Self-publishing and POD

On a thread on the Marketing Tips Board, LC suggested that the reduction in the number of members posting over recent months might be connected to the forum's image as a self-publishing forum.

This comment coincided with the arrival of a book my husband ordered on Amazon. When he opened the package, he remarked that the book was possibly a POD book. He handed me the book and I looked at the cover and saw iUniverse printed on the back.

My husband has been asked to write a chapter in a book and is actively researching material for the chapter. He was reading an article by Dr. Joan Vernikos, who kept referring to her book. He decided to order a copy. He did not check out the publisher and had no idea until the book arrived that it was POD.

Here's the book:

http://www.amazon.com/G-Connection-Harness-Gravity-Reverse-Aging/dp/0595329314

About the Author:

Joan Vernikos, Ph.D., former director of NASA's Life Sciences, is a recognized leader in the field of stress management and coping and a pioneer of space medicine. Her extensive research led to her discovery of a revolutionary link between gravity and healthy aging. She lives in Sperryville, VA.

About the book:

The G-Connection is written in down-to-earth and understandable language. Peppered with firsthand anecdotes from astronauts and interesting stories of Vernikos's own voyage of discovery, this book is both a fun and credible resource. The excitement for her work and ideas comes across clearly and is contagious. The reader finishes the book knowing what to do differently in his or her daily life to slow down or even reverse the aging process.

My opinion about the quality (not content) of the book:

The cover is very appealing and the contents are well laid out. A would say that this is a very attractive book.

A great deal has been said about poor quality POD books, while quality books do not receive the praise they deserve. With more and more quality writers choosing to self-publishing, the image of POD books is starting to change. Not before time.

High time!

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Peppered with firsthand anecdotes from astronauts and interesting stories of Vernikos's own voyage of discovery, this book is both a fun and credible resource.

Nothing like an unbiased opinion from the author. lol

I wonder why a scholar would choose to self-publish a work like this. Her book may be great, but an iuniverse title holds no credibility in the academic world. Her book's low rank and lack of also-boughts despite being available since 2004 shows that. I'm sure her off-Amazon sales are just as bad. She'd probably agree that selling books is hard. But she went about it the wrong way.

I don't know what you mean when you refer to quality. The cover looks like that of an elementary-school textbook. If that's what she meant it to be, great (I don't know who her target market is). Otherwise, physical quality is not what holds a self-published book back. Lack of peer review, editing and marketing/distribution does.

The book's off-Amazon sales are not just as bad. The book has a much better sales ranking on Barnes & Noble:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-G-Connection/Joan-Vernikos/e/9780595329311/?itm=1&USRI=g-connection

(Comparable with your own textbook on B & N).

The book cover is very attractive and just right for general readership. Dr. Vernikos is an accomplished speaker and, no doublt, sells many of her books on tour:

http://www.artofvictory.com/Vernikos.htm

More information here:

http://www.joanvernikos.com/

The book is available in four languages English (2004), Greek (2004), Japanese(2006) Portuguese (2009):

http://www.joanvernikos.com/pages/author.php

My text is adopted in over 50 colleges and universities (and even one high school), and mainly sold through their bookstores. B/N's (infrequently updated) rank is worthless as a metric to judge textbook sales since few buy texts through it (they go through bn.college, which doesn't show up on B/N's trade book rankings). Amazon's a much better metric to judge sales, and even it isn't terribly informative for textbooks. There are industry websites for checking books out (that you need access through via your college employer or editor), and those are the places to check textbook sales.

On those sites, I don't see her book adopted anywhere. Obviously her m.o. is to sell it by herself on tour. A lot of work and money goes into touring. If she's good with it, good for her! But it brings us back to the comment, "Selling books is a lot of work." When I said "her off site sales are probably just as bad" I meant sales that strangers bought when seeing it on their own. Not face-to-face sales.

About it being available in multiple languages. Who paid for that?

eta -simbainformation.com and facultycenter.net are much better resources for judging textbook sales. And even facultycenter.net lags in updating, probably because it's a free service. It only shows my book at 14 colleges.

