Print On Demand Books and the Developing World
The article below shows how important POD publishing can be, especially in rural areas of the developing world.
Wired News: Rural Kids Print, Bind and Read: "Anywhere Books has piloted a digital bookmobile -- a van outfitted with a laptop, laser printer, bookbinding machine and cutter -- in remote areas of Uganda to print free books for children since November 2003."
1 Comments:
It's true that Print-on-Demand is really picking up in the developing world, but it's doing best in the strongest markets - US and UK. The biggest POD printer, Ingram's Lightning Source, just announced that they can meet 24 hour shipping for all paperbacks in their catalog (over 150,000), meaning that Ingram distribtion will soon be able to show all books printed through Lightning Source as available for immediate shipping withot retaining any stock.
I actually started turning down trade contracts (I write for a living) in favor of publishing my own books through Lightning Source a couple years ago, and I have a case study of a year in the life of the first print on demand book I did at
http://www.fonerbooks.com/pod.htm
So many people confuse print on demand with subsidy publishing and don't realize that most academic and trade publishers already pblish some portion of their lists through POD. In the end, it's really leveled the playing field for smaller presses and self-publishers, but you still need to market your books. Getting books printed is easy, getting them into distribution is easy if you use Lighting Source, creating demand for books is hard:-)
Morris Rosenthal
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