A freelance author can make money by publishing his or her book length manuscript or a collection of articles. There are those however, who praise “self-publishing” but condemn those who go with a fee-based self-publishing POD company. This article will show that working with a good POD company is preferable.
In October, 2006 Peter Bowerman’s article, “Pseudo Self-Publishing: The Unvarnished Truth about POD Companies,” appeared on the website of Independent Book Publishers Association (www.pma-online.org./). This article was adapted from his book, The Well-Fed Self–Publisher: How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living (2006).
I find it difficult to criticize anything written by Peter Bowerman since I greatly admire his very readable writing style and his grasp of book marketing.
Also, by selling over 50,000 copies of his self-published books within two years, he has encouraged authors who want to be published to pursue their dreams. His achievement has done a lot to show that a book not handled by a traditional publisher can be successful. We should all be appreciative.
However, I am in total disagreement with his opinion that POD companies are “pseudo self-publishers.”
In his article Bowerman refers to authors, like himself, who set up their own publishing companies as “self-publishers.” He refers to authors who publish through POD companies as “pseudo self-publishers.” In what follows, what he calls “self-published authors,” I will call independent self-published authors, and what he calls “pseudo self-publishers,” I will call POD authors.
What are the differences between the two kinds of publishers?
An independent self-publisher like Bowerman must do the interior formatting and produce the cover design, both of which require computer skills. He must then pay the printer to produce, let’s say, 5000 copies of his book, and pay to have them delivered.
He must also handle fulfillment if he is not selling through the trade. He must take book orders, ship books, handle returns, and deal with customer complaints.
Of course, the author can pay people to handle these tasks but that would simply increase the author’s total investment.
Now, let’s take a look at Peter Bowerman’s article where he presents what I think is a mistaken view as to the nature of “self-publishing” and POD publishing.
Section 1: He points out that most POD authors make little or no profit.
He writes that POD companies are all right if the target audience is friends and family.
He then argues that POD companies don’t market the author’s book.
All of this is true. The POD author makes little profit as he or she is selling mostly to family and friends. It is also true that the author must market his or her own book. It is also true that all of this applies to the independent self-publisher as well.
Section 2: Straight Talk on Sales
Here, he only addresses one important issue. He claims that the POD company’s cover price of a book is high. As I indicated above, I will address the economic issues involved in independent and POD publishing later in this article.
Section 3: Compare and Contrast
Here, Peter Bowerman makes a few distinctions between independent self-publishing and POD publishing.
Royalties vs expenses and profits: Bowerman argues that calculating royalties can be confusing at POD companies. So, pick a company, like BookLocker or Xlibris that bases royalties on cover price.
Control: He argues that the ISBN will be in the company’s name. A number of POD companies allow you to supply your own ISBN. Besides, if you switch publishing companies, the new company will have to supply their own ISBN. Much ado about nothing. See Richard Hoy’s excellent article on the subject at publishing.booklocker.com, “What’s Owning Your Own ISBN Good For? Absolutely Nothing.” July 20, 2007.
Rights: The POD company may keep your production files. So, go to Book Locker or Lulu where the ownership of the files is retained by the author.
Cost of copies: He argues that some POD companies demand that you buy a set number of copies. Most POD companies don’t. Go to one that doesn’t make this demand like BookLocker, Lulu, Author House, Xlibris etc.
The solution to all of the above is simply to choose your POD company carefully.
Bowerman then repeats a couple of times that POD authors have to market their books but, as I said above, so do independent self-publishing authors.
He concludes his article by referring you to websites which I don’t think are particularly useful.
Now, let’s turn to the most important factor involved in the issue as to whether an author should go with the independent self-publisher approach or go with the POD company approach.
The most important factor for the vast majority of authors seeking to publish a book is the author’s upfront publishing costs.
The chief argument by Peter Bowerman and a multitude of other critics of POD companies is that when the author independently self-publishes, the author’s cost of the book is a great deal cheaper than when the author publishes through a POD company. Bowerman informs us that he paid $2.50 per copy including delivery. He estimates that the POD author pays about $9 or $10 a book. Let’s check these figures out.
I don’t know who printed Bowerman’s book or how many copies were printed. So let’s see what his printing costs and delivery fees would be if he had hired Instantpublisher.com (IP) in Tennessee to do the job.
At IP, for 1000 copies the printing cost and shipping for a 300 page, perfect bound, black-and-white trade paperback book is $4.92 per copy ($4920 up front). The author’s cost of the book is indeed about four dollars cheaper than the $9 charged by a good POD company.
Let’s assume that the POD author goes to BookLocker.com. The author would pay $5,770 for a 1000 copies or $5.77 per book. But she or he does not have to shell out over $5,000 since this author can order one book at a time due to the POD technology – and then only after the book is paid for. The upfront publishing fees that the POD author has to pay is only $492 as against the $4920 that the independent self-publisher will have to cough up.
Of course, Bowerman & Co. can get the cost per book down to $3.57 if they order 5000 copies. But then again the independent self publisher will have to shell out $17,850!
Since the average self-published author only sells a couple hundred copies, one can see that you are likely to lose a lot of money by self-publishing independently. Of course most POD authors don’t sell many copies either unless they thoroughly market their books, but they don’t lose between $5,000 and $17,000 either.
Many critics of POD companies point out that Peter Bowerman sold over 50,000 copies in the first two years. Yes, but he could afford to put $15,000 or more up front. He also spent 10 or 15 years in marketing. Google his name for blogs and you come up with over 2600 hits and for websites, more than 49,000. These data show why he sold so many books.
True, his profit was greater because he independently self-published. We, too, could do the same if we had the marketing brilliance, and the money and time to do so. However, since most self-published books fail to clear expenses, it is far smarter for the freelance writer to test the waters with a POD company before risking a large amount of money. As I indicated above, if the author’s book does not sell well, he or she will only be out about $500, as opposed to several thousand dollars.
By the way, the items he complains about as regard POD companies are not a problem if you go with BookLocker.com. But then he would know this since his e-books are listed for sale by this POD company. I suspect that he, like me, just dislikes certain overpriced and unethical POD companies.
So, now that you don’t have to worry about digging up $17,950, you can finish that manuscript, pick a good POD company and get your book published.
And I can go back to Bowerman’s wonderfully informative works – to learn more about marketing my book.
Hugs, Peter from Larry
Laurence E. Dalton is the co-author with Shirley Strutton Dalton, of the e-book, Self Publishing POD Companies: BookLocker vs AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Xlibris, Lulu, and BookSurge. The print book will coming out in September. The ebook is available now at BookLocker.com.
