POD books: Hype or Reality?

Print on Demand, or POD Books have been the talk of town for a while now. It has been said that POD books would revolutionalise the publishing industry.

How? Might you ask as a self publisher...think about the benefits of being able to print one book at a time, as and when you want it. In the quality of a large run of say 1000 books at a time.

Too good to be true? Well, yes and no.

Here are some of the benefits:
- no leftover stock or wastage
- no inventory
- you are now able to create a "live" book that can be updated with new information so it doesnt go out of date

In theory it sounds great, but here is the reality check
- Printing a single book, or a few books at a time means there is no economies of scale, ie the cost of each book is much higher, hence the book cost to the consumer is also higher.
- Most printers do not have the technology to be able to produce a single book at a time in a cost effective manner, much less the logistical backup to distribute the book

Hence therein lies the reality of POD books.

At BookPal we are working on creating a POD system. However due to the cost constraints we only offer this service to publishers who have several hundred titles that are printed regularly. As the set up cost of $75 for each title makes the POD system not practical for most self publishers.