One thing that drives small-press publishers nuts is when someone asks - derisively - whether they’re a “Print-on-Demand” publisher.
This is ignorant on a number of levels, and it’s usually asked by someone who couldn’t get published if they paid for it.
Every publisher in the business - and that includes big ones like Harper Collins and Scholastic - are either using POD technology or are moving toward it. Remember that word - techonology. That’s all it is, folks, and it’s crazy to somehow think the product is somehow unworthy due to the printing technology used.
The future that is being worked toward is this, and the original vision behind it goes like this:
Imagine you’re in a relatively poor, remote country. You don’t have a computer, you barely have a roof over your head. But within a day’s walk, you can get to a place that has a perfect book machine - likely a non-profit - and they can print out a book for you at extremely low or no cost.
Scale that up to a modern city and you get a small bookstore that has several shelves of books you can browse, or if you know what you want and they don’t have it, you can buy it right there - hot off the perfect book machine.
No printing, warehousing, shipping, returns cost for the publisher. Far less waste too.
That’s POD technology.
That has nothing to do with what the original questioner asked. That person actually wants to know whether you are self-published or the product of a vanity press. In other words, did you pay to have your book published in some way?
If you did, that’s fine. I’m not. I’m “traditionally published,” I was paid for the right to have my books published.
It’s just that “traditional publishing” has nothing to do with how it’s printed - or let’s get really science-fictiony - in what form it’s delivered.
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Comments
Re: Die, POD meme, Die!
The term POD has expanded beyond the true "print-on-demand" where a customer orders a book (comic or otherwise) and a copy is printed for that sale. It now includes any printer that does small runs. Ka-Blam is a POD printer because they have their IndyPlanet Store. I use SIPS Comics to order small runs (usually 100 copies), but they are not truly a POD because they don't sell one copy at retail. I know that's not a big deal, but it has become a pet peeve of mine when the term is misused.
Re: Die, POD meme, Die!
I think the reason POD gets a bad rap is because so many POD services cut costs on print and (especially) paper quality. When POD uses quality materials, most people can't even tell the difference between it and offset printing.
Re: Die, POD meme, Die!
Greg:
Exactly my point - whether it's 1 book or 100, we're moving toward the time where the technology used is the same. What's happening is the language being used to describe a person who pays for the service of publishing their book is lagging behind.
But this is one of those areas where the attitude toward (and the quality of) self-published work is different in the prose publishing field than it is in the comics field.
In your case, I would say you're a small business person. And that's how I would describe most comics creators who self-publish, because they do go out, sell their work and generally treat it in a very professional manner. There's a grand tradition of that in the comics field.
In the prose publishing field, it's very different. There are so many people who are self-publishing their novels that it's not funny. Most of them have either been rejected by publishers or would be if they were submitted.
A can of worms, and it's Friday evening. I'm out!