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The following article is an excerpt from my eBook titled: Instant Book Writing Kit – How To Write, Publish and Market Your Own Money-Making Book (or eBook) Online.
http://www.InstantBookWritingKit.com

I have to tell you that I was pretty darn excited, to say the least, when I found out about the digital fulfillment model for publishing eBooks.

However, when I found out about how I could ALSO take advantage of the print-on-demand model I was ecstatic!

POD FULFILLMENT: DEFINITION

It’s important that you understand exactly what I’m talking about when I use the term “POD fulfillment”, as opposed to “digital fulfillment” that was explained previously.

Print-on-demand (POD) fulfillment refers to when your book is delivered to the customer strictly in printed paper form as a standard book. With POD, when a single order (or low volume order) for your book is placed, just that small quantity is printed, bound, and drop-shipped directly to the customer by your POD fulfillment company. Hence the term, print-on-demand.

A typical example of POD fulfillment in action would be when you provide your POD electronic files to a digital fulfillment company that distributes POD books to booksellers like amazon.com, for example. Amazon.com would then offer your POD book to those of its customers who want a standard printed version of your book.

POD FULFILLMENT: A REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE

For an example of this, take a look at my Instant Recommendation Letter Kit book as listed at amazon.com. To do this go to…
www.amazon.com

Do a “book search” on the phrase “recommendation letter”. Instant Recommendation Letter Kit will show up in the first few search results (usually number one or two). Click on the title to the right of the cover and it will take you to the details page. Look immediately below the cover and you will see the heading “Other Editions”. The link there will say “paperback” or “digital download”, depending on which version you are currently looking at.

The point here being that, via amazon.com, customers can also order the paperback version of that book if they prefer it to the digital version.

Once the customer places their order online, the amazon.com electronic ordering system instantly sends an electronic order to my POD distribution company which instantly begins their internal print-on-demand process to produce ONE single copy of my paperback version for direct drop-shipping to the paying customer’s address.

This sure beats printing and storing into inventory, 1,000 or 2,000 copies, or more, up-front doesn’t it!

WHY CHOOSE POD FULFILLMENT?

As explained above, when people order a print-on-demand book they get a real hard copy paperback book that they can hold in their hands.

But why choose to produce a POD version when you already offer an ebook version? This is a good and logical question.

The main answer is this: an ebook is NOT a perfect substitute for a printed book.

This becomes particularly clear when marketing the two products through an online bookseller like amazon.com. It turns out that even when amazon offers a 30% discount on the digital download ebook version, about 40% of buyers of the same title still choose the more expensive POD paperback version.

So, not only are these people willing to pay more, but they are also willing to wait anywhere from 3 to 5 days for the POD book to be drop-shipped to them.

These are the traditional book buying people. They want a conventional paper book that they can hold in their hands. They want to be able to turn the pages. Many of these buyers don’t really understand what an ebook or digital download is all about.

And, even if they do understand the “e” part of ebook they don’t want to have anything to do with something that sounds so “techie”.

Clearly, if you do not provide a conventional paperback book via POD for these traditional book buyers you will be leaving that money on the table. Those people will not buy your digital download products.

PODS LOOK AND FEEL LIKE REAL BOOKS

So, what does a POD book look like you might ask?

The quality of my POD books when printed is quite acceptable. The full-color glossy cover is printed on standard cover stock. The interior is comprised of standard 8 1/2″ x 11″ paper stock, printed both sides. It’s like an excellent quality Xerox job between professionally designed full-color glossy covers. So, people who order them get a paperback of equivalent quality as to what one would normally find on the shelves at a bookstore.

That’s just the format I use. You can also have PODs produced in all kinds of sizes and shapes, including hard cover books!

BOTTOM LINE

If you want to sell books to the traditional book buying public you have to give them what they want – a printed book. Print-on-demand (POD) let’s you do just this — one copy at a time.

And, just like the situation with digital download fulfillment, these POD sales are IN ADDITION to any sales that you will make via your Web site or digital fulfillment channels.

Again! It’s just like “found money”. You just have to know how to find it.

