Print on Demand: A method of printing or a form of distribution?

RJ Communications introduces Thor Distribution. It’s all about availability.Print on Demand –

This is certainly a phrase that has been bantered around a lot lately. George Orwell would have loved this phrase (along with Subsidy Press). First off, we have had “Print on Demand” since the days of Benjamin Franklin. The customer “demands” and the printer “prints”. What has changed over the years is the amount of time between the initial demand and the final printed product. Today the phrase seems to refer to any kind of short run printing. People ask me “Do you do “Print on Demand”? When I ask them to clarify, their reply is almost always “can you print a couple hundred copies? True “Print on Demand” infers that you can buy books one copy at a time. In reality, printers who list themselves as POD printers rarely will print less than 20 copies and then you pay a pretty hefty setup making the unit cost on small quantities impossible to sell in the marketplace.
The only “True” POD printer

There is one notable exception to the above. That is a company called Lightning Source. They are a digital printer owned by Ingram, the largest book wholesaler in the country. The idea behind Lightning Source (original name Lightning Print) was to help their major publisher customers keep back list titles available to the bookstores beyond the book’s usual shelf life. The idea was brilliant. Ingram was already selling millions of books for these publishers through traditional “Books in Inventory” channels. It was easy enough to put one at a time titles in the same bookstore shipments making the actual shipping costs a non item. An initial setup fee was charged to put the publisher’s files in the “system” and after that, the publisher was only charged a per book charge. With this system, it is just as easy to print 1 each of 100 titles as it is to print 100 copies of 1 title. While one at a time printing can be done on pretty much any digital press, the advantage Lightning has over virtually every other digital printer in the country is its distribution network. This network covers over 90% of the bookstores in North America. Thor Distribution utilizes this distribution network.
In Stock vs. Available

When you go to your favorite bookstore in search of a specific title, and it’s not prominently displayed, you generally end up asking for it at the information counter. Once the store clerk looks up the title, you get one of three possible answers. The first is that “The book is in stock and you can find it in aisle one”. The second is “The book is not in stock but we can get it for you in a couple days”. The third is “I can’t find it in my system… we do not carry it”. Unfortunately many small publishers fall into the last category because they have failed to get their book listed in the major wholesale databases. While all publishers would like to have their books on the bookshelves of all the stores, the reality of small press publishing is against it. How about answer two? If a person has gone to all the trouble to ask for the book, chances are they will wait a of couple days to get it. Where are all these books to fulfill these orders? They might be sitting in Ingram’s warehouse having been previously ordered through a distributor. On the other hand they might just be sitting in the Ingram or Baker & Taylor database waiting to be printed one at a time as needed by Lightning Source. It doesn’t really matter. One way or the other, the book gets sold and stays sold.

Keep in mind that the above example includes a very important and often overlooked ingredient. That is that the person has to ask for your book. Nobody is going to ask for your book unless they have heard about it somewhere. The way they hear about it is through promotion and marketing… plain and simple.

The vanity presses like Xlibris, IUniverse and 1st Books Library use Lightning Source and charge a hefty fee for doing so. While these places make books “available” very few books are actually sold other than to the author and their family. A review of various press clippings from these companies show, with a little simple math, that they all average well under 100 copies per title. This is certainly not what one is led to believe by looking at any of their websites. While these Vanity Presses make up a substantial amount of the POD business they are little more than elaborate well financed scams set up to play on authors vanity (thus Vanity Press).

Enter Thor Distribution
The Lightning system works for the major publishers because the demand is already there for their books. Remember, the major publishers use Lightning for back listed titles. These are titles of diminished demand, not “No demand”, like virtually all vanity press titles. The reality is that most of you out there will be starting with very little demand for your new title. Thor Distribution offers the Lightning Distribution network as an inexpensive option to a regular BookJustBooks.com printing. Bookstore sales from this option become “found money” rather than anything that is covered by any wishful thinking marketing plan. Unlike the Vanity Press scams this program is sold at a discount, not a premium the Independent Publisher. The Thor publisher is able to make more money and offer their books at a lower retail cost than virtually any other program in existence, including Lightning’s own publisher direct program. The Independent Publisher is left to market their books through “Special Sales” as preached by every single marketing expert who specializes in the Small Press market. With less time spent on worrying about getting into the bookstores, the Independent Publisher can concentrate on promotion and publicity. With the right publicity, people will start to trickle into the stores. With Thor Distribution, you will not lose any of these sales. When enough people trickle into stores, your sales volume increases to the point where it makes sense to utilize the services of a traditional distributor.

For more information about Thor Distribution click here

If you have a question pertaining to the publishing production process, please feel free to contact me at ron@rjcom.com.

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