POD is an outgrowth of the huge changes that occurred in printing technology when digital printing was developed. For the first time, authors were not forced to use offset printing with its minimum press runs of 1500 to 2000 books. For the first time, an author could order only the number of books he/she needed with this new technology, and was able to fill in small quantities as future needs arise. This was a great boon for beginners who were feeling their way in the publishing industry and for memoirists who wanted to distribute books just to family and friends.

The novice writer enjoys the advantage of having the POD house handle all of the prepublication work that is required to produce a book. And that service is available at a very minimal initial outlay of money for the services one receives.

For a production payment of as little as $300, the house will produce a finished book and in most cases do it extremely professionally. The high end of that scale—a ceiling of about $1,000—represents lots of bells and whistles that the house will try to sell you, but which frankly are of little or no value. You can receive a top quality book for an average investment of under $500, and that’s the level you should be at when dealing with this method of publishing. Use the company’s basic program, nothing more.

The Process
You turn your manuscript over to the POD house, along with an initial production check. In return, the house art staff produces a professional book cover. That alone would normally cost you anywhere from $300 to $600 if you were to hire a designer yourself.

The text that comes off the computer, of course, is not what appears in a finished book. It must be formatted to conform to the page size, produced in a type font that is conducive to easy reading and leaded (spaced between the lines). This requires a high level of skill. You can learn to do it, but I strongly recommend a professional formatter. The cost depends on the length of the book. Formatting a 300-page volume, for example, can cost between $800 and $1200.

Every book requires an ISBN number if it is to be sold to bookstores or libraries. This is an identification number that is assigned exclusively to a single book. Barcodes are needed to accompany the ISBN. In addition, Library of Congress Cataloguing is a necessity if you plan to tap into the huge library market. All of these are obtained for you by POD staffers.

The POD House will then print your book, bind it and register it with a major wholesaler (usually either Ingram or Baker & Taylor), a requirement if you are selling to libraries and bookstores. The book will also be placed on Amazon, Barnes & Noble.com and Borders.com. Further distribution and promotional activities are your responsibility.

Be Aware
Two words of caution: Most houses do not obtain a copyright for your book. But that’s not a serious problem. You can do it yourself for just a few dollars. Search for “Copyright” on the Web. The government’s copyright web site will come up and explain each step you must take. It will also supply you with a formal application form. Completing everything is perhaps a 15-minute task and very easy to accomplish.

The second matter you should be aware of is that when the ISBN is ordered by most POD houses, it is listed in the house’s name. You must understand that the entity that owns the ISBN controls all of the finances of the book. So when you read in the publicity, “You control the book. All decisions are yours,” it is a bit misleading. Don’t construe this to mean that you lose total control over your book. It is yours by copyright.

In fact, on the finance side, you do have the right to decide how much of a royalty (percentage of the profit of the sale of the book) you wish. But the reality is that when it sells your book, the house will insist upon taking a certain flat amount, which is usually quite substantial. As a result, if you select a high royalty, the retail price will shoot up above the competition. With a lower royalty, you will make very little money. Nonetheless, at any level of royalty, you have managed to publish your book with no more money out of your pocket than the initial production fee. That’s a pretty fair deal for what you’re getting in return.

The only negative, aside from the minimal compensation, is that there is still some reluctance to handle POD books on the part of the better book reviewers and some book sellers. This a carry-over from the old days of the vanity press, when the level of quality was so poor and from the sloppy, haphazard work y turned out by the charlatans who infected the POD world when it first began.

Today most of the reticence has faded. People judge POD books not by the publisher that produced them, but by the quality of the book itself. POD creations have reached the best seller lists in some cases, and they are available through the majority of bookstores. Even if they are not stocked on the store shelves, they can be ordered quickly.

