To POD or not to POD

To POD, or not to POD. That is the question.

Tomorrow morning I will meet with Portland-based Print-on-Demand publisher Inkwater Press to discuss their offer. For $999 they will "publish" my book, Lying in Judgment - whatever "publish" means, when the actual printing doesn't occur until and unless someone places an order for it. From what I can tell, it includes layout, design, ISBN registration, a bar code, and establishing a distribution channel through Ingram, Amazon.com, and other on-line sources. Editing and marketing would be my responsibility.

In effect, POD makes me a co-publisher of my own work.

For four years I've been pitching my book the old-fashioned way to traditional publishing houses, hoping for a commercial contract for what should be a book with broad audience appeal. For readers new to my story, Lying in Judgment tells the story of a man serving on the jury of a murder trial for the murder he committed. Pretty cool premise, no? However, I've had no success pitching it to agents and editors. Not doubt the issue preventing publication thus far has been, at least in part, the writing itself. Its somewhat distanced, over-the-shoulder point of view of the murderous main character trying to convict an innocent man of his crime made him even harder to root for.

A recent rewrite hopefully addressed that problem. The narrative centers much more on his state of mind and is expressed in his own voice - until the newly-added epilogue that provides an unexpected twist from the point of view of a surprise observer. The rewrite did snag the attention of Inkwater's editors as well as two agents (resulting in one rejection so far, and one still deciding).

However, I wonder if I'm too late with this rewrite. The publishing industry is reeling, and has been for several years. Several publishing houses have closed, have been swallowed up by larger companies, or have simply stopped buying new titles. Even the healthy ones have cut way back. Agents have used phrases like "horrible market" repeatedly in correspondence.

On the other hand, actual book sales, while down, have not contracted as deeply as the overall economy. People still buy books. It's relatively cheap entertainment, after all. At least one segment, electronic books, has expanded dramatically, with the rise of the Kindle, iPhone, and Sony Reader, among others. Opportunities to sell books still exist. The question is, what's the right way to do it? More to the point, what's the right way to sell my book?

POD advocates (particularly the publishers) often claim that their model is the way of the future, and that the traditional model is dying a painful death. There's no doubt that the market is shifting and, overall, contracting. The question is whether the POD way is the right response to the changing market - in general, and again, particularly for my novel.

In some ways it appears to be. POD lowers the up-front cost -- and risk -- to the publisher, since they don't have thousands of units of unsold inventory (read: sunk costs) by unknown authors consuming valuable warehouse or bookstore shelf space. Also, the writer is expected to pony up for some share of those up-front costs - if not all.

But in other ways, POD goes against the grain. Printing one book at a time is much more expensive than printing 1000 at a time, so POD-published books are more expensive. Also, in tight times, careful shoppers want more information before buying, but POD books are rarely reviewed by independent professionals such as Literary Digest. Nor can the consumer see, or feel, the product in advance; they have to order it on-line, then wait for delivery. If it's not on the shelf, it can't scream "Buy me!" to the casual Barnes and Noble shopper.

Considerable argument persists about the benefits of a traditional publisher vs. print-on-demand when it comes to marketing and distribution. From what I have read, publishers do precious little in this area for first-time authors - and this was pretty much true even before the market tanked.

Thus, whichever path I take, it's clear that most of the work of selling my book will fall on my shoulders. What's not clear is whether, in addition to the role of Author and Marketer, I should also take on - and can succeed in - the role of co-publisher as well.