Fascinatingly new take on the whole what-the-digital-revolution-will-do-to-the-book-trade discussion here:

http://grumpyoldbookman.blogspot.com/

I rejoice to have it pointed out to me that the mega-sellers that WWers get so hot under the collar about are still only a third of book sales. Not so doomy-and-gloomy, is it? A whole other third are the Long Tail of the book-sales graph: hundreds of thousands of different titles that up to now have each sat in their little niche, waiting for the people who want them to find them. Grumpy Old Bookman, bless his lateral-thinking heart, is discussing how they might finally be helped to get together.

Emma

Great article. It's heartening to think that more and more niche fiction will become available, and that experimentation will reach the public where until recently it might have failed. Can't help feeling we might end up printing at home as well, just as we print photographs at home now...

I stumbled across a website last week for Zumaya Publications, a Canadian outfit which seems to be right onto this idea of publishing Ebooks (and POD) of niche titles which can't find a home elsewhere - they have a large list of titles and seem especially open and friendly to new writers. http://www.zumayapublications.com/

But there's surely going to remain a desire for the object itself, the well-produced book. I guess these differing approaches and processes will ultimately live happily side-by-side.

Pete

What GOB says, and I hadn't thought of, about POD is the idea of it going on in your local bookshop - which makes much more sense than relying on people to hunt this stuff down on the net and wait in for the postman and so on. Why not have a file of publisher's POD catalogues to flip through with your coffee, then order it to be printed while you drink your second cup? I've just seen the US catalogue copy for TMOL, and it says quite enough for me to make a judgement about whether to buy it, I'd have said. You could even have some dipping-into pages on a terminal.

And though what machinery they can squeeze into the back room of a bookshop might restrict production standards a bit, I recently ordered a POD title from Virago Modern Classics. Cost me £10 via my local independent, for a book that's indistinguishable from all the other £8.99 Viragos on my shelves.

Emma

The more I find out about the book business the clearer it becomes that selling a book, given that it will sell at all, is initially to do with the marketing push, and this seems still intimately attached to being associated with a proper publisher of the traditional sort. The contacts, trust, and lines of communication with the various media established by respected individuals in publishing, surely this is the gold-dust an author seeks and which he or she alone can rarely achieve. Though what GOB predicts is exciting in one sense, one would ultimately wish for some kind of marketing approach which would sit alongside BOD (and perhaps one will emerge) because a lot of niche stuff deserves a wider audience.

Pete

<Added>

BOD=POD

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indistinguishable from all the other £8.99 Viragos on my shelves.

I've got some dumb prejudice that POD is somehow inferior in quality production-wise, don't know why. Is the quality and finish the same, then, as a print-run book?

Yes, in this instance the quality's just as good. My prejudices were surprised too. The only hole I could pick is that orignal Viragos are quarto, and this one octavo, so fractionally taller and thinner, and they haven't changed the artwork, so it sits a little oddly on the new shape. I notice it isn't printed by one of the big book printers, so Virago have obviously outsorced that, but there's nothing very magical about producing a ordinary perfect-bound paperback on decent paper with good typesetting.

You're right too about the marketing push, Pete. I'm very much on the right side of this at the moment, but I can see what a difference it makes if you are or you aren't (which as I've said before, is what's so clever about the marketing of MNW as a single unit). This model of POD is perhaps best suited to keeping books available after traditional publishing would make them uneconomic to keep in print, and the need for the marketing push seems to imply a need for physical books, in bookshops.

There is a worry for authors about what you might call after-market POD like this. The rights of a book revert to you if a publisher makes your book out-of-print. If they don't do that, techinically, but switch to POD, then you're prevented from trying to find someone else to publish it, but the publisher has no particular incentive to go on promoting the book. The Soc of A is on the case, and all publishing contracts need to have a clause about what happens in this case.

Emma

With POD, Emma, I always check out the quality by simply buying one of their books. I did this before I signed up with Zumaya, and then had a proviso to take care of all art direction for the cover and promotions, as frankly, though Zumaya are a good company, I'm not into their 'presentation' at all.

If a book does well, Zumaya act as agents for the novel and have sold several of their POD's on to conventional publishers with about a 10% cut on the book's earning, so POD isn't necessarily the end of the line. A couple of Zumaya's books have gone on to win awards, and I think it's that kind of thing one should look for in a POD. Zumaya are terrific to work with, though I know they are currently closed to submissions. They have been very forward thinking and positive about European distribution as well, anotehr big plus.

Of course, it looks like I'm now going to get to see both sides of the coin, what with Twisted Tongue releasing a print run chap book (complete with ISBN) of Practical Devil Worship in November and another US print publishing sniffing around Teenage Antichrist. I'll keep you posted, but it's certainly going to be interesting seeing it from both angles!

And yes - I am far too busy and a little dispersed! One day, I hope to bring all these stories under one umbrella, but I'm excited by the journey to say the least.

JB

JB

Didn't realise you were with Zumaya-they are Canadian, right, rather than U.S.?

Yes, the website presentation does leave a bit to be desired. I think they would benefit their authors with a bio for each signed writer and especially with an excerpt from each book, preferrably the first few pages. Otherwise I was impressed, mostly by their attitude and enthusiasm for POD and what it can uniquely provide i.e. a less inhibited approach for the publisher.

Pete

Their HQ is in Canada, but the office I'm dealing with is in Austin, Texas.

JB

So to buy a Zuyama book from Amazon, say, does that mean Amazon orders that single copy from Zuyama and then forwards it to the reader? Does that make it more expensive compared to a direct purchase from Zuyama?

Pete

Presumably yes. I assume from my understanding of POD that they only print what is ordered. Looking on Amazon, curious after your query, I see that most Zumayan books are only listed as one copy available under unsed or new, (retailing with shipping at roughly £13 a pop), so I think they collate orders and then probably print them on a weekly basis? I'll have to ask them closer to the time as I have had to wait an inordinate period already, but it probably states this in the contract.

To be honest, the wait has been annoying and now I've gone beyond myself in terms of writing. When I signed their contract I was not a member of WW, not had I had anything published, so the rookie they thought they were getting is slightly more experienced now! I've come onto the radar of a print publisher already, so I don't think I'll go the POD route for my next venture, but I'm curious to see how it works out. The Society of Authors advises writers having books published through POD to be 'realistic about their prospects' i.e I don't think they'll see you retiring!

JB

JB - retiring isn't a likely prospect for authors going the 'traditional' route.

I bought an academic POD from Amazon a while ago, after trying to negotiate a secure purchase/transaction with the POD house in Chapel Hill N Carolina - I paid a lot of money for it, more than if I'd bought in dollars direct in the States. But it's a book I need, so I paid.

Jim