How Print On Demand Book Printing Really Works

If you've been hearing a lot about Print On Demand technology, you aren't alone. It's a fairly new technology and many authors are taking full advantage of it. However, it's also been getting a bit of a bad reputation, thanks to some dishonest people and companies. So, here's how Print On Demand book printing really works and how to avoid some of the problems that you may have heard about.

POD book printing It's Free, Really:

Well, at least, it's free to authors. True Print On Demand technology costs authors nothing because the entire point is not to print books until customers have already ordered copies. It's that money that is used to pay for printing costs and the remainder is split between the POD company and the author on a percentage basis.

One of the big problems with the reputation of POD technology is that many companies claim to be POD when they aren't. A lot of them ask authors to defray the costs of printing by paying money up front. That's not only unnecessary, but usually dishonest. Many companies that do that wind up taking all of the money and never printing a single book.

Why Authors Fall For It:

One of the reasons that authors fall for false POD companies and their requests is that book printing used to actually be like that, in a way. Authors had to pay a lot of money to cover the printing company's costs for printing. Then, authors were responsible for selling their books to make back their money and, if they were lucky, make a small profit. That deterred many people from even getting their books published.

Thanks to huge advances in technology, though, that's no longer a problem. Now, it costs just as much per book to print one book as it would to print a hundred. Not only that, but they can be digitally printed within twenty-four hours or so of an order being placed. That means that authors never run out of stock and customers can order from the website any time, day or night, seven days a week.

Everyone Wins with Self Publishing

The nice thin about POD publishing is that everyone wins. Printing companies make a profit, of course. Also, customers can order conveniently and what they want is never out of stock. For the authors, though, it's extra convenient. That's because Print On Demand allows the author to remain fully involved and have complete creative freedom. So, if you're looking for a free way to get your book published, you might want to make use of Print On Demand services on the Internet.