Until the introduction of “POD” in 1998, the basic process for printing books had not varied from the model that prevailed for many centuries. Speculating on customer demand for a book, publishers printed a certain number of copies, distributed them through booksellers, and warehoused the unsold stock until the time came to replenish bookseller supply through another printing. As the book trade developed in the twentieth century, profits on sales were augmented by revenues generated by the licensing of subsidiary rights such as book clubs, reprint editions, and translations.
Though book marketing has never been particularly efficient, post-World War II publishing seemed to flourish and promised to continue flourishing as long as returns were held to modest levels. But returns grew like a cancer. The cure? Print on demand.

How does POD work? Computer-readable files of a book’s text, cover, and illustrations if any, are stored on the printing company’s server in such formats as Quark or PDF. Unlike traditional books requiring print runs of thousands of copies and storage in warehouses, POD is capable of printing a few copies or even a single one for specific customers.

In a POD transaction, a customer orders a copy from an online retailer like amazon.com, charging the purchase to a credit card. The book is then printed and drop-shipped to the customer. The sale is final; unless the book is damaged it is not returnable. Though the cost of printing one copy is higher (as of this writing as much as four times higher) than that of a single unit of a conventional print run, there is no waste whatsoever; the “sellthrough” percentage -- the ratio of books actually sold to books shipped -- is 100%.

But it was not just the efficiency that inspired almost hysterical hyperbole among publishers who had seen POD in action at the publishing industry’s annual book expo in 1998. It was the realization that the process enabled them, entitled them, to keep books in print in perpetuity. No longer would publishers have to return to authors the rights to their books on the grounds that it was too costly to issue and warehouse new printings.

Author? What’s an Author?

The technological breakthroughs of e-books and print on demand stunned the publishing community. It was as if the magnetic poles had shifted leaving everyone connected with books utterly disoriented as a new millennium dawned. Suddenly we were confronted by perplexing questions and paradoxes: In the coming age of disintermediation – of direct delivery of texts from author to reader – exactly what function will publishers serve? Will editors have anything to edit? Will bookstores and libraries be necessary? How will readers know what to read? Will agents be relevant? Most disturbing of all, as technology empowers authors to perform all the roles traditionally undertaken by publishers – printing, distribution, and publicity – will they still be able to define themselves as authors?

Many of these questions will be resolved as we progress towards a virtual future. But because we are still controlled by the gravitational pull of traditional publishing, there are far more urgent issues at hand. Can authors succeed in an environment that punishes modest sales performance? How do editors balance their need to nurture literary endeavor against the intense pressure to acquire blockbusters? What strategies are agents employing to introduce new talent into a contracting marketplace? In the next installment of this series we’ll explore the current ecology of publishing in the twenty-first century.

Copyright 2004 by Richard Curtis

Richard Curtis, president of Richard Curtis Associates, Inc., is a leading New York literary agent and a well known author advocate. He is also the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction including several books about the publishing industry.

He graduated from Syracuse University in 1958 with a BA in American Studies and from the University of Wyoming with a Masters degree, also in American Studies. He joined the ScottMeredith Literary Agency after graduation, and was foreign rights manager there for seven years. In 1967, he launched a freelance writing career, and has had some fifty books published by many major houses. In the early 1970's, he began his own literary agency, and in 1979 incorporated it. Richard Curtis Associates, Inc. currently represents close to 150 authors in all fields. The agency reports millions of dollars in annual sales for leading authors in every area of nonfiction and in such categories of fiction as romance, westerns, thrillers, science fiction, and fantasy.

His interest in emerging media and technology has enabled him to help authors anticipate trends in publishing and multimedia. He has lectured extensively and conducted panels and seminars devoted to raising consciousness in the author and agent community about the future of communications.

Early in the 1980's, he started writing an advice column for Locus, a science fiction newsletter, and out of his articles several books have been published including HOW TO BE YOUR OWN LITERARY AGENT, BEYOND THE BESTSELLER, MASTERING THE BUSINESS OF WRITING, and THIS BUSINESS OF PUBLISHING. He has testified as an expert witness in several publishing trials.

He was the first president of the Independent Literary Agents Association and was President of the Association of Authors' Representatives in 1996 and 1997. His company served for over a decade as agency for the Science Fiction Writers of America. In 1994, he received the prestigious Romance Writers of America Industry Award for Distinguished Service to Authors. In 1998 he was invited to serve on the editorial advisory board of Writer’s Digest. In 2000 he was invited to serve on the Publishing Master of Science advisory Board of Pace University.

Late in 1998, Richard Curtis announced the formation of e-reads, a publisher dedicated to reissuing, in e-book and print formats, previously published books in such popular categories as romance, fantasy and science fiction, and thrillers. The company commenced operation in 1999 with over 1200 titles, many by famous names in their fields, and concluded strategic alliances with all a dozen major distributors including Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Ingram Book Company. As a byproduct of his e-book activities, he collaborated with a programmer to create the Royalty Tracker, a program designed to quickly convert vast amounts of royalty information generated by e-book vendors into simple royalty statements. In 2002 Writers Digest Books published his HOW TO GET YOUR E-BOOK PUBLISHED co-authored by William Quick.

Richard Curtis is married to author Leslie Tonner and has two children. He currently resides in Manhattan. His hobbies are sports, music and painting.