Dear Author » POD

Thursday Midday Links: Pubs Use POD for Backlist Titles

Jane — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:52:40 +0000

First off, I have some personal but semi blog related news to share. I have been asked by Berkley to put together an erotica/erotic romance collection of shorts which will then be published in a flip book. The flip book has two covers: one on the front and one on the back. Each cover is reverse of the other. You read half the book and flip it over and read the other half. My goal is to collect twenty authors who will write 5,000 words or so about the topic of pleasure and/or pain. The book will be published by Berkley Heat and will be on shelves December 2011. I hope to include a variety of authors, some unpublished, some recognizable. If you have recommendations, let me know!

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In disturbing news, I came across a copy of Pursuit by Elizabeth Jennings (published by Grand Central, a division of Hachette) selling for $22.99. This surprised me given that Pursuit was a mass market paperback release in 2008. The digital price is listed at $10.99. Again, for a mass market release put out two years ago.

When I mentioned this on Twitter, I was informed that Pocket is doing the same thing. Roxanne St. Claire’s Hit Reply is listed at $21.99 and the digital price is $15.99. Another person sent me the link to Pamela Morsi’s Courting Miss Hattie listing at $19.00 for print and digital. The actual price of the digital is $9.99 as Amazon is allowed to discount Random House books.

All these books have apparently run through the original print runs. In order to keep the books “in print” and not allowing the rights to revert to the authors, publishers are using Print on Demand technology to keep the books in print.

I think that this is just a crazy policy by publishers. For one thing, it pushes readers to the used market. Who is going to buy the POD version of a book at $22 when she can buy a used copy for $3.99? For digital readers, why in the hell would they pay $15.99, $10.99 for a book that sold as mass market. They are better off creating their own digital copy from a used book. Or some may just decide to pirate it.

This type of pricing doesn’t serve the author and it doesn’t serve the reader.

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Congress held hearings on whether the US Postal Service can eliminate Saturday mail service. Amazon claims the lack of Saturday service will adversely affect rural areas while Netflix doesn’t see much of any impact. I love Saturday mail service but eliminating it supposedly will save billions of dollars.

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Harlequin is partnering with Penguin India to bring the Mira imprint to ndia, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal.

Padmanabhan said Penguin-India saw a 'strategic fit with the success of MIRA's list worldwide'.

"The market in India has an ever-growing need for commercial mass market fiction like historical, fantasy, vampire and paranormal romances that are a huge hit worldwide. Indian readers love them too. Anyone looking for a great read, be it in summer or winter, at home or while travelling, is our potential customer,' he said.

I’m kind of fascinated by this cross publisher relationship that is taking place overseas. Is there anything like that in the US or UK?

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Laura Miller, of Salon, talks about the up side and down side of increasing amount of self publishing.

Readers themselves rarely complain that there isn’t enough of a selection on Amazon or in their local superstore; they’re more likely to ask for help in narrowing down their choices. So for anyone who has, however briefly, played that reviled gatekeeper role, a darker question arises: What happens once the self-publishing revolution really gets going, when all of those previously rejected manuscripts hit the marketplace, en masse, in print and e-book form, swelling the ranks of 99-cent Kindle and iBook offerings by the millions? Is the public prepared to meet the slush pile?

Readers do complain about the lack of variety and that is one area in which I would hope to see growth but the issue of curation is going to be a big one in the future.

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Finally, the biggest news of yesterday was YouTube’s win over Viacom. Viacom sued YouTube for copyright infringement and argued that YouTube should be actively policing the content it is hosting in order to p

The judge granted YouTube’s Motion for Summary judgment (which is a legal document saying “we don’t have any real dispute over the facts so decide the legal question before you.” All legal questions are for the judge and all fact questions are for the jury (factfinder)). In the ruling, the judge found that the DMCA protects entities like YouTube who might know that users will upload copyright infringing material so long as YouTube (and like entities) remove the copyright infringing material once notified.

Essentially the judge was upholding the plain language of the DMCA statute.

