Fern Reiss wrote:
>
> Don't expect to do a book POD and still sell it in quantity to bookstores
> and libraries.
>
As usual Fern is "right on" (It must be that Harvard degree!) It's damn hard
to create trade books in POD... the unit cost is usually just too high to
make any money from.
You need to do what we do. We publish a few POD (actually very short-run)
books that we sell for $89 to $99 to government and industry. Our best
selling tome is about moving a corporate data center. While it does not
sell as much as it used to, it does OK... about 500 a year. At at $10 cost
each, plus 15% royalty plus whatever advertising costs we have, we still
can walk away with a good margin. We avoid selling to the trade channel as
much as possible. So if we can clear $65 per item times 500 ... well we
don't get rich... but if you have 10 or 15 of these... you can do OK (no,
we don't..... yet.... mainly because we've spent more time on our software
biz.)
We print these books in qty of around 100 (our current vendor is Alexander's
Digital in Utah) and store them in a closet!! They are 8.5/11, spiral
bound, printed simplex, with a 4 color laminated cover (designed by
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.bookwrights.com" target="_blank">www.bookwrights.com</a> ).
The key, the key, the key is to sell a book where people are NOT using their
own money to buy it. You can laugh... but think about it. If you can
publish something in the "training" area, or "security" area, and you can
get that message to someone in the right level of a corporation or
government agency, they will put in a request to the bean-counter. The
bean-counter sees the word "training" or "security" in the title and says
to herself "Hey, we gotta have training... our competition has training" or
"We can't skimp on security"... and she stamps it approved and you get the
PO.
In this market, content is king. It has to be something unique and "must
have" info. For example, if I could find a book titled something like
"Quality Control in the Semiconductor Manufacturing Environment" I could
sell a 1000 copies before dinner this evening!! There is nothing as
important as QC in chip making..... and whatever it costs, the chip
foundrys will pay it. See what I mean by content, content, content?
POD has it's uses, but you need to change your publishing paradigm. One
thing I learned. You work just as hard to sell a $15.99 book as you do a
$99.00 book. Do the math and figure it out.
Al Canton, President
Adams-Blake Company, Inc., Fair Oaks, CA
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