Finding a POD House
Most POD publishers maintain web sites. Click onto “POD Publishers,” and you will find a number of them. Read their sites carefully, and discount the meaningless extras (the bells and whistles I spoke of above). Be extremely careful if you go to contract. Study the document before you sign or better yet ask a literary lawyer to review it. Think ahead. What impact will each of the conditions of the contract have on the sales of your book. How easily can you leave the POD house and either self-publish future editions or contract for them with a traditional publisher?

While I am reluctant to evaluate the different houses that I have not used, I leave that task up to others. There are a number of sites that make these evaluations. The one I recommend most strongly is www.bookmarket.com/ondemand.htm. The site is owned by John Kremer, a highly respected publishing guru, and supplies information on a large number of publishing on demand houses.

Another site I recommend to you is www.sfwa.org. This extremely informative site is maintained by the Science Fiction Writers of America, but its information is applicable to all genres. Although I do disagree with the site’s contention that POD is not the best choice for a beginning writer, I find the rest of its counsel excellent.

Click on the site, scroll down to the box near the bottom that states “Writer Beware.” Click on it. Over on the left side of the next screen, you will find “Print-on-Demand, Self-Publishing Services.” Click on that, and read it carefully.

POD publishing may not be ideal for every author, but it is a worthy alternative for beginners, family memoirists and in fact anyone who strikes out with traditional publishers and and has a burning desire to make his/her book available to the public.

This column is an excerpt from the blog of Charles Jacobs, book coach and author of “The Writer Within You,” named a Best Book of the Year seven times and winner of both gold and bronze medals. The book can be ordered at www.retireandwrite.com. For coaching, Charles can be reached at carosbooks@gmail.com.

Self-publishing is growing in popularity among experienced authors and even some wanna-bes. The sense of satisfaction you receive from having overseen and accomplished the entire process by yourself is an additional bonus that many authors cherish.

There is an important transition you have to make if you’re going to be a successful self-publisher. You must doff your artist’s cap and become a businessperson, for you will be dealing with financial decisions and a variety of chores that must be completed. You can tackle these on your own or hire and direct someone else to do them. In either case, you and you alone are solely responsible for every aspect of producing your book

None of these tasks is terribly difficult, and professional book coaches stand ready to assist you on the two chores that really demand specialized talent: designing your book’s cover and formatting the interior text. Although it is possible to use templates for the cover and to learn to format, I strongly recommend that you hire professionals for these.

The appearance of your book, both inside and out, is a key factor in attracting sales. Far too many self-published books are amateurishly designed, and that’s the primary reason top reviewers and booksellers are often leery about reviewing or stocking them. However, if your book stands out because of its professional design, you can overcome that stigma.

Pre-pub Requirements
Self-publishing may be done either digitally or with offset printing. The choice depends upon the length of the press run you require. But in all cases, the pre-publication work today is essentially the same.

The first decision you must make is to determine the actual size and shape you want your book to be. The most popular sizes are 5.5 inches by 8.5 inches or 6 by 9. This is referred to in the industry as “trim size.” Most book printers can handle either size. Other sizes are available, but they are used principally for specialty books.

Your next consideration is the cover. The quality of your cover will strongly influence the number of books you sell. There are three segments of a good cover, and each one has a specific function. The spine is the first element a shopper sees when perusing the books on the store shelf. It contains the name of the book in large letters, followed by the author’s name and that of the publisher.

The front cover represents the first “stop” the potential buyer makes. That’s only a three second stop to examine the title, author’s name and if you have done your job obtaining endorsements, a very brief blurb from a recognized person. If that quick look intrigues the customer, he/she will turn to the back cover. This is your selling tool, but again you have only a few seconds to convince the customer to read further.

The several sections of the back cover should include a brief précis of the book, excerpts from reviews, endorsements from worthy sources, a short bio of the author, plus the required ISBN, barcode and the category listing in the top left corner. If the back cover functions well, the person will next flip to the table of contents and glance through the text. The $300 to $600 price for a cover design is perhaps the best investment you will ever make in your book.

