Print-On-Demand Book Publishing: A New Approach to Printing and Marketing Books for

This book complements other books, such as "Aiming at Amazon" and "ePublish" - giving a very complete picture of how becoming your own publisher can help earn you more money from your book. Indeed, Morris Rosenthal gives a detailed and very interesting breakdown of the income and sales for one book - finally, someone brave enough to come up with actual figures!The book gives a helpful overall picture of where print on demand fits into the general publishing scene and why and how it's a respectable industry in it's own right.

I've read most of the available books about self-publishing and can recommend this one wholeheartedly. It begins with the premise that authors must think of their writing as a business. Even before writing, you need to research who the audience for the book will be, and how you will publicize the book to them when it's finished. The author advocates focusing your marketing efforts not on paid advertising, but by building an informative Web site that will provide free advertising.This book lays this groundwork, then proceeds through the practical steps of how to have your book manufactured, distributed, and publicized. All of the other self-publishing books talk about these things, but this book actually gives you the nuts and bolts of how to go about it.The author is able to give you these specifics because he has self-published several successful titles himself. He actually shows you the financial results from his previous books and explains why today print-on-demand is the best option for most authors -- instead of going through a subsidy press or even a trade publisher.I read this book about four months ago when I was in the midst of writing my first self-published book, "The Home-Based Bookstore." The advice helped me immensely; I know I would have made some costly mistakes without it. And I've referred back to this book at least a couple dozen times since then.When I finished reading "Print on Demand Book Publishing" (the first time), I e-mailed the author with a few additional questions (he prints his e-mail address at the end of the book and invites inquiries). Basically I asked him what type of discount I should apply to my particular book and what my online strategy should be. Later that same day, Mr. Rosenthal graciously responded with a lengthy reply chock full of specific advice. I'm sure I would not have gotten better advice if I had hired a consultant, assuming I could have found one well-versed in this field.

I purchased this book along with "Plug Your Book" and I have to admit that it wasn't at all what I was expecting. I guess I thought it would be more of a primer on how to self-publish using POD, but it's not.Now, that being said, I have to say that the book was worth the purchase price, well-written, and very useful for the beginner. I have been self-publishing successfully using POD for three years, so much of the information was not new to me. But it was still a good read, and Rosenthal covers quite a few things that I didn't know about. For example:1. I had no idea that authors paid Amazon for "better together" listings2. The information on libraries was useful and most of it was new to me3. I liked his examples on sales progression by month-- I have noticed that my own non-fiction sales follow the same trend and I was wondering whyBut the book needs an index-- considering how easy it is to generate one in WORD, this is the reason the book is getting 4 stars.One note about the cover-- I usually think that diagrams on book covers are a BIG mistake because they look terrible as a "thumbnail image" on Amazon. But I think that Rosenthal's cover is really clever-- the Tic-Tac-Toe motif is original and the design is clean. I think the book might look better if the background wasn't flat grey, but I really like it.

I thought this was an excellent book. It was clear, informative and actually a pleasure to read: the author has a direct style which I found engaging. If POD is really as straightforward as he makes it sound then the publishing world is going to be shaken to its foundations.The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is that it is (as other reviewers have commented) somewhat US-centric. Just for example, the ISBN authority in the UK is Nielsen.

It's out of date and readable only by someone already knowledgeable about book production and early POD services.