terms with this fact yet either.
In some cases, smart self-published artists who understand the new dynamics of social media might be in a better position to promote their product than a major corporation. But, as you’ve noted, they also need to be realistic about their prospects. And, to be honest, the percentage of authors or musicians who are prepared to mount an effective new media marketing campaign is relatively small.
At any rate, thanks again for your feedback. You raised many other points that I haven’t responded to here — mostly because you’ve provided me with a new perspective and food for thought that I’m still digesting.
Hey folks…
Thanks again for such a thought-provoking podcast. Kirk, I haven’t responded to your comments mostly because I’ve been distracted by deadlines, and second, because the only thing to really debate in your comment is the music industry.
I don’t really feel qualified to truly assess the music industry, so I guess I’m going to stay away from that debate with you, except to say that the real money being made in music these days is through big money tours with big ticket prices, and I can’t see how smaller musicians without big label support can break the backs of those entrenched interests.
But since I’d be the first one to be happy about seeing the major labels crumble, I’ll just say that I hope you’re right and leave it at that. If a band like Radiohead and figure out how to go on lucrative tours without label support, then I guess you’ll be right about that and I’ll be glad that you are. The reason I like opportunities in publishing a little better than music is that I think it’s a little easier to target a book audience online than a particular music audience.
With that in mind, I just wanted to post a brief update on the POD side of things. I recently did another post on POD on my freefromcorporateamerica.com web site. This post was not really about your podcast, it was actually a different back and forth I was having with a designer on my POD publishing list.
But, some of the themes are relevant, and I also wanted to note an interesting follow up from Tim Sykes, the guest on your POD podcast.
In another self-publishing blog, I recently read an update from Timothy Sykes on how his major publicity campaign was going. Timothy Sykes, as you’ll recall, was the subject of my “good and bad aspects of POD publishing” piece I posted a little while back on this comment threat. In that piece, I wrote that “I think Timothy will be shocked at how few book sales he gets on Amazon after major interviews and publicity pushes.”
In another self-publishing blog comment, Timothy recently noted exactly that. Looking back on his successful, high-profile publicity campaigns, Timothy said, “For my book ‘An American Hedge Fund,’ I was shocked to discover that the 200+ pre-release blurbs, the 100 blog reviews and 3 mainstream reviews have done little to help sales.”
As I’ve noted, this does not mean that there isn’t a time and place for a savvy publicity campaign. But if we treat each book as a profit center, which I believe we should, then a big campaign can set us back $10,000 or more – and it takes a lot of book sales to make that kind of money up. For true profitability, for most POD book titles, an Internet-based marketing strategy is the only one that usually makes sense.
The book publishing business can be very rewarding, whether or not you sell a lot of titles. But I believe the most successful self-publishers worry less about looking good and getting huge PR, and more about connecting to their target market online and presenting their books as part of some kind of Internet-based value proposition they have already developed in collaboration with their intended audience. My bet’s on Timothy to figure this out in the long run, it’s all part of the learning curve we all go through and I’m still going through myself. I hope you will get Timothy back on for an update down the road, as he is in a unique position to reflect on the trial and error of his strategy and share his “wins” with us.
Keep up the good work on this thought-provoking forum.
Jon Reed