POD classics

Guy Dammann writes in The Guardian about 'the launch on June 2 of a new imprint from Faber & Faber designed to make available a large number of titles which until now have been out of print.' I visited the Faber website but there is nothing about this yet.

The report says that using print-on-demand technology to allow print runs between one to fifty books with the books priced at GBP9.00, and 'will not be stocked in large quantities by booksellers, but will be available to order through most major booksellers and the majority of internet-based book retailers.'

Faber expects to publish up to 20 new titles every month, with 100 ready by the launch date in June. So this is not really POD, that is printed on demand by booksellers, but rather traditional publishing using the reducing cost of POD technology. This could very well be the model for publishing in the future. Currently, POD does cost a lot more than traditional publishing -- the figure of 10-30 times more is quoted. If Faber is able to sell the books for GBP9.00 through online booksellers, and still pay a royalty of 10% to the authors, they must have found a way of bringing down the price.

The one other issue with POD is quality, but let's wait and see what Faber does with that. That might not be such a big issue, though, since UK paperbacks, particularly from Faber, Penguin and Vintage, appeared to have cornered the market for grottiness.

The Guardian