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I'm composing an article for the body content of our upcoming article. I have to fit it into 1/3 column but it's too long, so before I delete half of it for spacing, I figured I would post it here. The truth is out there:

GOT BULK?

An interesting trend is occurring in the on-demand publishing arena. Many print-on-demand companies are shooting themselves in the foot by championing pricing concepts carried over from the off-set printing industry.

Take for instance, bulk discounts.

When an off-set printer quotes a print-run of books, a bulk discount is typically offered to entice the author into purchasing additional copies. This is advantageous to the printer since the cost-per-unit decreases drastically, always outpacing the proffered discount.

On the surface, this even seems advantageous to the author. Why buy 5000 books at $1 each when you can by 10,000 books at .75 each? But, on the flip side, why pay $7,500 for a garage full of unsold books when you could only pay $5,000?

Where do Print-On-Demand companies fit in with all this bulk? That’s a good question, since the very nature of print-on-demand is mutually exclusive from quantity discounting.

By definition, a POD publisher prints a book when there is demand for it. Why would a POD offer bulk discounts to force authors into buying more copies than they need or want? Could it be that bulk discounting higher volumes allows some PODs to artificially inflate the unit price on lower quantities. Ironically, these low quantities are the very facet of the business that attracted the author in the first place. Talk about bait and switch.

Fortunately, savvy authors now have a choice. One company is simplifying self-publishing and simultaneously breaking the archaic pricing schemes offered by many PODs.

Outskirts Press bases their author copy prices on production cost, not arbitrary and often over-inflated retail pricing. The per-unit cost is the same for five copies as it is for 50 or 100. Why should authors be penalized for ordering only 5 copies of their POD book? Isn’t low quantities the point of on-demand?

If self-publishing has always interested you, but the advantages never seemed to outweigh the disadvantages, it is time to look at Outskirts Press. Their website is www.OutskirtsPress.com and they offer a free e-book to all new authors.