Last week I uploaded my La Belle Christiane text file and cover file to CreateSpace. CreateSpace is the POD, Print on Demand arm of Amazon.com. If you don’t know about this new type of publishing, you might find it interesting, especially since it makes it possible for authors like me to self-publish books which might not appeal to a mass market publisher. Here goes!

This is a photo of a modern printing press like the ones used to print newspapers and books, etc. Notice the size. It’s big and takes up a lot of floor space. In the past type (as in letters made of iron or steel), was set manually. That changed in the digital age but the fact that using one of the BIG printers means that to be cost effective, a publisher had to print at least 5000 copies and usually much more.

Did you know that in the mid-1990’s someone invented machines that could print and bind books all in one (including cover)?  Here is one of those machines:

Do you see how much smaller this machine is? With POD, one only prints books as they are needed as in as they are requested by a buyer. A few years ago in England they distributed these machines into independent bookstores and people could request any book and it was printed for them right there and then. Amazing.

POD has other business benefits besides lower costs (for small runs):

• Large inventories of a book or print material do not need to be kept in stock, reducing storage, handling costs, and inventory accounting costs
• There is little or no waste from unsold products.

So this is how I am able to make it possible to get La Belle Christiane into print without selling it to a major publisher–as my other books have been. I’m told it takes about six weeks from the time my book is approved by CreateSpace for it to be available to order here or at Amazon.com. So what do you think about that? That means in October! Had you ever heard about POD, Print on Demand publishing before?–Lyn