What is Print on Demand?

It’s worth therefore starting with a definition. The traditional ‘batch printing’ approach has been used by publishers to print a few thousand books at a time. Print on demand enables the books to be printed one at a time, literally ‘on demand’. The book, including the cover, is set up as a digital file. When an order comes through, the right file is selected by the computer, which then gives the instruction to the print on demand machine to produce it. There is therefore a set-up cost, which covers setting up the file in the system, and a small annual charge for keeping it there. The actual cost of producing each individual book is rather more than the batch printing cost per unit, but huge economies are made elsewhere. It has also enabled the overall cost of producing a book to be substantially reduced. (See Advantages of Print on Demand)

Permanently in print

Print on demand has the potential to revolutionise the way publishing works, although it has not yet been adopted on the kind of scale that would enable publishers to realise its potential. Many of the publishers who are using it at this stage see it as a cost-effective way of keeping the backlist going. The book need never go out of print. Instead of lost sales because the book is o/p (out of print), sales which have in the past been gone for good unless the book is reprinted, it can continue in print indefinitely. It is particularly cost-effective for publishers to use POD for their backlist because the setting and cover already exist, and therefore the set-up cost involved is only the comparatively minor one of digitising the book.

Reducing other costs

Print on demand also offers publishers two other extremely valuable advantages. Books are printed to order, so there are no storage or warehousing costs, and no money tied up in stock. The system also reduces returns, since books are only printed to order. Stock write-offs and remaindering, which are the bane of a publisher’s life, can be avoided entirely. A slightly higher cost of goods can be factored into the equation and still leave a more profitable outcome when all these other possibilities have been factored out.

What about the quality?

The actual technology of POD has improved immensely over the last few years. There is still a feeling in some circles that the resulting books are inferior in quality, but this is no longer the case. The big IBM and Xerox POD machines are an amazing sight. Controlled completely by computer, the latest presses at one of the biggest POD printers, Lightning Source, can produce up to four books a minute. To date the POD printers have concentrated on ‘trade’ paperbacks, ie larger than A or B format, or what is known as ‘rack-sized’ in the States. Soon they will be able to tackle the smaller paperback formats effectively. They are already able to produce hardbacks, although the binding is mostly currently done elsewhere. POD technology is most widely adopted in the USA, where Lightning Source, one of the biggest players, is now operating 24 hours, seven days a week, and producing more than 500,000 books a month.

Transforming the economics of publishing

What is perhaps less immediately apparent are the other opportunities that Print on Demand offers. For publishers it is a cost-effective way of keeping the slower-moving backlist in print. But it also potentially transforms the economics of publishing, allowing books to be published with very much less initial investment and ongoing cost. This represents a real opportunity for small start-ups in the publishing world.

The advantages for authors

For authors the benefits are two-fold. Firstly, published authors are far more likely to have their books kept in print. The disadvantage of this, which is already causing some anxiety amongst agents, is the difficulty of defining whether a book is actually in print as defined in the contract, especially if you might actually prefer to have the rights back.

Self-publishing

The second benefit is that because the upfront costs of POD are so much lower, it brings publishing within the range of a great many more people, including writers. So, if you are thinking about self-publishing, POD makes this possible at a far more realistic cost. This is the technology we are using to print the books in our WritersPrintShop self-publishing service and it is remarkable how it has transformed the possibilities, giving the opportunity for writers to consider self-publishing as a realistic alternative to finding a publisher.

What next?

The death of batch printing has been widely foretold. Perhaps we can look forward to a time when each book can be produced to order for the customer in the bookshop. At the moment the economics of batch printing and the high cost of the POD machines makes this seem a distant possibility. But technology can bring rapid change and it is already possible to get a book printed on demand in some Canadian bookshops.