[Judge] Stanton ruled that YouTube's "mere knowledge" of infringing activity "is not enough."

"To let knowledge of a generalized practice of infringement in the industry, or of a proclivity of users to post infringing materials, impose responsibility on service providers to discover which of their users' postings infringe a copyright would contravene the structure and operation of the DMCA," the judge wrote.

Stanton ruled that YouTube had no way of knowing whether a video was licensed by the owner, was a "fair use" of the material "or even whether its copyright owner or licensee objects to its posting."

Viacom’s interpretation was that once a company knows that people use it for improper purposes, the company loses its “safe harbor” protection. By looking at extensive legislative history, Judge Stanton determined that Viacom’s interpretation was not consistent with the intent of Congress AND that it would have made the DMCA safe harbor provision meaningless.

Monday Midday Links:

Jane — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:00:32 +0000

Google announced a deal last week with Espresso Book Machine wherein the full panoply of out of copyright books Google has scanned and digitized can be available through the POD machines. The books can be printed in less than five minutes. The suggested retail price for such a book is $8.00. Maybe publishers want to consider my idea for customized print on demand books?

An enterprising coffee shop owner in London’s Soho has created a Mills & Boon reading club where authors are invited to come and participate in a reading and conversation with readers. In other Harlequin conglomerate news, Harlequin has partnered with Softbank to bring digital adaptations of Harlequin manga to South Korea with cooperation of Teruten Incorporated.

Barnes and Noble has announced that the downloads for both the BN App and the BN eReader App have surpassed 1,000,000 mark.

Speaking of ebooks, Dystel & Goderich has posted a response to the ComputerWorld article by Mike Elgan on ebooks. The ComputerWorld article suggests that innovation needs to happen in publishing but all the change is focused on the retailing and reading experience in the digital market. Dystel & Goderich agent, Michael, agrees and disagrees. Both Mikes appear to not realize that digital borrowing of audio books takes place already. O_o.

Blast editor in chief, John Guilfoil, borrows from Janice Radway’s seminal scholarly work to suggest that the feminist/anti-feminist arguments of the Twilight series are both right. Radway suggested romance books both empower and reinforce gender stereotypes. Likewise, Guilfoil argues that perhaps the Twilight series can provide ample argument for both sides of the feminist argument. For me, I think that the Twilight series isn’t a statement on girl power, even if Meyer would like it to be. I plan on letting my daughter read them but seriously discussing whether trying to kill herself repeatedly in order to gain the attention of a boy makes a lot of sense.

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Publishing Is a Crowded Market

Jane — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:53:02 +0000

276,649 new titles and editions were printed in 2007 which is a 1% increase over the previous year. Print on Demand books increased from 21,936 titles to 134,773 titles per year. It’s no wonder that Amazon is flexing its market power with requiring POD authors and publishers to use its own POD service, Booksurge, or face increased fees. POD is big money these days.

Among the traditional categories, the biggest gain in output occurred in literature, which rose 19%, to 9,796 titles, while fiction was close behind at a 17% increase to 50,071 titles; fiction is also the single largest category. Seventeen categories had a drop in output, with the largest decline in business with title output down 12%, to 7,651. Output in personal/financial titles fell 8%, while publication of religious text dropped 5%. Juvenile title output fell 1%, to 30,063.

Source Publishers’ Weekly.

Amazon Subject of Antitrust Suit

Jane — Fri, 23 May 2008 14:03:19 +0000

SB Sarah posted about the new antitrust lawsuit filed by publisher Booklocker against Amazon. Booklocker is asking for class action status. The suit alleges an unlawful tying arrangement between Amazon’s bookstore and Amazon’s printing arm (Booksurge).

We discussed a tying suit briefly in the comments when the news of Amazon’s requirement to use its POD service or suffer a financial penalty first surfaced.

The Advantage Program requires POD publishers to give Amazon 55% of the list price, pay them $29.95/year, and pay the shipping costs for books going to Amazon.

