1. You have total control over your book. No one is going to edit your work and take out your personal “style” or omit sections you know to be important. Gom Publishing includes copyediting with virtually all of their publishing plans, which is something I did not find with most other print-on-demand companies.

2. Your book is available for sale within 90 days or less if you assist with design. Compared to “old time” methods of publishing, even if a publisher accepts your book, it normally is not available for sale for almost a year or later. The whole world could change in that length of time and you would still have to wait a year or more before you got paid for your hard work.

3. You can make up to 50% for every book you sell. Compare this to a publisher who only pays writer an 8% to 10% commission. This means that you can set up a web page to sell your book, take orders and purchase amount of books your need to fill orders at a 50% discount from print-on-demand publisher. Gom Publishing offers a 55% discount, which increases your profits even more. This option is not possible with standard publishers who purchase exclusive rights from a writer, thus not allowing writer to sell their books on their own.

4. Print-on-demand publishers also build excellent marketing benefits into their basic prices. These marketing benefits include: (a) assignment of an ISBN number; (b) ISBN bar code printed on book cover; (c) Library of Congress cataloging and registration; and (d) automatic listing on world’s largest bookstores: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waldenbooks and Borders. I found with Gom Publishing that they even have programs to distribute your book through third party distributors, sales reps, and even offer publicist services. All you have to do is help in promotion by directing people to you book on these websites. The credit card orders are processed for you, books are shipped to your customers and you receive a monthly commission check.

Of course there are many more benefits to print-on-demand publishing than four I listed above, but I am sure you can begin to see benefits for yourself. However, even though print-on-demand publishing has many “pros,” there are some “cons” that you might want to consider. One of those “cons” is how established publishing community views print-on-demand books. They view them as “vanity” publications and booksellers may be reluctant to deal with them. Trade journals like Publishers Weekly and Kirkus also do not like to deal with print-on-demand published books and magazines and newspapers shy away from them also.

Why are publishers who are located in high-traffic media biased against print-on-demand publishing? Because they know author had total control over book and it did not go through standard editing process. So what? In my opinion, media makes a great deal of money from writers and since print-on-demand technology does not provide them with this extra revenue print-on-demand publishing leaves a “bad taste” in their mouths. They tell their employees that print-on-demand publishing is not professional behavior, when truth of matter is that print-on-demand publishing is taking money out of their pockets. The “biggies” cannot reveal their true motive, so they do “human” thing and create as much bad publicity for print-on-demand industry that they can then use leverage of other “biggies” like themselves to keep everyone’s pockets padded with green stuff.

So unless you plan to write a book that you expect to be interviewed on BookTV or Larry King Live about, I suggest you check out print-on-demand publishing. Below are some print-on-demand publishers you may want to consider and compare prices:

1. Gom Publishing, http://www.gompublishing.com 2. Graphico Publishing, http://www.graphicopublishing.com 3. Author House, http://www.authorhouse.com/ 4. BlitzPrint, http://www.blitzprint.com/ 5. Instant Publisher, http://www.instantpublisher.com/

Or, go to any search engine and type in search words “print-on-demand publishing” and start shopping. I chose Gom Publishing to publish my book. The total cost was less than $600 and I made this money back almost immediately.

If are a first time writer or even published, you need to check out benefits for your work by utilizing print-on-demand publishing. At least you now have more options available to you and perhaps one day, writers will be less dependent on publishers and can take control over their own products.

Text. Focus your group on either poetry or prose—try not to mingle two. If text is prose, and writer wants his novel critiqued, suggest that novel be submitted on a “per chapter” (or two) basis. Don’t overwhelm members with too much to read at one time—or you’ll end up with no members. The month before your work is critiqued, each writer should submit photocopies of their manuscript to each member.

Know your intentions. Make sure that, for most part, members have similar goals: to be published or for sheer enjoyment of writing. This will eliminate time wasted if you know this upfront.

Critiquing. When critiquing text, encourage members to speak as if writer isn’t present. In meanwhile, author can sit back, take notes, and write down questions critics may have posed. Encourage critics to write on their versions of text before meeting. Allow approximately 20 minutes to discuss each member’s work. Upon completion of critique, critics should give author their “corrected” versions. Complete critique by allowing author to explain any unanswered questions and to thank critics. If members can’t keep up with reading that much work per month, then divide it up. Four writers submit one month, while remaining four submit following month. Above all, writing groups should be a relaxed environment—away from your significant other, your children, and your job. Let this be a time where you hone your writing skills with assistance of others who simply seek same thing.