Print-on-Demand

What is POD?

Print-on-demand enables you and others in the bookselling industry to order books that are printed as needed. It achieves several goals easily, immediately and without a large and risky investment:

1. Gets your book onto a distribution network of over 39,000 retailers, libraries, schools, internet commerce companies in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, the UK and Europe
2. Enables you to print small runs (eg. 1–200)
3. Eliminates the need to inventory large numbers of books that you aren’t sure to sell

How does it work?

Australian eBook Publisher will design your book for print and make all print on demand (POD) arrangements with your POD supplier. Eg. Amazon or IngramSpark/Lightning Source. Once we have your print-ready book files we submit them to your POD supplier. The supplier charges you a fee for each individual book submitted. Some of them charge annual fees to keep your book on their server.

Having your book set up with POD means you can have your books printed and shipped as needed, usually within 2–4 weeks from the eproof approval date.

Book layout and design

Please visit our book design page for more details about our top quality book typesetting services. If you're looking for the best book designers in Australia, contact us.

Cover
You can choose from hardcover and paperback

Book size (also known as trim size)
We can design books at any size. Print on demand suppliers offer dozens of options in paper size. With novels and memoirs, we often work with books sized at B format (197mm x 129mm), a common paperback size. If you have a specific book size in mind please let us know. We will check the availability of your specifications with your preferred POD supplier.

Paper
You can choose to have a white or beige interior page colour. Look at your favourite books to find out what you prefer. Note: some book sizes impose limits on paper type. It's best to contact us for a quote.

Colour
Choose from black and white or colour interiors. Note: as POD is printed digitally, you will be able to see (upon very close inspection) the dotted print matrix. This is slightly more noticeable with greyscale images and text as they only print with black ink, so in order to create gradients they have to use a technique called ‘halftones’.

Binding
Choose from:
Saddle stitch, perfect bound, case laminate (hardcover) and cloth binding (note: not all binding types are available for different page lengths and sizes. Please let us know your preferred binding and we will see if your POD supplier allows it).

Ordering a new print run

Once we have established your POD book(s) on a printer's server, you can order books yourself by logging in. Please allow 2–4 weeks for delivery.

Distribution

There are two types of print on demand project and we are flexible enough to work within your needs and budget.

1. Print on Demand WITHOUT distribution

2. Print On Demand WITH distribution

How much will I get paid?

This depends on so many factors that we are not able to give an answer here. For example, your RRP, the printing and shipping cost, the country and currency of the sale, and the discount offered by our POD supplier to retailers, to name a few.

Your Book on Vendors

Once we have loaded your book to POD and approve it for distribution it can take anywhere from 2–6 weeks to display your book on the distribution partners.

We like to warn customers that it is the distribution partner’s right to display the book however they like using the information we have provided. This may include not displaying the cover, or displaying the RRP differently to how it was supplied.

Read More on Our Blog

• Print on Demand VS Printing Offset—Pros and Cons
• How to self-publish a book
• Why does my print-on-demand book on Amazon say 'temporarily out of stock'?
• Is it an editor's responsibility to ensure your book will be saleable to book stores?

If you would like a quote for your book design and POD project please contact us with the details. You’re welcome to use our Quote Request Form.