Self Publishing Books
Self Publishing Books - DIY Or Print On Demand?
Today, authors who decide on self publishing books have several options available to them. If the author can get a traditional publishing company to print the book, then that is a wonderful result. However, more and more authors are deciding that they want to publish a book, with or without the assistance of a publishing house, whether it's a novel, non fiction or a children's book. There are some real differences between the self publishing options that are available. The two main publishing options are self publishing and print on demand publishing.
Self publishing works about the same as traditional publishing in terms of the services that are offered to the author, print method, distribution and marketing, and so on. The huge difference between traditional publishing and self publishing has to do with the amount of services offered to the author and the cost structure of the publishing itself. With simple self publishing, the author pays set up fees and decides how many books will be published. Whether the books sell or not after they are printed is entirely the authors problem. If they sell, so much the better; if the book does not sell, then the author probably has a garage full of books! With self publishing on demand companies, on the other hand, the author gives up some of the services that a publishing house will usually offer their authors, but they gain total independence over the actual cost of printing, since the books are printed, as the name clearly states, on demand - as they are ordered. With self publishing, the number of books is decided before the print run, and that number of books is then printed on an offset press, bound, and jacketed. With print on demand publishing, a book is printed on a laser printer at the time it is ordered. The book is then bound, jacketed, and shipped. While the potential for profit is less with the print on demand method, the potential that the author will be stuck with a lot of unsold books is gone. Books published using the print on demand method are almost always paperback books, not hardback, whereas the backing is the choice of the author in self publishing, as is the design of the book jacket. However, children's books are available with the on demand option. While it is a known fact that book jacket design has a major impact on the consumer's decision about whether or not to purchase a book, that consideration might not be as important with a print on demand book, which is almost never put up for sale in a bookstore. |
