Why to Avoid Print on Demand

Print on demand is not a good option if you are serious about getting your book sold. Print on demand, or POD, is a printing process in which copies of a book are either not printed until an order has been received, or they are printed in very small amounts, for a very limited audience. With POD you can only do direct-sell marketing; in other words, you can only sell online (through Amazon, for instance) and even then there are further restrictions (Amazon now requires that all POD books sold through its site be printed by its subsidiary, BookSurge). Most bookstores and major book retailers will not accept POD books, as they are generally the mark of an untested author and are usually nonreturnable.

What often initially draws people to POD printing is the lower cost. By printing a smaller number of books, your costs are obviously lower than with a high-volume print process. However, it can be less cost-effective in the long run. Because the cost per book is typically higher with POD than with a larger print run, it is common for POD books to be more expensive than similar books that come from more conventional printing methods.

Other drawbacks include the difficulty of publicizing POD books, as reviewers tend to look down on them. Moreover, the quality of the binding is often inferior to that of large-scale printing techniques.

So, now that you're convinced POD isn't for you, you may be wondering "What next?" If you want large-scale distribution to bookstores, you should try offset printing, the most common form of mass commercial printing. Offset printing is a process by which an inked image is transferred from a plate to a rubber blanket, and then to the printing surface. Offset printing offers consistent, high quality images; quick, easy production; and cost efficiency. Most of the price goes into the preparation of the plates before printing; therefore, any additional print will only cost the client the price of the paper and ink (which is minimal). Thus, with offset printing, the more you print, the less you pay per book, making it ideal for high-volume print runs.

Before making any decisions about the printing process for your book, be sure to think about your needs, your audience, your time frame, and the costs involved.