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Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The POD Shimmy

Got the POD shimmy yesterday at a chain bookstore. You know the look. I am sorry we are not carrying your book...it is a POD book. Usually some low level manager who stares at all authors as if they just self published after reading the book yesterday. My book is not POD. It is traditional as bread. POD is an order driven system where books are produced by demand. Traditional is you print the books before hand. To make it more confusing many publishers back up their print runs with POD tech. So back to my man at the store.

Well my book is not POD could you check again. The man with the name tag stared at his computer. No. This is a POD book. By now he wants to be done with the pesky author. Look. My books were with Random House. This book is with a different press. Surely you can see that there are books in the warehouse. Noooo. I am sorry sir. But there is nothing I can do. And so we continued our POD shimmy. He behind a desk. Me in that sea of books.

Now look. I know you can do this. I am local. I have an interview coming up. I want to do a signing. And we shimmied on. Because the deal is POD books have no chance in bookstores. This is something most publishers wont tell their authors but the brutal truth is most books die because they never see the light of day. They never get seen by the consumer. Unless those books are sitting in a warehouse and a buyer makes the call and stocks them...then the author has no chance.

No. I am sorry sir. This is definitely a POD book. I could see our dance was at a standstill. We shook hands in mutual hate and I left the floor. I called up another store of the same chain in Chicago from the car. Of course we have your book! Would you like us to hold it for you? I thanked the girl and hung up. Sometimes you just want to know you still have it.

The Pitcher....sometimes a dream is all you have



 

Books by William Hazelgrove