Site Loader

One of the popular methods of publishing print books these days is what is called print-on-demand publishing print-on-demand publishing means that books are only printed as people order them. If a bookstore orders five books for them to resell, then five books are printed. If a customer orders a book from your website, then only a single book is printed. This means that you never have to pay for books to be printed in advance and be sitting in a warehouse somewhere. But people have some pretty common misconceptions about print on demand publishing. Let’s take a look and dispel them.

You Can’t Get Your Book in Bookstores

One of the things that people believe about print-on-demand publishing is that you will not be able to get bookstores to carry your books. While this is true of just about any self-published book out there under normal circumstances, you can get print on-demand books into bookstores a lot easier than most self-published books because first, they are in print format, and second, because they will always be available when a customer requests them. You still have to be within the Ingram system for them to order to.

Distributors Won’t Carry Your Book

While it is true that most distributors are more interested in working with publishers that have a variety of books available, if the book continues getting requested, then they are happy to carry and make a profit on it. For example, Ingram has a program called IngramSpark that makes independently published books available to distributors if a lot of customers are requesting them.

POD Books are Lower Quality Books

This is simply not the case. Print-on-demand books are about the same quality as any of the other books out there. There is a very small quality different screen print-on-demand and offset printing books, but the difference is so tiny that most people would never be able to see it or tell which one was printed on-demand.

Print-on-Demand Cost is Extremely High

While this might have been a problem a few years ago, the cost of printing on-demand now is about the same as printing several hundred through offset printing. Of course, when you get up to the really high numbers like 50,000 and greater, then you would save money with offset printing but you wouldn’t get all the advantages that print-on-demand provides. For 300 page book in paperback, a typical print-on-demand cost might be somewhere between three dollars and five dollars.

You Don’t Get a Lot of Trim & Other Options

Again, this is mostly false, and it really depends upon the print-on-demand platform that you go with. But many platforms offer lots of different trim options including those that are standard in bookstores will accept as well as a variety of other trims. The one thing that you may not get with print-on-demand is an option for hardcover books.

Julie Gonzalez