Despite its use by major traditional publishers, the Print On Demand process has been subject to some unfortunate and unjustified stigma because of its association with sleazy companies that print books on demand mostly for their authors rather than for readers.
Therefore, some companies have sought to give a new meaning to the "P" in POD.
Llumina Press, Booksurge, Lulu, Tate, Outskirts, CreateSpace and others have paid Google to run online ads for the stupid phrase aimed at ignorant writers who don’t know the difference between printing and publishing. There are even stupidly named websites called PublishOnDemand.net and PublishOnDemandGlobal.com.
- Some critics describe and deride "self-publishing companies" as "POD companies" -- which makes the situation even more confusing.
- Sleazy and dishonest PublishAmerica says, "PublishAmerica is not in any way a POD, vanity press, or subsidy publisher. . . . In the most commonly used context, POD indicates "Publish On Demand." BULSHIT.
Publishing is a complex, multi-stage process that takes a writer’s words from manuscript to books on sale. The end result of a publishing project, which may be 10,000 books or just one book, can take weeks, months or even years.
With Print On Demand, books are printed one at a time or a few at a time as orders are placed by readers through booksellers. That does not mean that a publishing company starts the entire publishing sequence whenever an order arrives. With POD, a book is produced (i.e. printed, not published) in minutes, not months.
So, what's the point of all this?
If you see the phrase "Publish On Demand," be very careful before you spend your money. There's a good chance that the company is fooling around with more than the English language. The shady operators in the publishing field have already distorted the meaning of "self-publishing" and "indie" and now they are demeaning and devaluing "POD."