Visit the library or your local bookstore. Study the covers on books similar to the one you plan. Next, search the Internet under “Book Cover Designers.” Most of these web sites will offer a gallery of cover designs the artist has created. Review them carefully, and narrow down your selection to three or four. Interview each designer before your make your final decision.

Your next concern is to format the interior text of the book in a style that is easy and comfortable to read. This means selecting a pleasant and inviting type font, spacing out between the lines (called leading) and shaping the computer text to the book’s page. It also involves creating interesting chapter headings and page footers (the page numbers and chapter identification found at the bottom of the page). Professional formatters are expensive, but very valuable. Formatting a book of approximately 300 pages will run between $800 and $1,200.

Smaller But Vital Tasks
Every book that is to be sold to a library or a bookstore must have an ISBN. This international identification number should be placed on the back cover along with a complementary bar code. These are easily obtained from the R.R. Bowker company by clicking onto its web site www.bowker.com.

Library of Congress Cataloguing is another necessity. (You will find this in the front section of a book.) It can be obtained directly from the Library of Congress, but is not always available if you have written only a single book. The alternative is to click on the Donohue Group, and they will prepare it for you. You can find the company at www.dgiinc.com and click on PCIP.

It would be very wise to officially copyright your book. Although your words are technically covered by copyright as soon as you place them on paper, that designation will not stand up in court. Obtain a complete copyright from the government to protect yourself from any piracy or plagiarism. It is easy to obtain by clicking on “Copyright” in your favorite search engine. Simple instructions and an official application will appear. It is very inexpensive.

You have the option of creating a Table of Contents yourself for your nonfiction book or you can use one of the available software programs on the Internet. Whichever path you take, enter the chapter heading and then highlight some of the important issues discussed in the chapters beneath the heading. Of course, you can’t add the actual page numbers until you have completed all revisions of your text.

If your book is nonfiction, you may want to include an Index and/or an Appendix. These are easy enough to develop yourself. For the Appendix, list references to any material that you think will help your reader by supplementing the information you included in your text.

The Index is a bit more time-consuming to assemble, although not terribly hard. As you do the final edit of the book, each time you come to a subject that should be included in the Index, jot it down. When you have completed all chapters, categorize each of these entries by subject. List them under the appropriate subject heading using a one or two-word designation and the page number. Many authors feel this is too time-consuming and prefer to farm the job out to a freelance indexer. These can be found on the Internet.

Next steps are, of course, the printing of your book and its distribution. It will be your task to select a quality printer and to arrange distribution through a wholesaler and/or distributor. Those topics we’ll leave for future articles.

This column is an excerpt from the blog of Charles Jacobs, book coach and author of “The Writer Within You,” named a Best Book of the Year seven times and winner of both gold and bronze medals. The book can be ordered at www.retireandwrite.com. For coaching, Charles can be reached at carosbooks@gmail.com.

At the other end of the spectrum is the sadness that has dominated what at one time was a dedicated and flourishing concentration of major publishers who also believed in quality and diversity. Unfortunately, that has changed dramatically. Most major publishers today are members of large conglomerates, and as typically happens when privately-owned companies are swallowed up by a conglomerate, quality gives way to greed, and the bottom line becomes the dominant force in decision-making.

That’s what’s happened to most of the names we once revered. Take for example, names like Doubleday, Knopf, Random House; they are no longer independent. They have been swallowed up by a conglomerate called Bertlesman. It’s not even an American company. Based in Germany, it is the largest publishing conglomerate in the world.

What does this trend mean to you as an author? With few exceptions, the major publishing houses care little about newcomers or even published authors who are not yet household names. Instead, they concentrate on publishing books by long-established authors and memoirs of Hollywood stars, leading politicians or disgruntled politicos and bureaucrats who have left the Beltway. You stand little chance of connecting with these publishers.

