Business: Ideas to Market
Source: New york times
Got a Book in You? More Companies Than Ever Are Willing to Get It Out
By GAYLE FELDMAN
Published: March 1, 2004
ince September, the nation's second-largest bookseller, Borders Group, has quietly been conducting an experiment in six Philadelphia-area stores, not as a bookseller, but as a publisher.
"It's easy to publish your own book!" the "Borders Personal Publishing" leaflets proclaim. Pay $4.99. Take home a kit. Send in your manuscript and $199. A month or so later, presto. Ten paperback copies of your novel, memoir or cookbook arrive.
Advertisement
Fork over $499, and you can get the upscale "Professional Publication" option. Your book gets an International Standard Book Number, publishing's equivalent of an ID number and is made available on Borders.com, and the Philadelphia store makes space on its shelves for five copies.
Borders is the latest traditional bookseller or publisher to branch into self-publishing using print-on-demand or P.O.D. technology. P.O.D., inheritor of the vanity press and survivor of the dot-com implosion, makes it feasible - technologically and economically - to produce one copy of a book.
Unlike e-books, which also appeared in the late 1990's, P.O.D. self-publishing has developed into a real business, attracting involvement from the likes of Random House, Barnes & Noble and now Borders.
"We wanted to learn about the market," said Phil Ollila, Borders's vice president for book marketing, in explaining the chain's experiment. The company approached Xlibris, based in Philadelphia, one of the big three of P.O.D. self-publishing, together with 1stBooks and iUniverse, all formed in the late 1990's. Xlibris is 49 percent owned by Random House Ventures; 1stBooks, based in Bloomington, Ind., is privately held. Barnes & Noble owns 25 percent of iUniverse, based in Lincoln, Neb., and Warburg Pincus holds the other 75 percent.
These more established publishing businesses decided to invest in P.O.D. to diversify and expand their role. "There was the farm team idea - could we find authors?" said Richard Sarnoff, the president of Random House Ventures. "As niches get smaller, is it a model for the future?"
Steve Riggio, the chief executive of Barnes & Noble, said, "Self-publishing, previously viewed as a means of last resort, is increasingly seen as a first step."
For the rest of the story click on the link provided...