For more information on exactly how to do that, check out this link:
http://InstantBookWritingKit.com

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The following material is an abridged excerpt of some of the material contained in my eBook titled: Instant Book Writing Kit – How To Write, Publish and Market Your Own Money-Making Book (or eBook) Online.
http://www.InstantBookWritingKit.com

If you are thinking at all about writing and/or publishing your own book or ebook, you will want to read the following article VERY CAREFULLY.

As many small-time authors and self-publishers have discovered, the traditional book publishing model is fraught with problems that conspire against an individual author/publisher making a decent living from their work.

The traditional model normally involves two basic choices: 1) use a commercial publisher, or 2) self-publish.

THE COMMERCIAL PUBLISHER ROUTE

This option involves the author submitting book proposals or full manuscripts to commercial publishing houses in hope of acceptance.

Once a manuscript is accepted by a publishing house (the vast majority are not accepted) a contract is signed between the author and the publishing house. This kicks-off a time-consuming and often complex process involving printers, shippers, wholesalers, distributors, marketers, and finally, booksellers, all managed on the author’s behalf by the publishing house.

Typically, it takes anywhere from 18 to 24 months from the time the author finishes a book manuscript, until the actual book gets onto the bookshelves.

THE SELF-PUBLISHING ROUTE

The self-publishing option is one in which the author eliminates some of the middlemen and manages the overall publishing, distribution and marketing processes him/herself.

This option gives the author much more personal control of the whole process and allows him/her to earn more money per copy than through a commercial publisher. It also involves a lot of work by the self-publisher who is responsible for performing all of the functions and services that a commercial publisher would normally look after.

This model is normally less time-consuming in terms of elapsed time, since there is no manuscript submission and approval process involved. On average, the self-publishing process can save 6 to 12 months over the commercial publisher model.

THE SHOCKING DOWNSIDES OF TRADITIONAL BOOK PUBLISHING
Based on my first-hand experience with the North American book publishing and distribution industry, I have to say that it is one of the most archaic and poorly run business models that I have ever encountered. The entire industry seems to be decades behind current-day business models of other industries.

Very few people know from the outset what they’re getting into when they choose to publish their book via the traditional publishing route. They have no idea at the beginning just how backward, outdated and dysfunctional the entire conventional book publishing industry business model really is.

Here’s what the conventional book publishing industry WILL NOT spell out to you before you sign-up…

Give Away Half Your Book’s Value Up-Front
If your book’s cover price is, say $30, you will be forced to discount at least 40% to 60% right off the top when selling your book to wholesalers and retailers. So, you’ll really be working from an actual price of somewhere between $12 and $18 — not the $30 you first thought.

Don’t Count On Making Big Bucks
If you choose the commercial publisher option, the best you can hope to receive for your book is a royalty somewhere between 6% and 10% of the “net”. The “net” is the amount the publisher receives AFTER discounting to retailers.

Example: cover price = $30; discount to large retail chain = $15 (i.e. 50%). Your cut would be somewhere between $0.90 and $1.50 per sale. So, for selling 3,000 copies (a very good sales figure) you would receive a grand total of somewhere between $2,700 and $4,500!

You’ll Have To Write Lots Of Books
If you choose the self-publishing option your main distributor will pay you somewhere around 45% of the cover price of your book. Using our $30 cover price example; that works out to $13.50 per sale that goes to you under this scenario. Then you have to deduct your costs which include: printing the book, overheads, and marketing, publicity and advertising expenses.

Example: cover price = $30; distributor payment to you at 45% of cover = $13.50, before expenses. Deduct: printing costs – $3.50; overheads – $1.00; marketing, advertising, publicity – $1.00 = ($13.50-$5.50) = $8.00 per book sale. So, for selling 3,000 copies you would make only $24,000.

And don’t forget, this option involves your ongoing direct personal time and effort involvement.

Wait Forever To Get Paid
Typically, you will have to wait between 90 days and 120 days after an actual book sale before you will receive your payment for that sale. I still shake my head at this one. How does the publishing industry get away with such an archaic practice in the 21st Century?