But that doesn’t mean that the only choices left to the majority of authors are Publishing on Demand or Self-publishing. Fortunately, the population of indie publishers has grown geometrically over the past decade, and they hold out the welcome mat to every writer who can provide a well-written, interesting manuscript.
The Process

Traditional publishing is quite different from either self-publishing or POD. The author becomes involved in a joint venture with a literary agent and a publisher. All three play a critical role in the process as it moves through contract negotiation and into editing, followed by production. A breakdown by any one of these three participants can doom the book to failure.

Let’s begin by looking at the way an author reaches out to a traditional publisher, whether major or indie. All of the majors require that submissions come through a literary agent. They will not accept a manuscript directly from an author. That’s not true for many of the indies. Although they prefer you work through an agent, many will accept a direct submission from you.

There is an accepted method of submitting, whether it is to an agent or to a publisher directly. Step one is to open the door with a query letter. If you are lucky enough to receive a favorable reply, that’s followed by a book proposal in the case of nonfiction or by submission of the entire finished manuscript of a novel.

The Literary Agent

Many publishing experts claim that the process of convincing a literary agent to accept you is more difficult than finding a publisher. You have to understand that an agent’s income is directly related to the earnings of the book. He/she is compensated by a percentage (usually 15%) of the monies earned by the sale of the book. Therefore the agent must be extremely cautious when selecting a book to represent.

It is often a challenging task to find an agent, but it is well worth the effort. The agent’s services go far beyond just the placement of your manuscript with a publisher. He/she becomes your alter-ego in dealing with all aspects of the publishing process. Negotiating a contract with a publisher is a literary minefield. No author should attempt it by him/herself. An experienced agent or literary attorney (not just any general practice attorney) knows the pitfalls to be avoided and fights for the best advance and royalty payments.

More than that, the agent helps you to improve your book proposal and frequently even your manuscript before submission to a publisher. Agents develop close relationships with editors at the publishing houses of the genres they deal in. Agent lunches are legendary. They meet with editors regularly both to keep abreast of industry trends and to promote their clients’ books. As a result, they understand the idiosyncrasies of the editors they deal with as well as their likes and their dislikes.

On the publisher’s side, editors rely on the judgment of the agent to prescreen books and recommend those that represent a value to their specific publishing house. That usually means a book recommended by an agent goes on the top of the pile to be considered by the editor, and that’s a huge advantage.

The agent then shepherds the book through the production process, ensuring that you are given a quality product. Once the book is published and distributed, the agent becomes your “banker.” Royalty payments from the publisher come directly to the agent, who then distributes the money to you and maintains detailed financial records for you.

Finding an Agent

Directories of agents are published that will show you the genres the agent prefers and give detailed information on contacting him/her. There you can find lists of the books recently placed by the agent, contractual terms and additional information that can help a savvy writer shape a query letter and proposal that will capture the interest of the agent.

Carefully review the listings in the Guide to Literary Agents published by Writers Digest Books. It is updated annually, so make sure you check a current edition. Literary Agent Jeff Herman has also written several excellent directories as well as books on finding an agent. Writers Market, a book we frequently use in several capacities, also contains a directory of agents, both those who charge fees and those who don’t. I recommend you stay far away from an agent that speaks of a fee for critiquing your book.

Make certain that any agent you select is a member of the Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR). You can feel comfortable that you have picked a bonafide agent if they are members of this excellent organization. Select five or six agents that seem to fit the needs of your book. Turn next to their web sites and study them carefully to ensure they are a good fit for you.

Based on the clues you find on the agent’s web site, craft an effective query letter to introduce yourself and your book to the agents you have chosen.

This column is an excerpt from the blog of Charles Jacobs, book coach and author of “The Writer Within You,” named a Best Book of the Year seven times and winner of both gold and bronze medals. The book can be ordered at www.retireandwrite.com. For coaching, Charles can be reached at carosbooks@gmail.com.