On-demand book publishing surpasses traditional print
Traditional book publishing was down 3 percent last year, but on-demand and “short run” titles soared 132 percent, according to a story by Publishers Weekly. For the first time, on-demand publishing surpassed traditional print. Overall, book publishing rose 38 percent last year.
Look for self-publishing to continue. More Americans than ever are interested in writing, according to the National Endowment for the Arts. And now they have yet another outlet: Scribd launched a new store Sunday that allows anyone—from major publishers to individual authors—to upload and sell their works. According to PW, “the venture expands Scribd’s existing library of free documents, a service popular enough to generate more than 60 million unique users, making it one of the world’s most popular web sites.” Just keep in mind that although it’s easier than ever to publish a book (whether online or in print), it’s harder - or just as hard- to make real money from it. And as for respect: Being a published author isn’t nearly the success story it used to be.
Here’s more on the Publisher Weekly’s story on the 2008 publishing figures:
U.S. book production rose and fell in 2008, according to preliminary statistics released this morning by Bowker. The number of new and revised titles produced by traditional production methods fell 3% in 2008, to 275,232, but the number of on-demand and short run titles soared 132%, to 285,394. The on-demand and short run segment is the method typically used by self-publishers as well as online publishers. With the decline in the number of traditional books released last year and the jump in on-demand, the number of on-demand titles topped those of traditional books for the first time. Taken together, total output rose 38%, to 560,626 titles.
Kelly Gallagher, v-p of publisher services for Bowker, said the decline in traditional books reflects not only the difficult economy but the decision by publishers to become smarter and more strategic in the titles they published last year. A breakout by segment shows the impact of the economy on publishing. The number of travel titles was down 15% last year as American’s stayed closer to home, while fiction titles fell 11%, to 47,541. The religion segment also had a significant decline with new titles off 14%. The biggest gain among traditional segments came in education where output rose 33%, to 9,510, while new business title rose 14%, to 8,838.
The production figures come from Bowker’s Books in Print database and includes input from more than 75,000 publishers.
Print on demand makes sense. Books can be printed and bound within 24 hours and shipped the next day to the bookstore that placed the order. Rather than spending money for print runs of 10,000 books or more and letting those books sit in a warehouse, taking up room, POD technology saves money by printing only the number of books ordered. It saves paper, ink, manpower and time, as well. I’m all for it. Jo
A lot of people think authors are rich because books are expensive, and that’s not the case. I published a book in 2000, something you could walk into Borders or Barnes & Noble and buy. Cover price was $25. Of that, I saw a small fraction–it may have been as low as a dollar or as high as $1.75. The rest of the money went to paying for the paper, printing, distribution, the publisher’s cut, and the retailer’s cut.
Those terms were actually pretty good. Sometime in 2000-2001, I was approached to write a “Dummies” book, and they offered 25 cents per copy sold.
But even with those relatively favorable terms, I figured out that I would have made more money spending the time I spent writing the book working part-time at White Castle. Had the book sold better, I would have fared a bit better, but making enough by writing books to not have to have a day job is tough.
POD cuts some of the overhead, and self-publishing through POD allows the author to put a bit more into his or her pocket, but reaching the audience can be tricky. Of course that’s an issue that traditional publishers struggle with as well sometimes.
Ultimately, we may reach a point where there are POD kiosks in book stores. If you want a book that isn’t in stock, order it, and it prints it for you on the spot.
You’re right, Dave.
That’s a story told over and over. It’s hard to make any money from writing. It takes a lot of time.
Only a few authors really hit it big.
With so many choices of books, some readers must just nervously pick the brand names they’ve read before. The popular authors just seem to get more popular despite the increasing numbers of new titles.
I think POD kiosks would be a good service if one knows which title he wants. I don’t think bricks and mortar or printed books are going to disappear any time soon, though.
I think the problem of not making money on your book is only compounded with POD or any self-publishing effort. The problem with the traditional method of publishing is that it’s not whether a publisher buys and prints your work — it’s whether they devote any money or effort to marketing it. Minus an aggressive marketing campaign, your manuscript might as well still be on your own hard drive for all the sales it’s going to generate. Just getting a few newspapers or magazines to review your book is a major endeavor (right, Jane?) So what does a self-published author do? As a person who has spent a good part of his career buying books, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve listened sympathetically but ultimately uninterestedly to self-published authors hawking their work. It has got to be a thankless and tiresome task to do it all yourself. It’s truly not the printing that makes the difference — that’s only mechanics. It’s the marketing effort of a real publishing house that sells thousands of copies.
To some extent, I have to believe that traditional publishers know what has a chance of selling.
If they don’t want to buy an unknown author’s manuscript, what is the likelihood that unknown person is going to be able to produce a quality book and market it effectively to thousands of people? It has happened, but it is rare.
What these Bowker figures tell us is just the sheer number of titles - they don’t say what the sales figures and profits are.
Authors published through traditional channels (as opposed to self-published) are trying to emphasize the difference by joining organizations that exclude the self-published. These organizations maintain that they need to be exclusionary to keep their professional status. This seems to be where the line of “respect” mentioned in the article is drawn. Good, bad? All I know is that self-published authors are beginning to knock on the doors of these organizations.
Great comments and good information here. I have self-published through Booklocker.com, a POD and e-publisher, and make around 35% of the retail. That is better than traditional publishing, but they do no marketing. I checked around quite a bit before going with them, since there are a lot of sharks in the self-pub business, and so far they have been honest, honorable, very helpful and pay royalties monthly. I have broken into the profit column quickly, since their start-up costs are reasonable.
I tried the traditional method with multiple queries to publishers and agents for about a year before beginning research to self-publish. Then I heard that Dwayne Dyer the author started out this way, hawking his books out of the trunk of his car. I plan to do a sequel to my first novel, and will use Booklocker again, since they offer a considerable discount to returning authors. This is a great site for such a discussion, Ms. Henderson, and I hope it continues.
Tom Anselm, teacher and author
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