I was unaware that this was a POD site.

I do think writing and publishing are "duck soup" compared to the selling of books.
Just my view.

I didn't call this a POD site. I did say elsewhere that all the fly-bys here seem to dump a cover of their self-published POD book down. It gives the impression that this forum is for that, esp. since there are so many categories for them to do it (book trailer, book cover, etc.).

It's true; members join specifically to add book covers to the gallery. A member of the Ning network asked if I would create an area on the site for members to upload their book covers. When I set up this forum, I added a folder on the gallery for book covers and invited network members to load their covers. They did. They joined so that they could add their covers. Most of them never made a single post. Some of these "fly-bys" self-published their books and some were published by small presses and vanity presses.

Many arguments have taken place on the forum because of personal views about vanity publishers, especially arguments about proving whether or not a publisher is a vanity press.

Five years ago, the acknowledged expert, Johnathon Clifford, had a very rigid view of POD but his viewpoint is becoming much more flexible. On his website, he now ofers advice on how to recognise a "good vanity press":

http://www.vanitypublishing.info/agoodvpwillnot.htm

I thought POD was a business model (books are printed when ordered) and digital printing was the technology.

Same song, same verse. POD is print on demand. It is a printing technology that is used by mainline, vanity and small press publishers among others. Self-publishers use both print runs (5000 or more books) and POD. A colleague of mine paid a publisher to print her lovely book on napkin folding, full of artful illustrations and an obviously high quality book. The contract included 10,000 books at a wholesale cost of $3.99 each; book retail price is $22.00 (and it is a quality hard back book with dust cover). She sold all 10,000 books by reaching the right distribution sources with an interest in this topic.

Authors Guild determines their membership by the author's contract: Does it include a substantial advance, royalties paid for books sold, and distribution channels for book sales at brick and morter stores. Those qualifications separate the small presses, the ebooks, the self-published books, etc. from legitimacy. The Authors Guild also has opinions regarding the publishers their membership uses. There are exceptions: self-published journalists with a following might be accepted...the bottom line is proof of legitimate product quality. That's hard to prove as a self-published, vanity-published, etc. author.

Our own DT Pollard is a member of Authors Guild. He has the stamp of legitimacy and continues to post among those who don't, sharing his author career steps that benefit us all.

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I thought POD was a business model (books are printed when ordered) and digital printing was the technology.

What does it matter? The salient point is that iuniverse is a self-publisher (or vanity publisher- same thing).

No, self publishing and vanity publishing are not the same thing.

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No, self publishing and vanity publishing are not the same thing.

[yawn] Yes, I know there are some self-professed experts on the web that have written a definition (which they repeat ad nauseum) that the difference is, self-publishers own the ISBN. But since they're just self-professed experts and nobody actually annointed them experts, I feel comfortable writing my own definition. Which is that since NEITHER is vetted by a third party, NEITHER has the financial investment of a third party, and NEITHER is marketed by a third party, there is NO DIFFERENCE between them.

I think my definition is more solid.

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I think my definition is more solid.

I don't but whatever floats your boat.

Hello guys. Good subject. I have jumped in article writng and it is interesting because it makes you think about what will get interest from the internet community. It has taken some time from my book marketing but I manage to do a tie-in on one of my books with this article. I think how a book is printed is almost moot. Distribution and publicity is the key. Even bad publicity will sell a book, like the guy that had that book on molesting children, it hit the kinlde top 100 when news stories came out about it. He was arrested today by the way. Anyway this is a link to my articles.

http://www.suite101.com/profile.cfm/742111

The state of traditional publishing features books from Snookie, Sarah Palin and The Situation. Those are just fan base books with no substance and could just as well be self published. That is not about quality, but about making money.

Hi DT - I'm writing for Suite101.com and Examiner.com also - would love to have you stop by - search on D.K. Christi at either site for my articles. I'm heading over to your Suite101 now...