POD: its really not about printing'

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POD its really not about printing.
David Taylor October 2009
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Lightning Source facts and figures

• Lightning Source founded in 1997
• Ingram Content Groups print on demand arm
• Over 1 million titles are stored in our Digital
  Library
• 1.4 Million books printed per month across three
  sites
• Average print run 1.8 copies
• 78 Million books printed as of September 2009
• 9,000 Publishing Partners
• Single copy book manufacturing on an increasingly
  global scale

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Trends that we seepublishing

• Publishing is shifting from a business model
  based on inventory printed speculatively to one
  based on micro or virtual inventory
• Print book, try and sell book is shifting to sell
  book, print book

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Trends that we seedistribution

• Book distribution is shifting from a business
  model based on big sheds full of books printed on
  spec to one that needs to be able to offer print
  on demand models of supply on a global scale
• Globally distributed print makes a lot of sense

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Implications.

• Books are being kept alive
• Books are being resurrected
• New models of publishing are flourishing

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5 handy hints

• Think about the person who wants to buy your
  book. Can they?
• Dont think about POD as just a production
  decision. Its not.
• Think about ALL of the costs associated with the
  old way of publishing books
• Think about the unit cost of the books you
  actually sell rather than the unit cost of the
  books you have printed and that are still sitting
  in your warehouse
• Dont be precious about trim sizes. Guess what
  people who buy books dont care.

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Things you never hear in a bookshop.
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And two more

• Put one person in charge of your POD programme
• Copy others who have succeeded.

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