POD writers and Lightning Source
During the past few weeks I’ve been corresponding with some other authors who are interested in print-on-demand or have already had a book published by third party POD companies like Xlibris, Authorhouse, Publish America, or Lulu. The biggest complaint these authors have is the high retail price and relatively low royalty. Yes, we authors want it both ways for our books: low retail price and high author royalties.
Unfortunately, we cannot even come close to creating books with low retail price and high royalties using a third party publishing service. Last year I did an exhaustive search for an easy way to self-publish a book without giving up my rights to a company who wouldn’t really promote my books at all. The only company that came close was Lulu, with a self-service website (http://www.lulu.com) that allows an author to produce books through Lulu’s business partners and then market them through Amazon.com and other mostly online retailers. But even Lulu authors suffer from low royalties and high retail prices, especially for higher page count books, which discourages some people from purchasing the books. All of these companies will get a book listed at online bookstores, and many authors accept the low royalty as a stark condition of POD publishing life.
One revealing fact that anyone can uncover is that virtually all of these third party POD companies use Lightning Source Inc (LSI) http://www.lightningsource.com/ as their printer and wholesaler. LSI has a program for legitimate publishers that allows them to upload PDF Adobe Acrobat files of their books and covers to permanant print servers, ready at a moment’s notice to manufacture a book, on demand, and sell it to distributors and retailers around the world, at a short discount set by the publisher. To be a legitimate publisher all you need is a business entity, tax ID number, bank account, and most of all, a block of ISBN numbers in your company’s name. For a one book author it may not be worth exploring this option, but for an author planning on several books working directly with LSI is the only way to go, if maximizing profit is the goal.
The best online example of how this works is from Morris Rosenthal at his blog:
http://www.fonerbooks.com/POD.htm
Morris explains in detail how and why LSI is the best option for the micropress or small publishing company. Anyone serious about entering the world of POD book publishing should read Rosenthal’s blog: http://www.fonerbooks.com/cornered.htm.
My advice to my old and new author friends is to use Lulu to get started and then consider joining up with an existing micropress or start your own. Another good resource on this topic is Aaron Shepard’s book Aiming At Amazon (http://www.aaronshep.com/publishing/books/AimingAmazon.html).
May 20th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
One problem working with LSI is that they’ve either bought in a five title minima for going with them, or they are lying to potential customers. Neither is a possibility that fills me with joy as I consider going to them direct.
Reference to the comments in a friend’s blog so you know I’m not imagining this.
Can you or any of your contacts throw any light on this?
May 20th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Becky… I can only tell you my experience from working with Lightning Source in the USA. I have heard that Lightning Source does not want to take on a lot of one-book wonders or author-only self-publishers, but the only requirements they cared about with me was that I had a block of ISBN numbers, a business bank account, and tax I.D. number. I suppose that they assume that owning a block of 10 ISBN, which cost $279, is a good indication that I am serious. Perhaps LSI-UK has different rules.
It couldn’t hurt to go to their web site to sign up and see how far you get.