Very nice reading your information and helpful. We were on the verge of signing up with 1st Books. We have a 115 page business book and we know our target market and have plans on contacting them when the book is available. We wanted hardback and softcover as an option was fine. Anyway, back to 1st books - we wanted the books by April of this year and they were prepared, they said, to do this. However, before we signed away big bucks, we wanted to see a hardcover with dustcover that 1st Books had manufactured, to see the quality, of course. This they are not prepared to do unless we wait another 7 to 10 days for them to print one up on their POD system. This makes us very nervous. It seems fair to expect to see a sample of the merchandise before you send someone a check. How come they don't have some retired books around?

Anyhow, we are again looking for a publisher. We don't really care about e-books. We don't know anyone that uses them -- certainly not the clientele that will be ours. Ebooks are fine, but not a priority. 1st Books seem to be nice people, and trying hard (except for that request we have to wait 7-10 days for and thus will not meet our deadline of the 1st of April)., so we would love to have another suggestion. I have been surfing the web, trying to come up with someone good. We didn't like Trafford. We want Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble, and Ingram, but we are desperately open to suggestions and help. Anything you can tell us will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

P.S. I was impressed with BookLocker but they don't have a telephone number or location listed on their website, and I e-mailed them days ago.

Elisabeth Lehrer

Thanks for writing.

Regarding the 7-10 days for printing a hardback, that's actually not bad timing. I understand your point about having extra copies lying around but it sounds like they haven't made up a sample book. Since author's titles are printed on-demand, it is unlikely that they would have extra copies lying around. Every book they make is made for a specific order. To print authors' books and give them away would be outwit the bounds of their agreement with the authors. In addition, I think 1stBooks uses Lightning Source to do their printing, which probably means they rarely see a book in their offices - they are printed and fulfilled elsewhere.

Of course, if I were them, I would print a few copies of a public domain book in hardback and have them on hand for requests like yours... It is relatively expensive to print hardbacks on-demand, though ($12-16) and perhaps they felt they didn't want print a batch all at once, preferring to demonstrate the whole on-demand process when an author requests one.

This doesn't help you with your deadline, however.

I am not aware of any other company that produces hardbacks that could have the book done for you by April 1. I love the hardbacks Xlibris produces, but I don't think they could produce the book quickly enough for you. Is April a definite deadline?

I am always nervous when people want a book quickly. There is an old saying in the print-trade: You can have it done well, quickly, and cheaply. Pick Two.

Your options, it seems to me, are to:

1, Go with 1st Books and trust that you'll like the sample book. Xlibris offers a money-back satisfaction guarantee. Perhaps 1stBooks does the same (or perhaps you can dangle the Xlibris guarantee and get 1stBooks to extend one to you as a courtesy). This means you could be back to square one in a few weeks, but at least you would have your money back, to pursue another option.

2, Work with a small book packager to design and produce a short-run of books (500-1000) and use a print on-demand edition to mop up the rest of the sales, after the initial copies are sold. In this case you will have to obtain an ISBN, distribution, and online listings yourself (or with the help of your book packager). Smaller organizations tend to have a more one-to-one relationship with you. Customized services might suit you best if you have strong feelings about design elements, deadlines etc. You may be able to strike a deal with the packager to allow you to use the same cover art on your POD version, but make sure you check this out first.

This will not be an inexpensive route, but if you really, really need the book in April, it might be the best. Plus, your printing costs will be lower, per copy, allowing you to keep a larger chunk of change, as profit. Of course, your initial investment will be a lot higher, too.

3, Find another POD company that can produce hardbacks and rush you through the production schedule. I know Xlibris does, but I'm not sure if any others do.

I think you are going to be hard-pressed to get the book produced and listed with all the bookstores in time for an April launch, at this point, no matter who you go with.

Firstly, you have to allow time for a close reading of the galleys, to ensure that no errors have crept in, in the layout (and this can happen with the software more POD companies use. Italics often get dropped - it's a 'Microsoft vs. the world' font thing - and other inconsistencies can creep in). Then you have to allow time for those corrections to be made, and take another look at the corrected galleys (of both cover and interior).

Sending your information to all the necessary organizations is a relatively quick process, but it takes them a while to process the information. The online bookstores will probably be the first to get the books in to their systems, but bricks-and-mortar bookstores will probably have difficulty finding your book for some time. "Books In Print", the database that most bookstores use to find titles, only updates its listings every two months. The deadline for each update is a month before its release date. This means it can take up to four months for your listing to show up (worst case). Then the electronic updates are distributed, but not all bookstores subscribe to the electronic version of this, and the print edition is a quarterly publication. This means that people walking into bookstores may encounter problems ordering your book for many months. In traditional publishing this is not a problem because is takes so long to publish a book. The publishers send the information a year in advance with a publication date of some time in the future. The listing appears before the book is out, and everyone has their updated copies. Quickly-published books do not have that lead time. A big marketing push just after the release date, may not be the best option for books like these.

I don't mean to sound discouraging. I have just seen so many authors plan events around speculative events (when the company says your book will be ready, when someone estimates the online listings will go up, when your first order of books is supposed to arrive) and be disappointed. I wanted you to be aware of the realities of the bookselling world.

If you decide to push ahead with an April launch, make sure you are prepared to have readers order directly from 1stBooks or from the online stores. I would be tempted to wait until everything was complete and I had done a few test runs, ordering from various channels, before I 'launched' the book. Of course, business books are the one line of books that really does sell well in e-book. You may find that your readers are willing to download a $4 version of this relatively slim title, rather than paying more (plus shipping) to wait for a bound book. So this may help you out too. The e-book will be available as soon as you approve the book - no need to update distributors' databases or bookstore records.

If you are happy with 1stBooks so far, I'd recommend going with them, and being prepared to delay your launch plans if necessary. I don't think you would get better timing anywhere else.

I have met the owner of Booklocker and believe her to be honest and competent. I don't think, however, that Booklocker offers hardbacks. I could be wrong.

Hope this helps,

Julie