There are great resources on the internet that explain tying and one of them is a paper before the Federal Trade Commission that addresses the illegal tying of intellectual property rights. While the IP arguments don’t necessarily pertain, the prefatory material on this link is helpful in understanding the basics of a tying suit.

Probably the most famous recent tying cases have been against Microsoft. States across the country challenged Microsoft’s tying of its browser, Internet Explorer, to its operating system. Microsoft had built up a monopoly on personal computers. While this is not illegal in the United States, there are constraints on monopoly power. It is deemed improper when a “seller exploits his dominant position in one market to expand his empire into the next.” Times-Picayune Pub. Co. v. United States, 345 U.S. 594, 608-11 (1953).

A monopoly shouldn’t exercise its power in a way that diminishes competition and harms consumers. The Antitrust laws are designed, not to ensure that a company acts more altruistic, but to protect consumers and therefore foster a competitive market.

When Microsoft was tying its web browser with its operating system, it had little incentive to be technologically innovative. The market, courts view, should be protected in a way to foster competition. In proving a per se tying, Booksurge will need to establish the following four elements:

(1) two separate products or services are involved, (the retail part and the publishing arm)
(2) the sale or agreement to sell one is conditioned on the purchase of the other, (this is where it gets a little muddy, I think. You can still use the retail part if you don’t use the publishing arm of Amazon, but you must pay a higher rate)
(3) the seller has sufficient economic power in the market for the tying product to enable it to restrain trade in the market for the tied product, (if the majority of sales one makes is through Amazon and this is true for the members of the affected class, I think that this would be satisfied) and
(4) a not insubstantial amount of interstate commerce in the tied product is affected. (SB Sarah’s post quoted the lawyer for Booklocker.com stating that there were over 4000+ publishers/consumers who might be affected by this)

This will be an interesting case to watch.

Indiana Attorney General Sues Non Paying Publisher

Jane — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:10:16 +0000

In an act that will endear authors to Indiana in spite of its recent “sex registry for booksellers” law, the Indiana Attorney General is suing publisher, Airleaf aka Bookman Marketing, for accepting payment of authors and not delivering the promised services from publication to promotional services. The owner is Carl Lau and it looks like the company was some kind of print on demand service.

If you are an affected customer/author, you can contact the Attorney General at

Office of the Indiana Attorney General
Indiana Government Center South
302 W. Washington St.
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Phone: 317-232-6201
Fax: 317-232-7979

E-mail: Constituent@atg.in.gov

Consumer Protection Division
302 West Washington Street, 5th Floor
Indianapolis, IN 46204

Phone:	317-232-6330
	800-382-5516

Via Publishers Weekly.

Got Writer’s Block? Partner Up With 1 or 20 Collaborators

Jane — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:54:48 +0000

Writing has been said to be a lonely endeavor. WEbook, a Maryland company, aims to put an end to that by publishing collaborative books. It’s first publication is “a 58-chapter thriller called ‘Pandora,’ was written by 17 people and will hit shelves next week.”

The collaborations are done online and the works with the highest rankings will be made into a print book to be sold at Amazon and in Barnes and Noble. If the book does go to print, you and your hundred other collaborators will get to share the royalties.

Obviously, if you participate in WEbook, it isn’t for the money. But if it isn’t for the money, what is the point?

Via Wash Po. (Thanks Jill and JMC)

Amazon Flexes Its Market Muscle

Jane — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 09:00:14 +0000

So, this Amazon thing. It sounds bad. For those who might have missed it, Amazon decided to stop stocking Print on Demand books that do not use Amazon’s own service, Booksurge. I’m not sure who falls under a Print on Demand service. I have always viewed PODs as any publisher who has print books but does not have a print run. This can vary from printing to order (i.e., if the bookstore orders 1000 copies, the publisher prints 1,000 copies) or it can be a simple as a book that is printed, bound and shipped upon each individual sale.

