POD

No this is not about whales, even though I'm very fond of them and have watched them all over the world, and even helped to rescue some at Seal Rocks many years ago.

No this 'POD' is an acronym, Print on Demand or Publish on Demand as Robert Fletcher told about 50 of us at a seminar yesterday introducing us to Lightning Source, (LS) a POD company with a new printing plant in Melbourne. LS is an offshoot of Ingram, a POD company in the US whose main competitor is Createspace, someone I've been looking at lately. They publish both Ebooks and hard copies, the latter good quality  judging by the examples circulating the room.


There is no question that POD is a viable alternative to slogging your books round the mainstream publishers and getting knocked back all the time. And their 'don't look inside the book' policy means you will more than likely be published! They offer a variety of packages at a range of prices of course. They do not edit, and the only marketing they do is to 'place' your creation in a variety of publishing sites all over the world. Therefore it is up to writers to leave their desks and sell, sell, sell.

One of the most interesting discussions of the day centred around the notion of 'discoverability' with contributions from several successful authors in the audience. One of the ways of getting your new book noticed is by getting reviewed on a regular basis and posting the positive ones your website, blog etc.  You can also raise your profile online by reviewing other people's work . Making  friends on line this way leads to them telling ten of their friends etc.

'Meta data' was another term buzzing around the room. This relates to synopsis, title, author, publisher, price, genre etc. Apparently keywords are critical to getting noticed. Pictures and video also help.

Direct marketing isn't a bad way to go either, something like we've done with Better than Chocolate but on a bigger, more expensive scale like attending book fairs and taking full page ads in local newspapers.

According to Robert, China is starved for English reading material, and the market is huge.

The range of people attending was fascinating, mostly writers, among them some well established with many books published. I have business cards from half a dozen people. I couldn't find mine until this morning when it is too late. Grr! Gotta do better than this when schmoozing in such circles!!!!

My head is buzzing with the possibilities.