POD People: a thought on semantics

Originally published in the August 2009 MIPA newsletter.
By Sheyna Galyan, Yaldah Publishing

“We don’t review POD books.”
“Bookstores won’t carry POD books.”
“POD books are of the lowest quality.”
“If you have a POD book, you might as well say goodbye to your writing career now.”

Have you ever heard any of these? I have. Sometimes these warnings come from literary snobs who believe that anything not published by the Big Six isn’t really published. Sometimes they’re meant with the best of intentions, but a lack of definition. Just what exactly is a POD book?

The problem, at its core, is that POD can stand for Print on Demand, a printing technology that allows for cost-effective (in contrast to offset printing) digital printing of a small number of books that can be as many as a thousand or as few as a single book. POD can also stand for Publish on Demand, a term used to describe online vanity publishers that use digital printing in their production, but offer precious little in the way of editing, design, or distribution in exchange for substantial investment from their authors. The stigma is attached to the Publish on Demand meaning of POD, but so few understand the difference in how the acronym is used, the method by which a book is printed is called into question when the real question should be the quality of the book before it ever gets to print.

W. Paul Coates wrote a 2004 article in the IBPA Independent called “Kill POD” that is still oh-so-true, in which he states, “The technology that made it possible to print books on demand is stronger than ever, and, from all indications, it has not even reached its growth midpoint. But using the term as we currently do hurts all book publishers.” The benefits of digital short run printing are not lost on successful publishers, including the Big Six. It’s more eco-friendly than thousands of unsold books sitting in a warehouse. It’s cost-effective for testing new authors or keeping backlist books in print. And it allows high-quality, well-prepared books to make it to the marketplace even when their publishers don’t have tens of thousands of dollars for printing alone. But for years attempts to more accurately describe the printing process as digital, or short run, or even just-in-time printing are often met with the confused, “Is that POD?”

Consequently, I was pleasantly surprised to turn to the July 2009 issue of the IBPA Independent and an article by Margie Dana called “Sixteen Ways to Save Money on Printing.” In it, number seven said, “Print only what you need. Reduce waste.” And number eight said, “Go digital. Digital printing lets you print exactly what you need—even one copy!” But wait a sec. Is that POD?