I Know What's On Your Mind Right Now

it's POD isn't it

I found myself composing an explanatory newsletter about book production and printing in my head last night. It was a welcome distraction to the news, which has invaded the rest of my brain, so I thought I’d compose it on a screen, too.

In a piece for LitHub, the bookseller Drew Broussard wrote about an increase in a “weird, low-quality paperbacks.” He points to print on demand (POD) as the culprit. I don’t agree with him (though I appreciate him bringing up the topic), and to respond and explain I’m going to walk through how books are made material. It may seem simple and obvious but I’m seeing a lot of misunderstandings out there so hopefully it’ll be clarifying for some of you. (And if you work in book production and/or book printing, please comment below and lend your greater expertise or corrections to the below).

First, to clarify duties:

• Publishers create files that are sent to printers. They do not print books. ¹

• Printers take those files and make them into physical books²

What information do those files, that the publisher sends to the printer, contain, in addition to the contents of the book (words, copyright page, acknowledgments, etc.?)

• trim size

• paper stock

• page count

• weight

This information will be embedded in the files the designer creates and sends to the printer. For instance, the size of the spine will alter depending on the paper stock (thicker paper requires a wider spine, etc.) It is also included in the metadata for each title, which can be found wherever books are listed. For example, this listing from Bookshop.org, which contains the page count, dimensions, weight, and format.

So this clarifies what publishers do, and what printers do with the information publishers send them.

How does the printer know how the publisher wants the books to be printed, and how many copies to print?

The publisher tells them everything. The publisher is paying the printer, and each choice comes with a different cost: heavy paper is more expensive than light, recycled paper. Printing 5000 copies of a book will lead to a lower per unit cost than printing 50, given economy of scale.

For example, My Memoir might cost the publisher:

$1.12 per copy for a print run of 5000, printed on 50 pound groundwood paper
$2.92 per copy for a print run of 5000, printed on 80 pound coated paper
$3.12 per copy for a print run of 50, printed on 50 pound groundwood paper
$5.92 per copy for a print run of 50, printed on 80 pound coated paper

This is only the very tip of the possible options a publisher might provide to the printer: they can choose between offset or digital printing, or choose POD (yes, we’re getting to that!), and of course there are choices about format: paperback, hardcover, case laminate, dust jacket, sprayed edges (!). etc. etc.

The key bit of information here is the publisher must tell the printer what they want the printer to do. The printer charges the publisher accordingly. The printer does not decide the paper or size or weight or format.

Now, let’s circle back to POD.

When might a publisher choose POD as a printing option?

Lots of varied reasons!

—There will be a very small print run, and the most economical way to have the books printed is one by one. Many academic presses use POD almost exclusively.

—The book came awhile³ ago. It sold through its print run, and sells about 3 copies per year now. Setting up a file with a printer to be run off when those scant orders comes in allows the book to stay in print. Since POD became an option, almost every book can be kept in print now. It’s a huge boon to gazillions of books and authors!

—The book came out last week, and the publisher underestimated demand. They have already sold through their print run, and the public is clamoring for copies. POD allows copies to keep flowing to readers until the printer is able to complete another larger print run.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of reasons a publisher might set up a book as POD. But again, the key element here: the publisher makes this decision. Not the printer. Not the bookseller. And just about every publisher uses POD. From Penguin Random House down to your local micropress. To not use POD is now the exception.

But isn’t POD crappy? Why are publishers sacrificing quality?

No. POD is not crappy. Maybe it was ten years ago, or even five. But today a POD book is usually indistinguishable in quality from an offset or digitally printed one. Trust me! Really. (I get a lot of pushback so I’m going to overemphasize this.) You have bought them, read them, never noticed they were POD. Saying “PODs are crappy” today is like saying “that small one pound computer on a lap can’t possibly be as good as the very large, heavy machines on desks! It’s terrible that people are sacrificing quality by using to such tiny light machines!”

