As we started work on our Christian children’s books, we also researched avenues to bring the books to market. Initially, this research focused on learning terminology and understanding the various types of publishers, distributors, and other organizations within the book world.
A good (and free) resource for us at this early stage was an Internet radio series hosted by Ron Pramschufer. Ron has a solid background in printing & publishing. He also seems to have a passion for helping authors and small publishers. In these recordings, Ron interviews various individuals from the publishing, printing, and book distribution markets. You can access Publishing Basics Radio at http://www.wbjbradio.com.
A good starting point is the series titled “The Truth Behind POD Publishing” (http://www.wbjbradio.com/series/pod.php). Ron asks relevant and sometimes difficult questions to those willing to participate. We found the discussion educational and it was good to hear the claims of these companies directly. The series is broken into eight chapters as follows:
Chapter 1- David Maturo from Xlibris discusses the various types of publishers and also provides statistics on the average number of books sold & costs to their authors.
Chapter 2- David Maturo discusses the services provided by Xlibris and other details of the business.
Chapter 3 - Bryan Smith from Author House discusses their business and describes how he believes they are different from a “vanity press”.
Chapter 4- Susan Driscoll from iUniverse describes a new approach used with Amy Fisher’s book (which may tell you something about their business by itself). She also discusses the retail price of POD materials and how they have not seen price become a major factor for consumers.
Chapter 5- Susan Driscoll from iUniverse discusses their business model and approach. She also provides some information on the number of books sold by their authors.
Chapter 6 – Mark Levine, author of “The Fine Print”, discusses publishing contracts and provides some information on his ranking of publishers.
Chapter 7 – Jan Nathan from PMA (now IBPA) provides her perspective on the types of publishers and what criteria should be used to define an organization as a “publisher”.
Chapter 8 - Jenna Glatzer, an award-winning author and contributing editor at Writer’s Digest, discusses “Fringe Publishers” and provides some details about Publish America.
You can also download the series in zip format http://www.wbjbradio.com/series/series_POD.zip. NOTE: Chapter 8 is not included in the zip file.
The information provided in this series is not necessarily encouraging for authors. However, it does provide a good overview of POD publishing and related terminology. Hopefully, it will help authors avoid some of the potential pitfalls.