Small print publishers like Samhain and Whiskey Creek Press use POD services but in different ways. Samhain partners with Ingrams that prints stock to fill orders and keeps some inventory on hand. Ellora’s Cave used to do it this way but bought their own printing presses. Whiskey Creek Press and NCP use POD in yet another way but it appears that some of those booksellers retail agreements with Amazon are in jeopardy. Whiskey Creek Press and another epress, Pawprints, have seen the “buy” links on their book pages disappear. Samhain and Amber Quill Press books seem to be unaffected at this point.

For how long, though, only time will tell. The largest POD printer is Lightning Source (owned by Ingram). Lightning Source sells over 400,000 titles on Amazon according to LSI’s own site. Publish America has over 30,000 titles on Amazon.

This should be expected, as Kassia Krozser of Booksquare, states. Amazon is trying to create a publishing empire. Not just a retail publishing empire, but a publishing empire. For example, Amazon used to sell ebooks in differing formats including Adobe and MS Reader. I believe that it used Lightning Source as its fulfillment for those books. In 2005, about the time that Amazon bought Booksurge, it also bought Mobipocket. Some time in 2006, Amazon stopped servicing and selling its ebooks. It sent out a notice to all readers to download their ebooks or lose them forever. Fast forward to 2008 and we have the Kindle and its super proprietary software and the only way to read a Kindle book is on the Kindle itself. Want to read a book on the Kindle? You email it to yourself and it is stored on the Amazon servers. As Krozser writes:

Your content is being locked to their device. Your content is being locked to their service. They get to set the terms . . .

Currently, Amazon will turn your bytes and bits into a published book for $299.00 (this is the cheapest service). You are entitled to 35% royalty on all retail services sold on Amazon.com and then fulfilled by Booksurge.

In the meantime, Amazon makes it attractive for bloggers to use it services. For each book that someone buys through a Dear Author Amazon link, we get a 5-6% referral fee. This is the one way that we monetize our blog without being too intrusive (at least I think it isn’t intrusive). It’s also easier to use Amazon to link to books because so many developers have put together Amazon related tools for bloggers. When Sarah and I were debating how to make a list of the 64 books that were part of the DA BWAHA tournament, I was disheartened because of the time I thought it would take. Instead, Amazon had the software for Sarah to make a DA BWAHA store in just minutes. I made one for Dear Author over the weekend. We are participating in feeding Amazon business because a) we get a monetary benefit from it and b) it is easy to use. (As an aside, we haven’t submitted the DA blog to be a paid for service on Kindle.)

As a reader, Amazon’s move bothers me for the reasons I can’t articulate because I can’t foresee all the dangers. I can see a decline in small press publishing. Small press publishing is really important. Honestly it is small press publishing that drove the erotic romance market into mainstream publishing. How long would it have taken for that sub genre to grow if small print publishers hadn’t taken those chances and shown it could be profitable? What is the next sub genre that the small presses will make popular?

The move to require everyone that uses some kind of POD service to pay Amazon will have some deeper portent in the future. Amazon is thinking ahead, are you?

Amazon to Block Other POD Services from Using Amazon Marketplace

Jane — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:55:22 +0000

In what I like to think of as the “cock block” Amazon has said to self published authors that only those POD books that use Amazon’s POD service will be for sale through Amazon. Before, if you were a POD, you could have your books fulfilled by Lulu.com or any other POD service. Not any more.

I wonder what effect, if any, that has on epublishers who use a POD service.

Wall Street Journal via Shelf Awareness.

Will eBooks Revolutionize e-Publishing?

Jane — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 09:00:54 +0000

In the past year, we’ve seen more than one epublishing company crash and burn whether it is from mishandled funds, poor business planning; or simply not enough business. It appears that many authors who are epublished are relied upon to do their own advertising and editing appears to vary in quality a great deal. Unless you have signed with a major epublishing house such as Ellora’s Cave, Samhain, Loose Id, and so forth, does it make sense for an author to self publish her ebook?

Benefits of an e Publisher

Most epublishers will take 60% of the royalty of an ebook. In exchange, the publishing house will edit your book, produce a cover of varying quality, and make it available to its existing audience. You also benefit from the publisher’s general advertising.

