In an era where 170,000 to 190,000 books are published every year and industries—including book publishing—press to cut costs and increase the bottom line, it’s not hard to see how most writers and their books tumble through the cracks. Overworked editors no longer have time to edit, much less to fight for your book. As a result, most promotion for that book you spent months or years on, and then waited two years to have published, boils down to a two-week push. Then it’s off to the next book and the one after that. (This is especially ironic considering how much power the marketing and sales departments now hold in determining which manuscripts are actually bought by the publishing house in the first place.)

In short, if you want a quality book that might actually get exposure, you have to line up your own editing and then handle your own publicity. If you’re doing all that, why give up creative control and settle for a mere 8 to 12 percent of the profits? It’s surely not for the paltry advance you might get.

Naturally, those who plunge into self-publishing without doing their homework stand to lose a lot of money. Sure you think the self-help book you’ve written is going to sell millions. Ditto for that novel or memoir. But before you plunk down thousands of dollars for thousands of books that you then have to warehouse, it might make more sense to test the waters. 

That’s where Print on Demand (a growing industry trend known as POD) comes in. Sure, you’ll pay a higher per unit price that you would for an order of 2,500 copies. But instead of shelling out $5,000 to $7,500 (assuming you get a deal on the printing), you can get in and out for under $500. If the first batch of 10 or 20 copies sells, you can order more. Since turn-around time is so quick, you can even wait until you’ve got orders on hand before commissioning your next batch … and add any stellar reviews you’ve gotten to your back cover before you place your order. Finally, you can take comfort in knowing that your book will never go out of print.

Those of you who still want to try your hand at traditional publishing can use POD services to present agents, publishers, even reviewers with proposals and/ or advance book copies instead of messy manuscripts. It can also be a great way to prove that you really do have a great book. Writers like best-selling author Vicki Lansky (Feed Me! I’m Yours) have self-published after being rejected by publishing powers that be, only to find the publishing houses courting them once they proved just how successful their book could be. Talk about leverage!

Of course, POD is tailor-made for those writing memoirs, family or company histories, corporate premiums or poetry anthologies who just want copies for clients, family and/or friends.

All PODs, however, are not created equal. When choosing a POD, consider the following:

• Is personalized attention or economy more important? If price is the bottom line, you might want to go with one of the larger PODs, where you fill in a form, follow instructions, hand over your money and get your books. If, on the other hand, you want to be able to talk about the book that you care so much about and control how the book is actually published, a small POD like Incubation Press might make more sense.
• Make sure you understand the deal. Some PODs will print your book, but retain rights so that you actually have to buy it from them if you want multiple copies of your own. Though they will take and fulfill orders for the book, they usually give you a percentage of the price. With others, including Incubation Press, you retain 100 percent of your book’s rights—and 100 percent of the profits.
• Understand the difference between POD and a vanity or subsidy press. With a vanity or subsidy press, you subsidize the full cost to publish your book, but the press actually owns the book. So you wind up settling for a royalty for each book sold (ie: a percentage of the profit). Vanity presses generally charge a single price (usually in the thousands) that supposedly includes everything from production to sales, but often the editing is sketchy at best, and the promised promotion and distribution negligible.
• With a POD, you own your book, and you reap all the profit. POD publishers will usually offer services à la carte or as a package. Either way, it’s up to you to decide what you’re buying. Incubation Press offers a variety of services performed by some of the best in the business. Our goal is to help you publish the best book you possibly can. And if you’re ready to go and just want to see your book in print, we can have copies in your hands in a matter of weeks (or even days if there’s a rush).
• What are you getting for the money? Print and paper quality vary hugely. In addition to ordering a proof to make sure that the books you publish meet your expectations, educate yourself about paper options.
  
  Text stock (the paper used for your book’s inside pages) typically comes in weights of 50-pound (also called 20-pound publishing bond) and 60-pound (also called 24-pound publishing bond). The larger the number, the heavier and less see-through the paper.
  
  Papers also come in different textures—smooth, vellum (which has a cottony feel), linen (which resembles linen cloth), etc… and with different levels of shine (matte, gloss, glossy photo paper, etc...)
  
  Similarly, cover stock comes in different weights (70-pound, 80-pound, 100-pound), different finishes (matte, vellum, linen, glossy) and different colors. You can even special order metallic covers.
  
  At Incubation Press, we use 60-pound opaque vellum paper. Not only is it recycled, it contains 30 percent post-consumer waste (most papers calling themselves recycled only contain 10 percent). Our standard covers are printed on 80-pound stock, and also contain 30 percent recycled post-consumer waste.