ABSTRUSE
Cirque du Freak
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2003
- Posts
- 50,094
It used to require an army of middlemen to publish a book.
There were: agents who represented authors in negotiations, editors who agonized over what to publish and how to publish it, publishers who provided the big bucks it took to get a book printed and on the shelf, distributors who acted like gatekeepers and booksellers who guarded their shelf space jealously.
Now technology is rewriting the book on publishing. A number of companies help writers publish books, either on paper or online.
Such companies include iUniverse, which is owned by Barnes & Noble (NYSE:BKS - News) and investment firm Warburg Pincus, and Xlibris, half-owned by Random House.
Once upon a time, that approach was considered "publishing with training wheels," as iUniverse CEO Susan Driscoll told this reporter.
But the new customers for print on demand are often savvy marketers who understand what it takes to write and sell a book and are doing it using technology whose price is falling fast.
John Hawks, a Louisville, Ky.-based veteran trade association manager for tour operators and travel associations, has published nine books through conventional publishers. Recently, he self-published "Travia: The Ultimate Book of Travel Trivia" through Morris Publishing, a Nebraska-based company that specializes in short-run printing for individuals, businesses and small book publishers. New low-cost presses make short-run printing and print on demand feasible.
"My most recent book via a traditional publisher paid me 10% on soft-cover prices, or roughly $2.50 per copy sold -- less all of the nitpicking deductions and allowances and reserves against returns," Hawks said in an interview. "Meanwhile, this self-published book retails for $16.95, less $3.25 in printing costs, or $13.70 gross margin per book. Even taking into account our marketing costs and more, there's no comparison."
Publishers such as O'Reilly Media, which is known for tackling cutting-edge tech subjects, are using print-on-demand technology to serve customers in new ways. For instance, O'Reilly's SafariU.com platform caters to professors who want to build their own custom textbooks by combining selected chapters from other texts, course notes and article handouts.
O'Reilly handles all the copyright issues. He also does the index, designs a cover for the new book and oversees printing. The cost for a 200-page book is $32, vastly cheaper than the average cost of a new college textbook, which Pearson Education says is about $125.
O'Reilly and others have turned a number of blogs into books -- or what some call blooks -- for their authors, who rely on their niche Internet followings to sell the volumes. One recent blook is "Hackoff.com: A Historic Murder Mystery Set in the Internet Bubble and Rubble." It's a fictional novel that grew out of a blog written by Tom Evslin, a former tech executive, about the dot-com boom and bust.
Among the best known blooks is "Revolution in the Valley, the Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made," by Andy Hertzfeld, who was on the Apple Computer (NASDAQ:AAPL - News) team that developed the Mac, and other blog contributors.
"Other publishers aren't our biggest competitors. Our biggest competitor is what people are able to find for free via the search engines," said Allen Noren, director of online marketing and the O'Reilly editor who helped Hertzfeld on his book.
Having access to experienced publishers and editors such as O'Reilly and Noren is undoubtedly still a good thing in the book-publishing world, but it's not a necessity. Blurb.com lets aspiring authors handle all the production details themselves, using its free software. Then it lets authors, or anyone, order copies just one at a time, for about $30 each.
The software comes with templates for different genres such as cookbooks, photo collections, poetry books and plain text. It automatically lays out the page and lets the book's creator fill in the photographs and text by cutting and pasting. The 2-year-old San Francisco company expects to close on $8 million in venture financing soon.
Its users include people making family photo books as well as entrepreneurs like Colin Crook, who runs a public relations company in Portland, Ore.
Crook is writing a historical series on Portland saloons. He and a partner are approaching the venues, seeking to partner with them to sell the books in their establishments.
"Using Blurb, we can do everything we could do with the big guys -- create, design, print and market the books," Crook said.
Bruce Watermann, Blurb's vice president of print operations, says a low price is chief among what his company brings to the table.
"We know that we have a great product," he said, "but if it's priced out of the range that people are willing to pay, we'll never sell any."
The falling cost of owning a press is key to the growth of print on demand. Hewlett-Packard's (NYSE:HPQ - News) Indigo line of digital presses has been called the Cadillac of on-demand printing technology. The presses cost $150,000 to $750,000 -- chump change compared with the $1 million-plus cost of a full-size offset press.
"And I defy you to tell the difference between a print-on-demand book and one that went through a big printer," said O'Reilly's Noren.
One key benefit of on-demand publishing is it eliminates the need for a publisher to have huge inventories. With print on demand, a publisher can print a few copies and ship them. If a store needs more a day or two later, the publisher can simply print and send more copies.
This kind of economy is making small markets much more attractive for booksellers.
"The trend is toward more micro markets and fewer macro markets," said Manny Kostas, vice president of marketing for HP's graphic imaging unit. "It's a great opportunity."