Costs of POD

Print on Demand is quite difficult, if you think about it. Few stores, particularly the big box retailers, will carry a POD book. The costs of a printed book is much higher for a self published author. For example, according to this book estimator, the cost of a small print run of 500 trade sized books running under 200 pages would cost an author a little more than $2300.00.

Of course, the technology behind most self published books is the idea of the book being printed when it is ordered instead of financing a print run. Without a print run, though, there is little chance of gaining the browsing crowd. Instead, a true print on demand author has the audience that buys online, a similar audience to those who might be enticed to buy an ebook.

Some POD companies offer publisher-like resources such as editing, proofing, and cover art. Lulu.com is the most economical POD company due to the fact that it offers none of that. Instead, the author must edit, proof, format, submit artwork, and upload the materials to Lulu.com. For $99.95, Lulu obtains an ISBN and lists your book in a Global Catalog so that online retailers such as Amazon.com can offer the book in its database. Interestingly, as part of deal, though, you must purchase a proof copy of your book.

Beyond the $99.95 that Lulu.com charges, however, are the packages you might have to purchase to sell your book. For example, Amazon’s Advantage program costs $29.95 per year plus 55% commission for each sale. As part of the Advantage program, Amazon will stock approximately 5 copies; show your book as “In Stock”; make your book eligible for Free Super Saver Shipping, Amazon Prime, Fast Track, 1-Click ordering; and the Search Inside feature.

BookSurge, Amazon’s new POD service, offers a Fiction Writers package that includes editing and proofing, cover art, and Amazon promotional services for a grand total of $5,759.95.

According to this Absolute Write Forum poster, the retail price of a POD should be eight times the per printing cost which means an average fiction book will cost the reader over $35. At that cost you’ve got to be printing golden books; books with more potential crack addiction properties than the Navy Seal Vampires with color coordinated heroines. I recall one pirate book that was making the rounds a few years back. When I checked it out, the book cost $30.00 and was trade paperback. There was absolutely no way I was going to pay $30.00 for a trade paperback from a new to me author even if my blogging partner, Jayne, recommended it to me.
Average Sales

According to the statistics examined by the Science Fiction Writers of America, the average print on demand book sells fewer than 200 copies. AuthorHouse averages 111 sales per title; iUniverse 166 sales per title; and Xlibris, the largest POD publisher, sells less than 200 copies 85% of the time.

If you are selling 200 copies of a self published book retailing for $14.00 with an individual cost of $4.61 and 40-55% discount off the retal price, each book makes a $3.79 to $1.69 profit. This obviously doesn’t include any shipping costs nor does it take into account any promotional costs. On the average, I think its safe to say that POD doesn’t really pay for authors.

eBook Self Publishing Costs

Lulu.com is offering iPhone and Sony Reader ebook optimization for $25.00 per format. I’m not sure if there are other companies offering this service. I do know that to get a title on Sony’s Connect store costs $200 per book.

You cannot sell at Fictionwise directly unless you have 10 books published with a reputable publishing company (no POD or Vanity Press authors need apply). The ebook author, however, biggest investment in an self published ebook is time, as in time spent marketing the book aggressively to the online ebook reading community.

Stigma Still Exists

Personally, I know that I am less likely to buy a self published book than any other book being sold, particularly on a new to me author. M.J. Rose, a self publishing phenom, says that self publishing should be a last resort for an author, particularly a fiction writer. In my opinion, with the plethora of eBook publishers who are putting out nearly every kind of book in every kind of sub genre feeding nearly every kind of fetish and fantasy, self publishing should be the last resort for an ebook author as well.

Truthfully, when I see a book that is self published, either in ebook format or print format, I tend to believe it is simply not good enough for a publishing house and therefore not worth my time. This may be completely inaccurate and I might be missing out on great books but with the enormous number of books available from NY and reputable ebook publishers, I can’t think of a reason I would take a chance with my time and money on a book neither set of publishers wanted.

Can someone convince me otherwise?