Resources for Trade Publishers

• Trade Associations  |  Social Networking Sites  |  Print on Demand Publishing

   

  Trade Associations

  • IDPF - The International Digital Publishing Forum — IDPF is the trade and standards association for the digital publishing industry.
  • BISG - The Book Industry Study Group — The Book Industry Study Group, Inc. (BISG) is the U.S. book industry's leading trade association for research and supply chain standards and policies.
  • Association of American Publishers — The principal trade association of the book publishing industry in the US.
  • International Publishers Association — The International Publishers Association (IPA) is the global non-governmental organization representing all aspects of book and journal publishing worldwide.
  • American Library Association — The American Library Association is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 65,000 members.
  • Publisher's Association of the West — PubWest is a trade organization established to serve the needs of its members and as a forum for the discussion of publishing issues.

• Sample Social Networking Websites with demographics

  • Black Planet — African Americans.
  • Bebo — most popular social networking website in the U.K., Ireland, and New Zealand.
    
  • Classmates Online — The third largest social networking site.
  • Cyworld— South Korea.
  • Del.icio.us — Social bookmarking site.
  • Digg — Social bookmarking site
    
  • Facebook— Important social networking site
  • Fast Pitch! Networking — Business social network
  • Friendster — The original social network.
    
  • HI5 — Popular in Mexico and Spain.
  • JacketFlap — Children’s books
  • LawLink — Attorneys.
    
  • Library Thing — Readers
    
  • Linked In — A business and professional networking
    
  • Marketocracy — Investors
  • Mashable.com — Blog on social networks
  • Mom Junction — Moms
    
  • Multiply — Multimedia Social Network
    
  • MySpace — 500# gorilla social network
  • Ning — Start your own social network
    
  • Orkut — Popular in Brazil
  • Piczo — U.K. and Canadian teens
  • Reunion.com — Family, friends, schoolmates
    
  • Ryze - Professionals
  • Shelfari — Readers
  • Stumble Upon — Website trackers
  • StyleHive — Fashionistas
  • TeeBeeDee — Over 40s
  • Uber.com — Creatives

• Book publishing through POD

Many of LibreDigital’s publishing clients are monitoring the world of Print on Demand closely.  All of a publisher’s asset in the Internet Digital Warehouse for Publishers can be served out through DataPipe to a preferred Print on Demand vendor.  What follows is a brief introduction to POD and what some of its basic dynamics are.

• Print on demand using digital technology is popular as a way of printing items for a fixed cost per copy.  While, generally speaking, the unit cost from POD is higher than with traditional large-run printing, there are specific benefits in using POD:

  • large inventories of a book need not be kept in stock,
  • the technical prep is faster and less expensive than for offset printing and
  • there is a great reduction in waste from unsold products.

These benefits reduce risks for publishers and offer more choices for consumers. Some think that small-batch digital POD may mean that quality control can be an issue.

POD service providers
The emergence of POD has created a new type of company – the POD vendor. 
Some of the best-known print-on-demand providers for Publishing are Lightning Source, and BookSurge.

POD and the Backlist
For trade publishers, POD services are useful to ensure that books are available for purchase even though the latest print run has sold out – and it’s not viable to pay for another print run.  This maintains the availability of backlist titles.    For some traditional publishers, who tend to have huge backlists, individual title sales may be slow, but POD sales may be significant.  This idea merges well with all the discussions around “the Long Tail” for publishers.

POD and Inventory
Print on demand eliminates risk when analyzing "surge" titles that can be expected to have immediate and active sales but a short shelf-life.  Surge titles can be highly profitable but also highly risky because of the danger of over-printing more copies than can sell and the expense of excess inventory or pulping. POD empowers a publisher to jump into a surge title with managed risk by using inexpensive conventional printing for the first-run and then using POD to continue to make the title available, albeit at a higher cost which is passed to the consumer.

POD and Niche Titles
POD is often employed to offer "niche" books that have a high retail price but limited consumer demand, such as books on certain forms of art, academic topics, or research with a short expiration date but lengthy usability.