Print on Demand Publishing

I am by no means an expert on publishing or writing. I have only been writing for a couple of years and have only been published in May of 2005, so what makes me want to write about Print On Demand or POD as it is called in the publishing and writing industry? I have read and heard a lot of facts from others who have been ripped off and robbed by so called reputable Print On Demand Publishers. And many of the publishers I am talking about are not small and hard to find businesses. Some have ads and such on various websites and advertise themselves as real publishers.

This may sound harsh but I have heard on more than a few web site forums about this type of thing and many aspiring writers need to be warned. Strongly warned.

Now don't get me wrong, the Print On Demand industry is full of good companies that have a reputation for good business and good publishing practices, but on the other hand any industry has it's lower life forms. These are the ones I want to warn everyone who thinks they can get their book published by just paying someone to print it.

First and foremost everyone has to realize just what Print On Demand or POD really is. It is a way to put a book into print form that does not require the use of printing until there is a demand for the book. It simply means that you will not have the book printed until someone orders the book. Using a computer your book is set into a format that is ready to print and be bound, but not until they have an order for it.

This may sound like a great way to sell a book but it is just the opposite. You have to understand not how these types of businesses work but how the publishing industry works as a whole. It is a lot simpler than saying you can get published if you just pay someone to print out your book whenever they need a new one.

Who is actually selling that book when it is sitting at the company that promises to publish it? Who is the one who will buy this book when you have it sitting at some POD company and it is not sitting on a shelf in a bookstore? You need to understand that there are some times and reasons to use this type of publishing but if you are an aspiring author or writer and just have to get published, it is not the best way.