Quote:
Originally Posted by SlowRain
I imagine bestselling authors will have a traditional print run for their new releases and will be sold through retail outlets (online and off), but their back catalogs along with authors with lower sales will be just fine on POD.
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I don't think you realize just how much more expensive POD is to produce at the moment. It's not going to be a viable alternative to offset for anything over very small runs (we're talking well under a thousand total copies) until the cost to manufacture drops by at least a factor of five.
Right now, the price to manufacture a POD book is often equal to or greater than the cover price of a comparable book printed on an offset press. This requires higher prices, and traps authors in a self-fulfilling prophecy of lower sales.
Once the cost comes down drastically, it will be a viable option - but until then it's not going to be practical except for very niche books.
The economics are murder.