POD books

[Nicholas Whitman]

Hi All,

I'm looking at the POD (print on demand) option and wonder if you who have tried it would share your impressions?

I've always thought of well produced photo oriented books as cherished objects.

Professionally I've had several books published under different circumstances. In all instances - no matter how much the book benefited an other party (the subject) I had to drag them across the finish line on my back. Typically a $40- retail book will gross the retailer about $20-, the publisher $20- and the photographer/author $1-. Pretty pathetic. Book income is largely a function of volume. My most successful has sold around 10,000 units over a very long time.

For my most recent outing I self published. There just wasn't any way the book would happen if I didn't do it myself. The finished product is excellent all around. check it out at: http://www.colonialtheatrebook.com/
But the cost was staggering and the sales have been disappointing. I'm not looking for marketing advice. I've tried a lot ideas and I have to accept in my market a $40- book isn't going to break even. I plan to deep discount the price to get the books in circulation - and recoup a bit of my investment.

It appears to me that the old model of getting your book into publication is defunct. Which brings us to POD books. I've looked at some Blurb books and have been perusing their site. As of this writing there are around 7000 photo books in their catalog. They seem to be the physical equivalent of web sites. Anyone can have one. Some are pretty good most are mediocre and there are some pretty poor ones too. As with the www the mob has gone around the gatekeepers. There is democracy but the product is diluted. The obvious advantage is you can produce what ever you want and with no upfront investment. This used to be called vanity publishing.

Here are some disadvantages. I've actually handled a few Blurb books. They seem a bit home made. Some pages not quite sharp. Inconsistent design decisions, - amateurish. Hang that on the producer/author. Posts to the Blurb site complain about poor color matching and mediocre quality. But others are pleased. And they are doing more with providing profiles - so let's imagine reasonable quality is possible.

Price. When all is said and done you can have a 10x8 inch hardcover book of 80 pages for about $40-. You can have Blurb sell them for any price you wish - so let's say we sell it for $45-. $5- per book is a much better deal than I've had before. But you can't go the retail route. There is no margin left. Even if you sold your $40- book at cost the retailer would have to price it around $80- and that just ain't gonna fly.

So there is no retail support. No physical presence in the market place. You could put a copy of the book with a show and people could order their books directly. You'd get 5 bucks and the gallery would get nothing. Yet again the www has made an end run around brick an mortar retail.

With POD books we enter a new paradigm.

And for that matter, in the age of the screen, can fine, image oriented books even find a market?

My professional brethren; thoughts, impressions, experiences, ideas?

Thanks,
Nick
http://nwphoto.com/

[sultanofcognac]

My publishing company has used a few POD services, but only for theatrical works where there may be one or two photos within but mostly just the play.

You might want to consider printing outside the USA. I am in France and we had our last photo book printed in Spain. My next will be done in China. I just printed a full-colour calendar in China for pennies, and will double the sale price. It will be better quality and look better than anything I've seen on the shelves here. The sample they sent via Fedex is stunning. They also included some magazine styles (my next-years' project).

I also have some very good connections in Romania - same paper, same coating, same binding, but for you the postage may be a bit of a negative.

Look up "Gold Printing Group" online - contact them and ask for Yeaf Wang. He spent so much time with me on Skype I feel I know him personally.

[Frank Petronio]

Blurb is much improved and most of the problems/errors now stem from the photographer/designer.

There are a few "album" POD companies who will do a little better with wedding album-type books in the $300 range - nicer bindings, leather or exotic materials.

Then there are a few art presses who will do limited edition, high quality bound inkjets, like booksmartstudio.com/.

I don't know if anyone is making any serious money from their Blurb books, I think the average prices are more than $45 too. I'd be interested in seeing what sells well. I guess if you win their book contest then a few people are apt to purchase your book.

I think it is hard to buy an $85 art photo book from Blurb when there are better reproduction quality traditional books selling for half that. They just aren't of your work ;-)

[bvstaples]

I've worked in publishing most of my adult life. It's both sad and exciting to see what's happening with the industry. I had this long diatribe on the state of the publishing industry, but I deleted it. We all know what drives the publishing business of today. Instead my diatribe is strictly on the quality of POD books.

