Print on Demand (POD) or Offset Printing?

As the author of a book, and after your manuscript has been written, edited, proofread, and laid out by a book design technician with your choice of font style, font size, headings, margins, page numbers, page runners, and your images all placed correctly, you’ll want to send your digital interior file and digital cover file to a printer and have your book files converted into a physical book you can hold in your hands.

Yes, of course, you may also want your files converted into an ebook, and White Glove Book Marketing will certainly do that for you, but even though ebooks are popular, they are not as popular as printed books. People still like holding a book in their hands and while an ebook has advantages, such as lower production price and ease of distribution, a printed book also has significant value.

When ebooks first appeared, the book publishing industry speculated that ebooks would replace printed books. The Digital Revolution was underway, laptops and smartphones became pervasive and many people bought e-readers. However, as time went on, people recognized there were some negative characteristics to reading everything digitally, and printed books retained their value.

This post is not a discussion about the relative values of ebooks and printed books, as the focus is on printing your book as a POD (Print on Demand), or through the services of an offset printer.

Offset Printing

One more brief digression; in the Old Days, authors did not need to concern themselves with selecting their book printer as this was a decision made by the traditional publisher who agreed to purchase the rights to their new book and take care of every aspect of production, marketing, and sales. With the advent of the Digital Revolution, self-publishing steadily grew and became predominant. Now authors who are unable or unwilling to secure a traditional publishing book deal must learn more about the book industry than they ever had to before, and probably more than they ever wished. Such is progress!

Now that you’re an author without a book deal, it’s your responsibility to figure out or hire someone who knows how to figure out how to transform your digital manuscript and digital cover into an actual physical book.

One of the benefits of the Digital Revolution is that it became extraordinarily inexpensive to print a book because the book publishing software transfers easily to a printer and can produce one book or 10,000 books with ease. We’ve witnessed a revolution from printing presses to digital printers that’s similar to the revolution in 1440 A.D. when Gutenberg shifted the printing industry from scribes writing by hand to machine production.

Not so long ago an author would have to make inquiries at printing shops in his or her locale and compare prices. The novice author would also have to become familiar with industry terms such as bleed and no bleed, perfect bound, saddle stitch, PPI, gutters, and wraparound. The weight and color of the paper had to be considered, as did the values of having either a matte or glossy cover. Of course, the printer’s representative would walk you through the labyrinth, but a Minotaur was waiting for you at the end, and that Minotaur was the price.

That’s because, in the Olden Days, the printer’s cost and your fee were based on the number of books being ordered. If you’d written your memoir and only wanted to make 50 copies for friends and family, your price-per-book could be as high as $15 per copy. That might not seem too bad because a memoir might be a special Christmas gift, but if you’re In business and want 300 copies to give to clients and prospects, the cost of your book printing project just became more serious.

Actually, it was even worse than that. When you went to the printer to discuss your printing project, you would want to know where the price breaks were, and this is where you would receive jaw-dropping news. While there was often a price break at 500 copies, the price really didn’t get better until you ordered 1,000 copies, so depending on the number of pages of your book, you might wind up spending $5 wholesale per book, which meant a capital outlay of $5,000.

These books were not pre-sold, so you’d have to find a place to store about 50 cases of books, and then you had the anxiety of wondering how you would sell them and empty the pallet of 50 cases sitting in your garage before your spouse had a conversation with you or the mice began burrowing through the cardboard.

Enter the Miracle of POD

Most people don’t want to spend thousands of dollars on books that will sit in their garage for a few years, and most people also don’t want to spend that much money on printing their books anyway.

POD allows authors to print on demand, which means an author can now print 1 book at a time, 5 books, or 14 books, or 110 books, and all at the same per-book price. There was no gigantic printing bill and no lost space in the crowded garage. Given the circumstances that had reigned since 1440 A.D., a length of time of almost 600 years, being able to print only the number of books you want to print, and not have to print, is truly a modern miracle.

Today, printing a single book of 140 pages, paperback cover included, will cost approximately $3 wholesale, and printing 10 of them will cost approximately $30. This is why POD is such an amazing benefit to authors. Yes, you still have to find ways to market, sell, and distribute your books, but the Digital Revolution has answers for that as well. Did you not think the POD priesthood would just print your books and stop there? But that’s the topic of another post.

This post began with the question of whether to have your book printed POD or printed by an offset printer. The offset printer choice gives you more options, but it will cost you more. With the offset printer, you could have special features such as embossing, a wider choice of book dimensions, paper types, varieties of ink, special covers, and other physical choices.

It used to be that an offset printer was favored not only because of the different features available, but also because the offset printer would print your book in full color, and for an extra fee, would print your book with a hardcover.

These two advantages have since been overcome by the digital printers that produce POD books. It’s true that you will pay more for a book that has full-color on its interior pages, such as a book of photographs, or an art book that reproduces images of Dégas or van Gogh’s work, and having your book produced with a hard cover such as you might see on coffee tables will always have a surcharge because of the cost of the material, but both these features are now offered by select digital printers.

The decision, of course, is yours. You can opt for the POD digital printer and you’re guaranteed to have a high-quality printed book. You’ll have fewer physical choices, but these are customized. When you choose POD, you’ll feel proud of your book, and the cost per book is miraculous. One copy probably costs you less than a fancy cup of coffee.

You can also choose to have your book printed by an offset printer where you’ll have more refined choices, but you will need to order a larger run, or more copies, to get a decent per-book price.

Here at White Glove Book Marketing:

• We favor Amazon Kindle for our clients
• The costs are low
• The quality is high
• Amazon Kindle offers very good service

By the way, don’t expect to sell your books to bookstores because bookstores have their own process for accepting books. Bookstores don’t actually buy your books, even if you got them placed in their stores. Bookstores only accept books they know they can return and they are very hesitant to work with authors, preferring to place their orders through book jobbers and traditional publishing houses that guarantee returns. Of course, you’re always welcome to walk into your local bookstore and speak with the manager, and if the manager or owner knows you or makes allowances for local authors, you might get your books in that bookstore, but this will be the exception and not the rule.

You’ll need to turn to a book marketing expert like White Glove Book Marketing to help you generate sales, and when it comes to sales, as every salesperson knows, there are no guarantees. Think of your own buying habits and how carefully you spend your money, and you’ll realize that selling your book is possible only when you have a marketing system that delivers a compelling advertisement to the right audience. Authors do sell thousands of copies of their books, and that’s because they follow a book marketing process and have a little bit of luck. Even the giant traditional publishers know their sales’ prospects are limited, but they know how to prepare the market to want to buy their authors’ books.

We hope this article has been insightful and will help you navigate among your choices. Having your book printed offers many benefits such as gaining new clients, supporting your online or in-person workshop presentations, securing consulting work, being invited to present at speaking engagements or podcasts, and elevating your reputation as an authority.

White Glove Book Marketing is a full-service ghostwriting, editing, proofreading, publishing, and marketing company dedicated to serving our clients’ best interests. Contact us today to see how we can help you achieve your Dream!

www.WhiteGloveBookMarketing.com