Issue11-p3

To POD or Not to POD
...that is the question

or Vanity, Vanity, all is NOT Vanity

by Ronald L. Donaghe

Recently, a retired individual wrote to me to ask my opinion about two different print-on-demand (POD) publishers. He asked some very good questions, but as I thought about them, I realized there was a more important question to ask first. This is my answer to him.

You ask a lot of great questions, and I think you should continue to research your options. But right now I'll offer this: take the time to research your options fully. Don't rush into publishing with a print-on-demand publisher. If you have the chance to publish through a traditional publisher, up front you will have several distinct advantages.

1. You will gain automatic "legitimacy" with the reviewers out there. POD books suffer a stigma of being "vanity" published, and one opinion is that if an author has gone POD, then they're probably not as good as a traditionally published author. As for myself, I just got tired of traditional publishers and their games and delays, and since I'm not getting any younger, I went POD. I couldn't be happier, since I'm one of iUniverse's best-selling gay writers.

2. Your books have a better chance of being stocked in brick and mortar stores if you go traditional. That is still not to say that they will fly off the shelves, but at least people in bookstores might pick up your book and hold it in their hands and thumb through it. POD books are sold mainly online through Amazon, B&N, BAMM, etc. While some POD publishers are moving toward more aggressive marketing and better discount schedules for book buyers, chances are still slim that bookstores will stock POD books because they don't get a good enough discount or they don't have that built-in returns policy that bookstores depend upon to get old stock off their shelves. However, iUniverse has begun its "star program" and treats some of its books more like traditional books. Three of mine have been selected for this program, and I'm waiting to see if it'll work. iUniverse and other POD book services are also making other attempts to entice brick and mortar stores into stocking their books.

3. Maybe the most import advantage of being traditionally published is that your book is fully edited, which means there's a better chance that readers won't fling it across the room in disgust at all the typos they find. POD publishers do NOT edit your books, unless you pay a fee. So that means YOU MUST edit your own stuff. If you're good at it, that's not a problem, but if you're a good writer but a lousy or lazy self-editor, your book through POD will be in trouble. Readers might take a chance on your first book, but if they are stopped dead in their reading enjoyment by lots of typos, they will not buy your second book.

4. Traditional publishers might pay you an advance against royalties up front, which means you'll have money in your hands before a single book is sold. On the other hand, that may be all the money you'll ever get, if your books are slow to sell.

Traditionally published books do have distinct disadvantages over POD books, however, and here is a short list of my complaints. You spend months and years trying to be traditionally published, as opposed to a few weeks through a POD publisher. Your book is finally accepted and published by a traditional publisher—but if it doesn't sell very well, or sells slowly, your book will go out of print within a year, and you're back where you started. If you have a second book to publish, you'll have to begin the marketing process all over again, spend another several years trying to find a publisher for it, and before you know it, you're old and your career as a writer has never gotten off the ground.

If you decide to go POD, my advice is three-fold. First, do the very best job you can do on it. Revise a thousand times, send it out to readers whose skill you respect, and work with the POD services to make sure your cover doesn't look like something that was put together with free graphics and a graphics editing program. Go to a professional artist/book cover designer if you have to. Second, Create a web page for your books. Tirelessly submit your URL to relevant sites that will link to your pages. Link to theirs if necessary, and continually update your website so it doesn't become stale and unattended looking. Third, be your own publicist. This means that you will have to promote yourself and your books. Don't wait for the world to beat a path to your door—it won't.