Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
I'm not sure it is news as such. I mean Hugh says his visit to CreateSpace was 2011. If anything, I find it surprising that POD is not simply taken for granted by all publishers already.
I started using POD in 2012. The quality of the output from the Lightning Source printers here in Australia has been at least as good as most I've seen coming from traditional publishing, and better than many. Of course I'm not in Hugh's league in terms of sales, but it was an easy choice; most of the people I know still read print books by preference, and it costs very little to make your book available for POD.
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There are two sides to the pbook story: printing, which as you said has been good for years, and distribution, upon which tradpub has built their empires.
Createspace distribution through Amazon has been great but until last year, Ingram and B&T listings treated POD different from tradpub pbooks. This kept them out of most B&M bookstores. When they changed their listings last year, they opened the door for POD titles to compete on equal terms with tradpub titles and so when THE RABBIT... went viral, it had full access to the non-Amazon side of the market.
That is how it got to 29,000 copies a week without front table payola or tradpub "nurturing".
That is why it is significant.
There is still a ways to go before an indie POD title hits the top of the USA TODAY overall list but that day is coming.
Eventually it won't be news at all when it happens, but that day's not here yet.