There were: agents who represented authors in negotiations, editors who agonized over what to publish and how to publish it, publishers who provided the big bucks it took to get a book printed and on the shelf, distributors who acted like gatekeepers and booksellers who guarded their shelf space jealously.
Now technology is rewriting the book on publishing. A number of companies help writers publish books, either on paper or online.
Such companies include iUniverse, which is owned by Barnes & Noble (NYSE:BKS - News) and investment firm Warburg Pincus, and Xlibris, half-owned by Random House.
Once upon a time, that approach was considered "publishing with training wheels," as iUniverse CEO Susan Driscoll told this reporter.
But the new customers for print on demand are often savvy marketers who understand what it takes to write and sell a book and are doing it using technology whose price is falling fast.
John Hawks, a Louisville, Ky.-based veteran trade association manager for tour operators and travel associations, has published nine books through conventional publishers. Recently, he self-published "Travia: The Ultimate Book of Travel Trivia" through Morris Publishing, a Nebraska-based company that specializes in short-run printing for individuals, businesses and small book publishers. New low-cost presses make short-run printing and print on demand feasible.
"My most recent book via a traditional publisher paid me 10% on soft-cover prices, or roughly $2.50 per copy sold -- less all of the nitpicking deductions and allowances and reserves against returns," Hawks said in an interview. "Meanwhile, this self-published book retails for $16.95, less $3.25 in printing costs, or $13.70 gross margin per book. Even taking into account our marketing costs and more, there's no comparison."
Publishers such as O'Reilly Media, which is known for tackling cutting-edge tech subjects, are using print-on-demand technology to serve customers in new ways. For instance, O'Reilly's SafariU.com platform caters to professors who want to build their own custom textbooks by combining selected chapters from other texts, course notes and article handouts.
O'Reilly handles all the copyright issues. He also does the index, designs a cover for the new book and oversees printing. The cost for a 200-page book is $32, vastly cheaper than the average cost of a new college textbook, which Pearson Education says is about $125.
O'Reilly and others have turned a number of blogs into books -- or what some call blooks -- for their authors, who rely on their niche Internet followings to sell the volumes. One recent blook is "Hackoff.com: A Historic Murder Mystery Set in the Internet Bubble and Rubble." It's a fictional novel that grew out of a blog written by Tom Evslin, a former tech executive, about the dot-com boom and bust.
Among the best known blooks is "Revolution in the Valley, the Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made," by Andy Hertzfeld, who was on the Apple Computer (NASDAQ:AAPL - News) team that developed the Mac, and other blog contributors.
"Other publishers aren't our biggest competitors. Our biggest competitor is what people are able to find for free via the search engines," said Allen Noren, director of online marketing and the O'Reilly editor who helped Hertzfeld on his book.
Having access to experienced publishers and editors such as O'Reilly and Noren is undoubtedly still a good thing in the book-publishing world, but it's not a necessity. Blurb.com lets aspiring authors handle all the production details themselves, using its free software. Then it lets authors, or anyone, order copies just one at a time, for about $30 each.
The software comes with templates for different genres such as cookbooks, photo collections, poetry books and plain text. It automatically lays out the page and lets the book's creator fill in the photographs and text by cutting and pasting. The 2-year-old San Francisco company expects to close on $8 million in venture financing soon.
Its users include people making family photo books as well as entrepreneurs like Colin Crook, who runs a public relations company in Portland, Ore.
Crook is writing a historical series on Portland saloons. He and a partner are approaching the venues, seeking to partner with them to sell the books in their establishments.
"Using Blurb, we can do everything we could do with the big guys -- create, design, print and market the books," Crook said.
Bruce Watermann, Blurb's vice president of print operations, says a low price is chief among what his company brings to the table.
"We know that we have a great product," he said, "but if it's priced out of the range that people are willing to pay, we'll never sell any."
The falling cost of owning a press is key to the growth of print on demand. Hewlett-Packard's (NYSE:HPQ - News) Indigo line of digital presses has been called the Cadillac of on-demand printing technology. The presses cost $150,000 to $750,000 -- chump change compared with the $1 million-plus cost of a full-size offset press.
"And I defy you to tell the difference between a print-on-demand book and one that went through a big printer," said O'Reilly's Noren.
One key benefit of on-demand publishing is it eliminates the need for a publisher to have huge inventories. With print on demand, a publisher can print a few copies and ship them. If a store needs more a day or two later, the publisher can simply print and send more copies.
This kind of economy is making small markets much more attractive for booksellers.
"The trend is toward more micro markets and fewer macro markets," said Manny Kostas, vice president of marketing for HP's graphic imaging unit. "It's a great opportunity."
