In Defense of Print on Demand Publishing

This post is for my writer-folk out there. If you're immersed in the world of publishing, no doubt you have come across the demonizing of print on demand. It is so often considered an invalid form of publishing even if - like me - you have a small traditional publisher who is doing most of the legwork but using POD services to distribute.
   
Just in case you have no idea what I'm talking about, let me define POD for you. POD stands for print on demand, a type of publishing in which the publisher does not pre-print books and instead waits for orders to roll in and then prints the amount of books needed to fulfill the order.

Make sense?

To me, it makes perfect sense, but the rest of the writing community might have you think otherwise.

Their main arguments:

Anyone can do it.
This is slightly true; if you go onto a platform like Createspace, any person can create a text and have it available for purchase. But guess what? In this day and age, people can pretty much create, publish, and sell whatever they want anyway. Self-publishing has been and continues to be tremendously popular, whether the content is ground-breaking or hot garbage. And of course the internet provides never ending possibilities for publishing in ways that we could never before have imagined, so why are we worrying about the exclusivity of publishing?

The product isn't made fast enough.
Wrong. Lots of people would have you believe that because POD requires the book to be ordered before it's printed, the book will take forever to ship. But the proof is in the pudding. For example, if you go onto Amazon.com and order my novel The Separation, you can select 2 day Prime shipping. And it gets there on time, every time. ALL HAIL AMAZON.

See? It's for real. 

It doesn't look professional.
This argument is just plain silly. A book looks the way its creator made it look. It doesn't magically become sloppy when it gets printed. If a book looks unprofessional, it's because it wasn't made by professionals. For example, at Evernight (my publisher), there is a team of lovely, talented, WONDEROUS people who do layout, cover design, and all that goes into making a book look spectacular. And they do an incredible job, I might add. The POD peeps just print the book they're sent. 

The books are nonreturnable, so stores don't want to buy them.
Okay, this I can wrap my head around. Nobody wants to lose money, so why order a book that you can't send back? Well, a variety of reasons. First off, if a book is promising, it shouldn't matter. Stores can buy small shipments and sell that stock before trying to buy in bulk. Simple problem, simple solution. Of course, corporate often rears its ugly head in this scenario, so believe me, I'm not naive enough to believe that this solution works every time.

It's non-traditional.
So is wearing no pants, but I enjoy that too. Just kidding. Or am I? But back on topic. Who cares whether publishing is "traditional"? The industry is changing, and it's not waiting on the rest of us, though our fragile egos like to think otherwise. So GET WITH THE PROGRAM, PEOPLE. Or you just might get left behind.

*Side note: my personal favorite part of POD is that it is infinitely more earth-friendly. For the big six publishers, eliminating waste is not a priority. POD only fulfills the orders which roll in rather than printing 1,000 copies, selling 500 and then throwing 500 away. If you're anything like me, the idea of throwing books away makes you want to vomit, so this option is appealing. 

So in conclusion, love your earth, love indie books, and love POD. <3