Thinking of self-publishing? Things are changing all the time. You can avoid the problems of large, expensive print runs by having a ‘print on demand’ (POD) deal. The WriteWords recommended printer, Antony Rowe has teamed up with the well-known book wholesalers, Gardners, to provide a comprehensive service. The two companies recently announced that in 2003 they helped over 180 UK publishers gain £2 million of lost sales. They say that 90% of POD orders are for single copies. They say also that distribution and fulfilment options are available.

Bob Kelly of Gardners (Stand D42) and Geoff Fisher of Antony Rowe (Stand U181) will be at the London Book Fair (March 14th -16th) - an opportunity to explore further if you are interested.

There’s a detailed article about self-publishing here on the WriteWords site. It’s not that difficult to become your own publisher and with POD it promises to be much cheaper than it has been.

Worth a thought. (WW has no vested interest in this; it’s just a service to our subscribers).

Richard.

How about giving over a small section on this of this site to members who do this and want to sell - give details of how to buy, a synopsis and a sample chapter. Books need advertising to sell and it's a real service for any members that which to do it after all... BE at the forefront of the revolution - that's been my theme today.

With my broadcasting hat on I interviewed Helen Miles from Solidus Press last week.

A very interesting and informative session.

Solidus also use Gardners but the POD style does require or allow, which ever way you look at it, the Author to do their own marketing.

Seems to me the downside is that Mr or Mrs Public are unlikely to be able to walk into a bookshop and pick up a POD published book which means you lose the imputus purchase end of the market and also lose the book being advertised by being on display in bookshops.

You do benefit from a much higher % on sales 50% was mentioned to me ( but no advance) and it is unlikely that if you have an agent you will get accepted by a POD publisher or your agent will go the POD route.

You also know that unsold copies of your masterpiece is umlikely to end up in its thousands under some motorway or other.

I guess it is a decision each has to make themselves.


Solidus press do have a web site but they do not take poetry mainly novels.

I heard a radio piece the other day about a Cornish woman whose book ('Valley of the Secrets', I think) was roundly rejected in the usual way by agents and publishers. Her cousin (I think!) set up a small press to produce this one book and now it's selling well and getting a fair amount of publicity. I agree, Olebut, that marketing is the huge bugbear but at least POD does away with the problem of print runs (ie print a few and the unit cost is astronomical, print a thousand and you're stuck with 732 copies once friends, family and a few strays have done the honourable thing). But James Anthony, it seems to you've hit a useful nail. It may well be feasible to offer a 'shop window' on WW for self-publishers. Watch this space...
Richard (WW Directory Editor)

Richard Brown, in the words of Voice of the Beehive

I think I love you

Actually, am unceratin how I know that is Voice of the Beehive! Hmmm....


I just think it would be useful. After all, a lot of people think that it is not quality that drives a publishing deal and, as I've said before, maybe the cream doesn't always rise.

Also, how about a writewords story story/ poetry publication done of this basis? Maybe get Richard and Judy to publicise it. Okay, very unlikely but gutter stars etc. This could be far more controversial however and I can see lots of problems with this, but worth a mention nonetheless

Oh and just so people know, when I worked at the bookstore we bought everything from Gardners or Bertrams.

As a result of this thread I was contacted by a company called Adlibbed. They do print-on-demand books using the publisher name 'Publish and be Damned' (PABD). At my request they sent samples of their work and I am delighted to be able to report that it looks very professional. Obviously I have no experience of actual book production with them but on the basis of the samples and their website (www.pabd.com) it is a company very much worthy of consideration if you are thinking of going for POD. Adlibbed is London based. The phone number is 020 7703 4233. e-mail: andreas.deuss@adlibbed.com. Shortly I hope to be starting a 'printers'section of the Directory. If anybody has any experience of using commercial printers, please let me know. Thanks.
Richard.

This idea is nothing short of revolutionary. The only problem with such things is publicity.

How the hell to you sell your book to a wider audience? As your own publisher you wont have a huge budget with which to ply the highstreet stores with.

Ofcourse you could always fire off copies to newspapers and various magazines but even if you did get a mention. How would you back it up? Do people really search out books or do they just wander into book shops and flick through the titles, with the odd article firing the memory?

Geoff

Idea playing in my head would be setting up a tiny publisher so your not just doing your own books. Do 5 books a year and if you know any mag types try to get them to do reviews...

sure it's possible...but how cheap? as so cheap, profit wouldn't be huge thing, but then you wouln't let the author pay cos then it is close to vanity publishing. all sorts of things going through my head on this...

i'll go now