– Self Publishing, Print-on-Demand and How Bookstores Fit In
Earlier today I finished an amazing book. The Best Laid Plans, by Terry Fallis, is a Canadian book about Canadian politics. Now I’m sure for most people this sounds boring, boring2, even. But it’s not, I assure you. The Best Laid Plans is an amazing book. It’s a satire of Canadian politics, and is well worth a read not simply because it is brilliantly written, hilarious, insightful, and full of great characters, but also because a few years ago it likely would never have been published.
The simple fact that I was able to get a copy of this book to read is amazing. Terry Fallis wrote it, but could not find a publisher. He shopped it around, but none of the big name publishers, or even the small names for that matter, would pick it up. Eventually Mr. Fallis self-published, but only after a clever bit of marketing. He took to the internet and released the book chapter by chapter as a podcast, driving up interest for the book among listeners. Once there was sufficient demand he turned to a print-on-demand company, iUniverse, to publish the novel as it was ordered. While busy pulling himself up by his bootstraps, Terry was even able to win the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour in 2008. Only following his win was he able to secure a publishing contract and bring his book to a wider audience.
The path to success that Terry Fallis followed in getting The Best Laid Plans published was not possible until recently. The advent of print-on-demand publishing services has brought the publication of the novel into the hands of any person who wants it. There are dozens of companies on the internet that will publish any novel that anyone sends to them. They’ll print a single copy, a dozen copy, or hundreds of copies. They help you create covers for the book, then ship you the finished product, or even sell the book for you and then will ship the finished product to your customer.
Print-on-Demand machines have gotten small enough that it is possible for an individual bookstore to own and operate one, and print its own copy of any book it wishes to (while obeying copyright law, of course). The bookstore at the University of Toronto has one. It charges you 6 cents per page to print a book and will do print runs of 1 copy or as many as you need. It also maintains a library of public domain works that can be ordered and printed on an as-needed basis.
With Print-on-Demand a book need not ever go out of print again. Why does a book go out of print? The publisher stops printing it and all extant copies are sold, and eventually more than likely lost or destroyed. With a print-on-demand service, all you need is the machine to do the printing, a file that contains the information to print the book, and a customer to pay for the book. Why keep a warehouse full of books when you can print a novel in a matter of minutes.
Print-on-Demand services, especially when they can be incorporated into an actual neighbourhood bookstore, as U of T has done, represents, in my mind, the perfect fusion of the best parts of the brick-and-mortar bookstore and the eBook, while improving on both. Keeping a bookstore stocked is expensive and risky. The owner of the store has to pay for the books that are being sold up front. They have to determine what books will sell well, speculating on what will be popular, and ensuring that they have enough in stock at any given time. This takes luck, a lot of up-front investment, and storage space. All three of these things can be at a premium. With a print on demand service, the need for storage space is gone. The need to buy lots of copies of a popular book ahead of time is gone. As I said, all you need is the printer, a server to hold the book files, and a customer.
Now all we need is to convince the publishers that this is a good idea for more than self-published and public domain books.
that was great way to publish book that we have, and i think th most important thing is we have a rich content so that the public can get benefit from there.