Okay well if you are so smart, why are there so many low quality books out there?

Aha. Now we have finally come to this question, which is a good one. And we can take “POD” off the table as an answer. Unfortunately, the answer is not simple and requires me to do a bunch more fakey Q&As and lame bullet points.

It’s not always clear to me what people mean by “lower quality.” Thinner paper is different than an askew cover. Thinner paper is a decision made by the publisher. An askew cover is a printer error. But to give some reasons:

— American-based printing companies are undergoing conglomeration. Sheridan just bought McNaughton & Gunn, which used to be Belt’s favorite printer. I could go on about this but then this newsletter will be way too long and I’ve written about it a few times on the past. But basically, the same logic as everywhere else in the country: the big are getting bigger, and that might lead to more mistakes by printers, such as covers that slipped from the plate and are askew, or a signature printed upside down (both printer errors have happened to me, and in both cases the printer took responsibility, refunded, and reprinted, but not always before some copies were sent to the marketplace).

—Many American paper mills have switched to cardboard (hello online shopping) and thus there is a chronic paper shortage. Some stocks—some weights or colors of paper—are increasingly hard to find. A publisher might have to change the plans they had for a book—move from 60 pound paper to 50, say—because the printer didn’t have enough 60 pound paper to do a print run. You might be buying books on very flimsy paper because there simply wasn’t enough of the sturdier stuff.

—Paper cost has increased 50% or so over the past five years. That sturdier stuff costs a lot more than it used to. This is a major reason why many publishers are raising their prices (readers seem to me much more understanding about this economic reality when it comes to restaurant prices than they are about book prices). Publishers might choose lighter paper to prevent raising the price of a book, or to lower unit cost.

Okay I think I’m beginning to understand. But isn’t Amazon at fault here somehow?

No. Not in their capacity as a bookseller. They don’t print books. Now, Amazon does has a POD arm, KDP. So KDP might be responsible for low quality POD books. But Amazon doesn’t tell KDP what to do. Remember our first lesson up top: the publisher tells the printer what to do. And the printer charges the publisher. The publisher might have specified light paper. Or KDP might have made a printer error.

What about Ingram?

Ingram distribution does not print books. They are a distributor (which is neither a publisher nor a printer). But Ingram, like Amazon, has bought printers and started a printing business as well, known as Lightning Spark, or LSI. LSI does POD, but it also does a lot of larger print runs. Every book Belt published from 2021-2023 when the printing situation in this country was incredibly backed up and expensive, has been printed by LSI. We’ve printed 5000 copies at once through LSI as well as POD through the GAP program. But LSI isn’t doing the actual printing. They are contracting the jobs to printing businesses, like Sheridan (which recently bought McNaughton & Gunn, and which has expanded rapidly, and may be making more errors). (Belt had no problems with LSI, and Not. A. Single. Person. has complained about the print quality of our books done with them over the course of three years).

Can we blame all the schlock out there—fake books, AI books, crappy publishers—for these low quality books?

I bet we could. I’d like to see more images and information about the specific books people are receiving that are subpar, as well as the metadata. People may have inadvertently bought a pirated version.

Thank you for allowing me to think about something other than the news but I really need to go back to doomscrolling now.

I get it. But if you are more of an expert than I on any of the above, please correct me and/or add more to this in the comments.

UPDATE: Someone wrote to me to recommend Bookmobile, an excellent printer that does POD based in Minneapolis. While I’ve never used them, I’ve only heard good things. There are options other than KDP and LSI for POD printing and this might be the best.

1. Though they may own the printing press or even in some cases do the printing, there would be a clear separation of duties. A publicist or editor is not going to be pressing the buttons on the trimmer—even if they are, in some scarce cases of small presses, the same person, it would be part of a separate area of expertise.

2

• we’ll leave ebooks and audiobooks out of this for now.

3. “awhile” can be anywhere from one to two hundred years