Prints, Posters

Print on demand or publish on demand (POD) is a publishing methodology in which a copy is not created until after an order is received. more...

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While POD may use any printing technology, such as linocut or Gutenberg letter press, digital printing is so often employed that the terms are often used interchangeably. To add to the confusion, Print on Demand is also a trademark of Cygnus Business Media, Inc. POD is often associated with self-publishing and vanity presses, but contrary to popular belief, POD is not exclusively a self-publishing business model: many traditional small presses have replaced their traditional printing equipment with POD equipment or contract their printing out to POD service providers, and many university presses and other academic publishers use POD services to maintain a large backlist.

Book publishing through POD

Print on demand with digital technology is used as a way of publishing books for a fixed cost per copy, irrespective of the size of the order. While the unit price of each physical book printed is higher than with offset printing, when setup costs are taken into account digital print on demand provides lower per unit costs for very small print runs than traditional printing methods.

While the unit cost of a book or print produced using POD is usually higher than one produced as part of a longer print run, POD does bring some key business benefits: 1) large inventories of the book or poster do not need to be kept in stock, 2) the technical set-up is usually quicker and less expensive than for traditional printing and 3) there is little or no waste from unsold products. These advantages reduce the risks associated with publishing books and prints and can lead to increased choice for consumers. However, the reduced risks can also mean that quality control is less rigorous than usual.

Other publishing through POD

Digital technology is ideally suited to publish small print runs of posters (often as a single copy) as and when they are needed. The introduction of UV-curable inks and media for large format inkjet printers has allowed artists, photographers and owners of image collections to take advantage of print on demand. The National Gallery, London installed a print on demand system using HP printers and technology in their shop in July 2003. The system increased the number of images available as prints from 60 to 2,500 (almost all of the gallery's permanent collection).

POD service providers

The invention of POD led directly to a new category of publisher that offers services directly to authors who wish to self-publish, usually for a fee. These services generally include printing a book each time one is ordered, handling royalties and getting listings in online bookstores. In comparison with self-publishing that uses print runs, this fee is likely to be less. Print-on-demand services offered by these providers generally do not include mastering, formatting, editing beyond running a spell checking program, or extensive publicity campaigns. Those POD service providers who do not charge authors a fee differ from small presses in the above ways and by having much lower quality standards for accepting books than traditional publishers.

Read more at Wikipedia.org