Adventures in POD Publishing (POD)
Fifteen years
ago when I received what must have been my tenth rejection
from children’s book publishers, I put my manuscript in
the drawer and forgot about it. Aside from the sting of
rejection and dashed hopes of fame and fortune, it clearly
wasn't worth the cost of return postage. I thought the
idea was good and the pictures fantastic, but clearly the
pros didn’t. Oh well.
I never thought I was a children’s book author, but on a
trip to Alaska I ended up inventing a story for an eight
year old to coax her into the car and stop whining. I
don't know where the story came from. It just popped into
my head and everyone liked it, I liked it too. I asked my
mom, Betty, to illustrate it and was amazed at the
charming pictures she produced. But the powers that be and
the lords of distribution did not like it, so it sat in
the drawer.
Fifteen years passed, the sun and moon rose and set.
Technology evolved. Being a troglodyte, I didn't know
about these changes, but Ms. Karina Klesko, Editor of the
On-line Magazine, Sketchbook, told my mom
and me about POD publishers (print on demand).
Well, what is POD (print on demand)? I had heard of
self-publishing, but that meant I pay to publish the book
and fill my basement with stacks of unsold books and hire
some student to ship them when I chance to get an order.
Too much cost, too much infrastructure and too little
basement.
So, how does POD work? The POD is responsible for
publishing, printing and shipping each order on demand.
When an order is received the order is then printed (there
is no stock) whether it is a single book or multiples.
After they receive payment and ship the book, a royalty is
deposited into the author's account. No inventory—no
infrastructure. Sounded like a great idea, so we thought
it would get done in a snap. Hopes are often dashed on the
rocks like surf in the Monterey Peninsula.
POD is a great idea but it is not as simple as it might
seem, although it is still a great idea. First of all,
Betty and I needed to figure out who were appropriate vendors.
We ended up choosing Booksurge (an Amazon subsidiary),
although we investigated Lulu, Createspace, and Instabook.
The process is more or less difficult depending on the
type of book. Since a children’s book requires color
pictures and graphic design, options on many POD sites are
limited because they don't provide a color interior.
Most of the POD sites are only Internet site accessible
(no personal contact) and since Betty and I are not that
comfortable with the Internet, we had trouble wading
through information with no one to call. It was difficult
to figure out what kind of paper would be used, size
options, how to calculate our royalty and how the book
would be bound. The information was buried in some POD
websites with the option of e-mailing someone in
Bangalore. Also, the work must be submitted pursuant to
certain specifications, which may be difficult if you
aren't tech/ graphics savvy. In part, we ended up with
Booksurge because there were humans we could speak to.
Others may find the Internet communication less daunting.
If your book does not have interior color there are more
publisher choices and the design issues are less critical.
However, it is important to investigate paper quality, and
the types of binding, what you will net in the form of
royalty and to see if you can get a sample. If there are
illustrations we found that many sites including the lower
prices at Booksurge only allowed the use of a fixed
template. Booksurge offered an option at $295 which only
let us use templates. This meant that pictures could only
be placed in programmed places so that there is no freedom
for graphic design placement. We might have considered
hiring a graphic designer on our own who would have
submitted the text and designs as required. We don’t know
if this in the end would have cost less or produced a
better result.
Betty and I elected to pay the higher price so that we
could design the book with appropriate flexibility. When
we got into this we didn't realize how much was involved.
Should there be a border. What kind? How many spaces
should go between sentences. What size should the pictures
be? We were given mockups and spent a lot of time debating
and requesting redo's. These are questions of layout that
frankly go into any magazine, but until you get involved
with the process you don’t know how complicated it is and
how each decision is really critical, particularly with an
illustrated book. It has increased our appreciation of
printed text even in the everyday magazines on the stand.
But if you are making your own book all these things
become critical.
When Betty and I started this we thought it would take few
weeks. Given the changes and decisions it has taken
months, but we were given designing options which we
rejected and now we agree that every design decision we
made improved the book.
When the book is finished we will get 35% of any sale and
will not have to be responsible for orders or shipments.
The content and copyright is ours, but the print as
designed is part of our contract. It is important to
ferret out how much you will get from sales and we found
that this was not easy, although returns seem to be about
35% i.e. if the book sells for $15 you get $5. Now that is
done we need to figure out how to market it. That is the
real issue when the publisher does not take charge of
marketing. It probably will be impossible to get into
chains like Barnes
and Nobles. So, we will be nimble—we will be quick,
although we are too old to jump over candle sticks. We
will send you e-mails. At least we won't be offering you
fake Rolex watches, viagra, and investment opportunities
based in Nigeria...
I hope your adventure in publishing will be a rewarding
one.
Thank you,
Jayne Kaplan
***For purchasing information e-mail Betty at
bkaplan297@aol.com
This
book will be available from the publisher late in July
2009: Annie and The Only One Problem Bear by
Jayne Kaplan with Illustrations by Betty Kaplan and Cover
design by Karina Klesko. ISBN 978-1-4392-3030-5.
For additional information see this link: Announcement:
Late July Book
Publication
This book will be available
for purchase through Amazon.com—published by Booksurge.
