The Book Depository on POD

Mark Thwaite of The Book Depository posts about the POD discussion we have been having on Petrona, and others have been having elsewhere. Mark writes:

"Print on Demand (POD) technology is getting better all the time. And it is going to keep getting better (smaller, faster, cheaper, as well as simply giving a look and feel that is as good as anything traditional printing can offer) in the coming years. Indeed, the time frame for when great (as opposed to adequate) POD books will be the norm for the majority of backlist titles is shrinking all  of the time.............

With POD an author need never fear that her book will be unavailable. With 10,000 books published every month, books are rarely given enough time to enter book-buyers’ awareness before they are taken off the bookshelves to be replaced, just a week or so later, by the next bunch of hopefuls. (The advantage of an internet bookshop like The Book Depository is, of course, that we can hold millions of books on our virtual shelves.) At least with POD, a book doesn’t have to have itself rushed quite so quickly through the bricks and mortar bookshop and onto the remainders pile."

If you don't know it, do check out the Book Depository, "founded in 2004 with the aim of making "All books available to All" through pioneering supply-chain initiatives, republishing and digitizing of content. It is a continuing project, still in its infancy and one of the most ambitious ventures in the Book Industry." You can order books, read Mark's "editor's corner" blog, read publishing news, interviews and reviews, and so on.

Comments

[Mark Thwaite]

Thanks for this Maxine. The POD debate is an important one: I'll be posting more about it, and other stuff of course, on Editor's Corner at The Book Depository over the coming weeks. Thanks again for the nod.

[Mark Thwaite]

If any of your readers are confused: yup, I'm the same Mark Thwaite who edits http://www.ReadySteadyBook.com !

[Writer,Rejected]

Thanks for the infor. POD certainly does bypass the long and nauseating period of getting a whole lot of rejections. Check out a humorous take on literary rejections at www.literaryrejectionsondisplay.blogspot.com

[John Self]

My gut feelings toward POD are not pretty, mainly due to experiencing the rough end of self-published trex (naming no names) over the past few years.

But this week I ordered a copy of Saki's only novel The Unbearable Bassington which is in print for the first time in decades, and when I received it today it turned out to be a POD edition. So if it makes books like that available again, then I'm converted.

(Do they all have to look like school textbooks though? Let's get POD with good quality design and production for us bibliophiles...)

[Maxine]

Interesting to read, John. I have advertently or inadvertenly bought about six POD books over the past year or two, from different "publishers", and have found them all to be of large format, very white paper and large print. The paper and typesize are quite a contrast with the "grey mush" paper and almost-identical colour type of a standard paperback. So maybe standards have improved and are continuing to improve overall, along with the technologies and the economy of scale possible on the internet?