So you have authored your first book and you have decided that you would like to go with a self publisher, maybe a nice reputable Christian self publisher, but the type doesn’t really matter. The choices that you need to make are many, self publishing is riddled with extra services, some that are terribly helpful, such as book marketing, and some that are completely not necessary, such as having the publisher apply for your copyrights for you. Since you’ve made it well past how to write memoirs, or how to write a book for general consumption, and jumped on into how to publish a book, you must evaluate what printing services you will want to employ. You will find that print on demand is a quite popular option.
If you do choose to participate in a print on demand program, you should try to adhere to a few tips. You will be ordering your books probably more than once if you are in any way successful, so you want to make the best deal for the services that you will require. If possible, try to use the same company that you will use to promote your other materials, in this way you are enticing a professional rapport with this vendor and you will find that the savings are well worth it. Get a written printing quotation ahead of time from as many self publishing businesses as you can, and go with the one that gives you the best value balanced with price.
Consideration number two is going to be how many copies you actually will order. Only you know what the need is for your book. You may be tempted to over order so that you have plenty on hand, but remember that you do have a budget to work with, and each copy does raise the rate. If you can gather a realistic head count and review what the market actually will be for your book you can probably guesstimate the best number of books to be produced for the initial printing. Afterward you can restock accordingly as you will have a proven record of how many copies were sold after you had it printed.
Lastly but far from least, you will find that print on demand published books are very difficult to offer through retail locations, because for the most part publish on demand books are not returnable to the publisher. You want to ensure that your publisher does accept book returns. Since most bookstores are familiar with print on demand books not being returnable, you are going to want to visit the store locations, or call into the managers, regarding your book. You are going to need to explain that, though the book publishing is on demand, the books themselves are returnable. If you want your books to appear on a retail shelf after you have gone the POD route, this is going to be the only way.
Now you have established your print on demand services, it’s time to relax and hope to someday soon reap the reward.