In normal business the standard wait for payment is usually 30 days, sometimes as much as 60 days; but 90 to 120 days to pay a poor struggling author? It’s a crying shame that they still manage to get away with it. This kind of payment delay is the norm, whether you go through a commercial publisher or if you’re a self-publisher.

Issue 100% Refunds On Unsold Books
A trademark feature of the conventional book publishing industry is the way in which it deals with “returns”. In almost all cases — publishers, distributors, wholesalers and retailers – they maintain the right to return unsold books to you, the author, for a 100% refund, even many months later!

Example: Say you sell 200 copies of your book to a particular retail chain through your publisher (commercial publisher model) or through your distributor (self-publisher model). Then, let’s say that after five months, various stores in that retail chain find that 45 unsold copies of your book are still on their shelves. The retailer would simply send those books back to your publisher or distributor for a 100% refund. That company would then routinely pay that retail chain a 100% refund for each book returned and in-turn would deduct that total amount from your account!

I’m not kidding folks, this is really how it works!

There is absolutely NO incentive for bookstores or publishers/distributors to make any extra effort whatsoever to move your book off their shelves since they know you will provide a 100% rebate for all “returns” in any case. Go figure?

Pay Them Extra Money… Just In Case
And just to add insult to injury, many publishers and distributors will also withhold funds from your regular royalty payments (20% or more) as insurance to cover the costs of possible future returns.

So, not only do you get paid 90 to 120 days late, you will NOT receive the full amount to which you are entitled, as your publisher/distributor hedges against the possibility of eventual returns of unsold and/or damaged books months down the line.

Get Stuck In Someone Else’s Time Cycle
Most commercial publishers operate on a time-frame of 18 to 24 months from approved/accepted manuscript until the book is released for sale. If you are a self-publisher you can whittle this down to maybe 3 to 6 months depending on when your book is ready vis a vis your distributor’s catalog publication schedule.

If you time it perfectly, or just get lucky, there might only be 6 to 8 weeks between your book being ready to ship and it getting it onto store shelves.
For an alternative publishing model… Click Here

BOTTOM LINE

In addition to the foregoing, there are other problems with the traditional book publishing model which I won’t go into here. So, as you can see, from an author’s point of view it is a highly dysfunctional, badly flawed business model that wouldn’t survive in most industries.

In fact, the system is so stacked against the average author I’m amazed that some people actually try to eke out an ongoing living in that thankless industry. I guess they feel they have no other choice, or they are hoping against the odds that they will one day get lucky and pen a mega best-seller.

So, if you are an aspiring author, and you’re hoping to make a modest living writing and publishing your own books or ebooks — the traditional book publishing and distribution model is definitely NOT the way to go.

The good news is that over the past couple of years a new publishing model has emerged that eliminates almost all of the negative aspects of the traditional publishing model and adds a number of additional benefits.

It’s called the “Online Publishing Model”.

It’s a combination of online digital download delivery and print-on-demand (POD) publishing that sidesteps most of the pitfalls of the traditional book publishing model.

It offers small-time authors/publishers an excellent alternative that will give them more control, and will increase their sales and profits by using little known online channels when publishing their books/ebooks.

To learn more about the Online Publishing Model, click on the following link:
http://InstantBookWritingKit.com

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The following material is an abridged excerpt of some of the material contained in my eBook: Instant Book Writing Kit – How To Write, Publish and Market Your Own Money-Making Book (or eBook) Online.
http://www.InstantBookWritingKit.com

Each and every day, thousands of people are searching online for information about various aspects of how to write, publish and market a book or ebook. It seems that more people than one might think believe that they have a book inside of them and they want to know how to get that book out to the world.

Unfortunately, most of these folks are under the mistaken belief that publishing and distributing their book and making a modest profit is a relatively simple matter. Maybe it should be simple, but based on my personal experience with the conventional publishing industry, it is far more difficult than one might imagine. In fact, just making a modest profit after covering expenses is often wishful thinking.

To be perfectly honest, I have to tell anyone who is an aspiring writer and/or self-publisher that the conventional publishing model as it exists today is one of the poorest, most dysfunctional business models that I have ever encountered. In fact, many of the standard practices of that industry just wouldn’t be accepted in other mainstream industries.

