Personally I’m having trouble with both POD and traditional publishing. I have posted a number of stories on the internet and usually I have good reviews from my readers yet publishers say that my stories don’t meet their standards.

Based off of my readers I fail to see so I have tried self-publishing but it’s very expensive for readers and they don’t edit.

I’m not a professional editor and the entire publishing industry is setup against a new writer. Even if I do get published and get paid my book might not get the backing it needs to successful.

Why waste money on a writer who isn’t proven in a publisher eyes? I know that there is a lot of writers that are going through the same thing. That’s why POD was probably created in the first place.

Maybe the reason why people consider self-published writers to be less than the traditionally published is because some like me are growing tired of playing a game where we have to do a lot of work for few rewards.

A publisher even when looking at your submission looks a things as a business not an art form. I consider a writer to be an artists more than anything else.

We convey images and ideas through words. Through them we can inspire and encourage.

I guess what I’m trying to say that if I can’t find my place in either POD or traditional I believe the only idea left to me is to provide it to libraries for free. Then I will be able to find a reader base who will be able to read my stories for free at least those I can put in a library.

I don’t know that I was recommending Lulu.com. It was more of an example. I guess I didn’t look at the per printing costs but the set up fees and would, of course, cede to your superior knowledge.

Whether or not POD makes sense for any author comes down to calculating the realistic sales expectations for the book (the number of copies realistically expected to be sold to someone else and to the author herself). I stress “realistically” because we all know authors think they will sell “millions of copies” but that just isn’t realistic.

Lulu’s per-unit printing costs are often nearly twice what other PODs like DogEar, Outskirts Press, and Trafford charge. Additionally, the fact that Lulu doesn’t offer any editorial or design options only further exasperates the stigma associated with POD and self-published books in general (because a typical Lulu customer will choose NOT to fork over any money for those extra services, instead deluding himself that his book is GOOD enough).

At least with other service providers that do charge an upfront fee you receive the peace of mind that your book will at least LOOK like it wasn’t designed by the author (even if it WAS edited by the author).

No one can make a book by a bad writer read well. But the PODs that charge service fees for their design efforts can at least make a book by a bad writer LOOK good.

PODdy Mouth
http://poddymouth.wordpress.com

I feel the same way about being a writer. :)

Seriously, self-publishing is a business like any other, and it should be taken up only by those who are committed and knowledgeable (or who are just doing it for fun or to meet a particular audience’s demand; those are legitimate reasons). Self-publishing costs and profits vary tremendously, depending on the methods used. The least amount of profit is going to go to those who choose subsidy presses such as BookSurge. The greatest amount is going to go to those who take the same path that small presses do and work directly with a POD printer (not a press, but a printer). Lulu – which serves as a middleman between the author and the POD printer, and accordingly takes a chunk of the profit – falls somewhere in the middle.

E-books are a different matter altogether, since there are no printing costs.

“According to the statistics examined by
the Science Fiction Writers of America,
the average print on demand book sells
fewer than 200 copies.”

While I very much welcome SFWA’s dose of realism on this topic, this number of course includes self-publishers who have no interest in selling more than a handful of books to their friends and family, which probably constitutes the majority of self-publishers. I also think it’s worth pointing out that, according to the Erotic Romance E-publisher Comparison Site, which has been surveying romance authors of traditionally published e-books, first-year sales for e-books are under 400, while total sales are under 600. Therefore, the difference in sales numbers between traditionally published e-books and self-published e-books is not necessarily going to be much different.

Self-publishing a print book is much more difficult, and I think that it’s fair to say that most people who are self-publishing POD books these days haven’t adequately prepared themselves for the task at hand.

As for why one would want to buy a self-published book, I’ll repeat here what I said at the TeleRead blog:

(A disclaimer that, in addition to being traditionally published, I’m self-published online, but I’m addressing here the reader’s point of view.)

I think the people who don’t like self-published POD books and self-published e-books are the same people who don’t read self-published online fiction. And that’s perfectly fine; I was in that category a decade ago. But those of us who have found a lot of good online fiction are more likely to take a chance on self-published books, particularly if they’re from an author we already know from their online writings.

My experience with reading self-published online fiction has been very positive, since I don’t read online stories randomly but instead seek them out through reader reviews or through forums and archives that are known to attact high-quality submissions. In other words, I agree with Rob Preece [in the TeleRead blog thread] that pre-screening is helpful; I just think that pre-screening can take place in ways other than an editor or publisher making the decision as to what is worth reading.

Many of these authors have no interest in being traditionally published, so it’s not a matter of them trying for publishing houses and being rejected.

I understand – from those who have had the misfortune to plow through the offerings – that the average quality of self-published e-books and POD books is considerably lower than that of online fiction, but I think this will change as more authors get their works properly edited. (In certain parts of the Web, this process is already in place for online fiction.) What is important, I think, is identifying which authors are worth reading, and this is where review sites such as DearAuthor.com can play a vital role – though I’m not trying to twist Jane’s arm into taking up this role.

EEE-YIII, why is it so damned hard to sign in to this site? (Okay, got that out of my system!)

K.Z., I feel your pain. I was telling Jane that I tried to sign in while at work yesterday and could have read a novella while waiting to be acknowledged by my own blog.

I do believe that any author worth her salt, spicy or otherwise, should be able to land an ebook contract. Ain’t no go? Maybe, just maybe, you suck. Time for some self-examination. (Hey, sorry, but not everybody who feels the need to write is a readable writer…unless you have something truly brilliant and edgy that the public isn’t ready for, in which case you’ll likely have a chance of being recognized as a genius after you’re dead!)

And then there are youse guys–”review” people–who shy away from reading and critiquing e-books. Only authors pumped out and promoted by major print publishers are worth your time. Seems we electronic goddesses are presumed to be producing substandard work. (And, oh, lordie, don’t get me started on the dung I’ve slogged through from NY pubs written by “big-name” authors!) Therefore, reviewers of note are also responsible for the recognition, or lack thereof, of e-published books.

Self-pubbed? Now that’s a different ballgame entirely. As I said earlier, if you have a book that qualifies as an erotic romance, or any other category story, you should be able to get it published almost anywhere if it shows a modicum of language skill and knowledge of the subgenre. Not a catefory piece? Better find a critique group and/or agent who believes in you, and better be an extraordinarily talented author who has a chance of catching Oprah’s attention…because, otherwise, it ain’t goin’ nowhere.