The New Way to PublishWritten by Penny C. Sansevieri
These days, there are several ways to get your book published. You can get an agent and go traditional route, you can self-publish, or you can take advantage of a new form of publishing called "print-on-demand" or POD. What exactly is print-on-demand publishing? Think of it as self-publishing with a twist. It used to be, if you wanted to circumvent traditional publishing houses, you had to tackle everything from printers to cover designers, ISBNs (International Standard Book Number) to distribution. Feeling dizzy yet? Sure, there were also self-publishing houses called vanity presses. They churned out about 6,000 titles per year and author paid anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000 to publish his or her book. Cost alone was usually enough to discourage anyone who had not spent a great deal of time in industry. Options were pretty limited, until Internet explosion occurred. Enter on-demand publisher. Now, for a minimal fee (usually from $159 to $1,500), you can see your book in print. Essentially, what you're doing is hiring a publisher to publish your book. They take care of cover, book interior, ISBN, and distribution. They are compensated for this by receiving a portion of profits every time you sell a book. You are compensated through royalties and while these do vary, they typically fall somewhere in 18-20 percent range per book. The great part about POD publishing is that "on-demand" part enables them to print books as they are needed, meaning that someone (probably you) won't get stuck with a garage full of books you can't get rid of. If you only sell 100 books, that's what they'll print. There are no minimum orders, and your book will always stay in print. To give you an idea of scope of on-demand publishing industry, consider this: typical big New York publisher prints about eight hundred new titles a year. At last count, some of print-on-demand publishers were doing five hundred a month. Early estimates indicate that POD publishers printed around half a million books in 2001. This year, there are indications that this industry will hit $78 billion market. These indicators tell us that POD industry is growing at a pace no one anticipated. Why? Because traditional publishing field is narrowing. Only one percent of books published each year are by unpublished authors. Does this low number tell us that there are fewer new authors out there? Absolutely not. What it tells us is that publishing houses are cutting back, merging and no longer willing to take chances on untested material. The challenge with this industry is that you can't get published unless you're published it's a cycle from which we all aspire to escape. Now, we can. If you publish your book through a POD press, you are no longer considered a first-time published author. That is, if you sell book. You still have to market your book. But take heart. With shrinking publishing budgets, you have to market your own book, no matter who publishes you. The hefty marketing budgets that used to accompany new releases are dwindling quickly. So, let's say you publish your book through a POD publisher and you market it. You market it so well that you begin to garner interest from bigger publishing houses. How many books you need to sell is anyone's guess. Traditionally, range has been between 5,000 and 8,000. Recently, however, Kensington Books (an imprint of Citadel Press) formed an alliance with POD giant iUniverse (www.iuniverse.com) to consider any book that sold over five hundred copies. By "consider," they mean they will consider publishing it. At five hundred copies, this levels playing field considerably. If you've written a good book and you market it effectively, you'll sell five hundred copies in blink of an eye. Publishers I've spoken to at some of biggest houses in industry (Time Warner, Simon & Schuster) readily admit they watch these books very carefully to see what's selling. By picking a book that is selling moderately well, publisher knows two things: book has found an audience, and author knows how to market it. Even if you don't get picked up traditionally, there's still hope. If you sell a reasonable amount of books and you still aspire to a bigger publishing house, you can include this first publishing experience in your query letter. How do you find these on-demand publishers? A list of some I've worked with follows this article, but who you pick will depend entirely on you and needs of your book. For some, it’s turnaround time; for others, it’s whether or not they can print in hardcover. Generally, though, final product should be your first consideration; distribution or shipping time should be second. Once you've narrowed your publishers down to two or three, a good idea would be to order a book from each of them. This will tell you two things. First, you'll get a sense for their ordering process and how quickly they ship book to you, and second, you'll get a firsthand look at quality of their books.
| | Using The Right PDAWritten by Catherine Franz
When we think of writing it triggers many thoughts and visions depending on our framing. It could trigger a lone man with a full astray, unshaven, staring at an old plunking typewriter with white blank crisp paper waiting in anticipation for his words.If a mother or younger, it could conjure up an image of a 30-something woman typing away on a keyboard with an apron on, in between making formulas or getting ready for work, still dark outside. Pounding on keys because flow is there, just as light from window begins to change, trying to get as much onto page before kids need her attention. If you grew up in a Catholic school in 50s, writing could mean perfect penmanship and a rap on knuckles if you didn't. The times have changed, thank goodness, and now children grow up with memories of learning to cluster and freewrite. To allow whatever needs to flow appear onto page. There are more books than ever on creativity, and how to play and embrace craft new everyday. It is a freeing time for writers.
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