It’s no wonder that book publishers and sellers often struggle to make ends meet. But the real victims of this terribly flawed business model are the average folks who just want to write and/or publish their own book or ebook and make a little money doing it.

In recent years I have spent thousands of dollars and thousands of hours through trial and error trying to find ways that I could successfully bypass the conventional publishing industry. The good news is that after three years of research and testing I HAVE found a better way for the average person to publish and market their books.

The alternative to the traditional publishing model that I have discovered is called the “Online Publishing Model”.

The remainder of this page contains links to various pages on my Writing Help Central Web site that explain different aspects of the Online Publishing Model.

ONLINE PUBLISHING MODEL – RESOURCES

Conventional Book Publishing Industry – The Problems
It wasn’t until I self-published my first two books a number of years ago that I discovered the many problems with this model, especially as they affect the small-time author and/or self-publisher. This page details the many problems of the conventional book publishing model:
http://writinghelp-central.com/write-book-problems.html

The Online Publishing Model – A Real Alternative
Once I realized how I wasn’t going to sell many books or make a decent living using the traditional publishing model, I spent my time and money looking for alternatives. After three years of trial and error experimentation I came up with what I now call the “Online Publishing Model” (OPM).
http://writinghelp-central.com/write-book-alternative.html

Online Publishing Model: Channel 1 – Sales-Mini-Site
This is the key channel of the Online Publishing Model that is responsible for over half of my sales. It involves setting up a dedicated Web site for your book, something that is a lot simpler and cheaper to do than most people think. This page explains how it’s done.
http://writinghelp-central.com/write-book-mini-site.html

Online Publishing Model: Channel 2 – Digital Fulfillment
With this distribution channel of the OPM you place your book with a digital distribution company which uses it’s already developed channels to market and distribute it to people who are willing to download the digital version. This channel accounts for about 25% of my total book/ebook sales.
http://writinghelp-central.com/write-book-digital-download.html

Online Publishing Model: Channel 3 – Print-On-Demand
Through this channel of the OPM, you place an electronic version of your book/ebook with a print-on-demand distributor which can print out hard copy versions of your book, one copy at a time, as individual orders are received. This allows you to sell your books to those people who insist on a paper copy without having to produce an inventory.
http://writinghelp-central.com/write-book-print-on-demand.html

Online Publishing Model: The Benefits
In addition to allowing small time authors and publishers to make much more money per copy than with the traditional publishing model, the OPM offers many more benefits, including the elimination of the dreaded “returns”. This page details those benefits.
http://writinghelp-central.com/write-book-benefits.html

BEWARE of Vanity Publishers – Don’t Let Them Sign You Up!
There are dozens of pseudo “publishing” companies operating online that offer what appears on the surface to be quick and easy “low/no cost” ways to get your book published. These are known as vanity publishers and they target new and aspiring authors. But, once you’ve signed-up with one of these outfits they’ll under-deliver and suck you dry. Here’s some background on how the vanity publishers work:
http://writinghelp-central.com/write-book-vanity-press.html

Book Writing Format
My research indicates that there are a lot of people searching for information on the subject “book writing format”. However, it is not clear to me exactly what these folks are looking for. In fact, I’m not even sure if they know exactly what they are searching for. Are they looking for some kind of a book layout template? Or, do they want to know what dimensions to make their book? Or, are they looking for some kind of formula for writing a book?
http://writinghelp-central.com/book-writing-format.html

Instant Book Writing Kit
As I mentioned above, once I discovered the abysmal state of the conventional book publishing model from the perspective of the small time author and/or self-publisher, I started searching for alternatives. I’m now happy to report that — thousands of dollars, and thousands of hours later — I did find a better way – the Online Publishing Model (OPM).

Once I had proven the effectiveness of my new OPM model through seven of my own books/ebooks, I documented the entire process for others, in step-by-step detail in my book/ebook: Instant Book Writing Kit – How To Write, Publish and Market Your Own Money-Making Book (or eBook) Online.
http://www.InstantBookWritingKit.com