What dismays me the most about books in general is the loss of pride and craftsmanship in the final piece. I've seen editorial content take back seat to meeting accelerated schedules — get the work to market quicker and realize sales earlier in the fiscal year; design has become 1) so templated that nothing looks fresh, or 2) done by non-designers, reflected in the overall dismal look of many of today's pages; finally the need to drive down production/distribution costs while increasing prices/margins has led to lower production expectations and outputs. I can't remember the last time I held a recently publishing fine art book that was Smythe-sewn, if it was sewn it was side-sewn at best, but I've seen $80 coffee table books that are perfect bound.

POD books take all this one step further: with the individual acting as "publisher" the editorial work, design, and production of the book are handled by someone with no clue about these fields. Even I, a production manager, know to leave the editorial work to editors, design to the designers, and manufacturing to craftsmen. So, the POD books I've seen tend to be amateurish in their editorial and design aspects, lacking in the reproduction quality of the text and images, and the physical books themselves tend to feel "bargain basement," at least to me.

The exciting part of all of this is that POD will become the defacto method for publishers to produce books. The technology will improve, quality of output will improve, and the finished piece we will hold in our hands will rival traditional methods of manufacture. In kind, editorial and design services will spring up catering to the individual publisher—actually they are already here, it's just that most people don't realize the importance of the service and that they need them to produce a viable and marketable product. It's sort of like the digital versus film debate that's been going on for years—digital has become very, very good, and is the accepted method on the commercial side of photography, but it still doesn't really hold a candle to film work.

So, Nicholas, I don't know if my blathering helps any, but I hope so. I took a look at your Colonial Theater book; I noticed you used a designer, who did a very nice job, and it seems as if your authoring/editorial work is spot on. The only thing I cannot comment on is the quality if the physical book, but since I know it was printed by Studley, I know the quality is there. At $30, that's a damn good price for the book, you obviously aren't making any money off this book (I'd bet you lost a little on it).

I could have been an engineer, I could have been an accountant, I could have been a lawyer. But NOOOOOOO, I chose publishing. It's been a wild ride, that's for sure...


Brian

[Henry Ambrose]

snipped.......

I could have been an engineer, I could have been an accountant, I could have been a lawyer. But NOOOOOOO, I chose publishing. It's been a wild ride, that's for sure...


Brian


I'm taking up wagon wheel manufacturing next.
The wave of the future.

[Brian Ellis]

You might find these reviews helpful.

http://www.digitalhomethoughts.com/news/show/97676/0/1/15

I'm using My Publisher mainly because I wanted something larger than 8x10. But I've just started working on the book so I can't tell you anything about it yet.

[jonathan_lipkin]

From what I've heard, and from my experience, Blurb is very good and improved from a few years ago when they were just ok. A friend of mine who is very exacting and wanted to make a b&w book really liked Pikto. Another that has been recommended, but I have no experience with is:

http://www.lumierephoto.com/mm5/merchant.mvc

[Darin Boville]

POD books take all this one step further: with the individual acting as "publisher" the editorial work, design, and production of the book are handled by someone with no clue about these fields.

[snip]

In kind, editorial and design services will spring up catering to the individual publisher—actually they are already here, it's just that most people don't realize the importance of the service and that they need them to produce a viable and marketable product.
Brian


So...say I wanted to produce a book through Blurb or a similar service. And say I recognized and craved the design and other services that I have no clue about. How much money would I have to spend to obtain said services? Who would I give the money to?

--Darin

[ggoodroe]

Hi Brian,

I understand you used to live in the Central Florida area...I had a conversation via email with Claude Sapp who told me you might still be here but I see from your LF Forum title you have relocated as well. Do you know of anyone still in this area who might enjoy attending an LF Meetup if I started one?

Thanks,
George Goodroe, CFP
St. Petersburg, FL USA

[patrickjames]

I would recommend My Publisher. I have never been disappointed with them. They sometimes have 2 for 1 deals, and often 40% discounts, so you could make a profit on the book, although no one ever gets rich on this type of thing, like everything else in the art world unfortunately.

[lumi]

I have made one book on premium paper with the help of a good designer using blurb.com. The result was above my expectations and I will continue using Blurb.