The Demise of Print? Greatly Exaggerated

Not that long ago, if you wanted to see your book in print and you couldn't land a contract with one of the New York publishers, your primary option was to go with a vanity press. What's a vanity press? One where the author pays to have the book published. And this violates an unwritten rule in publishing: money should flow to the author, not the other way around.

Recently, I judged a contest for published authors. I was given four books to judge, and I noticed something different from entries I'd judged in previous years. All four of mine were from small presses, most of which I'd never heard of. Yet they're all legitimate, royalty-paying publishing houses, not vanity presses, even though they're not part of the "Big Six" New York publishers.

Differences?

Most of these small presses rely on "Print on Demand" (POD) to create their product. Not that long ago, POD publishing was scoffed at, and lumped in with vanity presses. People didn't understand that the mechanism used to produce the book had nothing to do with the quality of the merchandise. "Oh, you're with a POD publisher" was a comment as belittling as, "Oh, you're with a vanity press."

However, POD is a technology, and is not connected with publishers. All it means is that if someone orders a book, instead of finding it on a warehouse shelf, it's printed virtually on the spot. This saves trees, and eliminates the stripped book returns from bookstores.

Indie authors can take advantage of POD technology as well. For example, my two indie published books, Danger in Deer Ridge and Deadly Secrets, are available in print as well as in digital formats. If you go to either Amazon.com or Create Space, you can order the book, and it'll be shipped to you, the same as any other traditionally published book.

Producing a print book through Create Space is virtually free. It requires a little patience, but it's not outside the scope of any author comfortable with Word. You'll have to brush up on headers (different for odd and even pages). I also found that by centering my page numbers in a footer avoided having to deal with yet more content in the headers.

Amazon has templates you can use based on the size you want your final product to be. It's almost as painless as copying and pasting the manuscript you used for your e-book into the template. You have more freedom with fonts in the print version, and can even use fancy wing-dings to mark scene and chapter breaks. When you're satisfied with the product, it's as simple as saving it as a PDF file to upload to Create Space. However, if you're intimidated by this, there are formatters who will do it for a nominal fee.

You'll also need a different cover, since print books have backs and spines. Again, Create Space provides a template, and thanks to my daughter who understands Photoshop much better than I do, I didn't have to pay anyone for that step.

Now, I'm a realist and I know bookstores aren't going to be ordering scads of my books, so I stuck with the free distribution channels. The only cost I incurred was paying for the proof copy, which I strongly recommend. Mistakes happen, and you'll want to catch them before people buy the book. But again, it's POD to the rescue, because if you do find mistakes (and I had a reader point out a few that both I and my editor missed), you can simply upload a new file, and all subsequent orders will be filled with the corrected books.

So, maybe as the Big Six are trying to figure out what's happening in the publishing world, the little guys are stepping in to fill the gaps. And not only do authors benefit, but readers can experience books that might not fit the confines of the Big Six.

And in closing, it's only right that I share my own experience, which is that I hardly sell any print versions of my book. In fact, I get more people asking me when my print book, Rooted in Danger, will be available for their e-readers. But, it's about choices, and why not make sure you have a product ready for those who insist that if they can't hold it in their hands and smell the ink, it's not a "real" book?

You can find Danger in Deer Ridge in print at Amazon.com

Or the Create Space Store

Deadly Secrets can be found in print at Amazon.com

Or the Create Space Store

All of Terry's titles can be found at her website, TerryOdell.com

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Terry's short romances are published by The Wild Rose Press. You can find more about them HERE. She's also written two short mysteries, one of which is published by Highland Press in DECEPTION. You can find her at her Web site. If you've followed her blog (or want to start!), note that it's moved and is now HERE   You can follow her on Twitter, or visit her Facebook page.