POD does seem like a good option for keeping things in print. SHIRTLIFTER #1 has been out of print for about a year, and I’ve thought about doing the same thing that Dave Sim has with Glamorpuss. But when retailers and fans don’t have the first one as an option to purchase, they’re less likely to order #2 or #3. So print is still important in terms of maintaining a backlist, which is why I’m going to do a second printing of SHIRLIFTER #1 in the new year.

It’s time for creators everywhere to celebrate. Very soon, we can see an end to the era that even Stan Lee cited as sorely lacking in newcomers to challenge the established giants, as he himself did with Kirby and Lee forty-five years earlier. The sooner that creators move to the ‘non-Diamond’ choice–POD or iReader–the sooner they can be unshackled from the oppressive chains of the Diamond Monopoly.

Robert Gavila

Lightning Source works from 600-dpi bitmaps, and outputs grayscale at 106 lpi. On paper, that’s not far at all from web offset.

In Japan, a lot of digitally produced manga is being toned and output at 600 dpi. This may seem way too low, but the screens used in programs like Comic Studio are optimized for that resolution; they don’t create moire patterns, and look great in print. (Ironically, since our books are not standard ISO size and we have to modify the pages, we upscale such files to 1200~2400 dpi with diffusion dither as not to affect quality.) If a comic were produced from the outset with consideration for POD specs, we wouldn’t see as much pixelation/moire problems, if any.

But when we talk about POD, it isn’t really just the quality of the product, but the whole distribution process, isn’t it? Even here, scale matters, just as it does in offset. A lot of doujinshi in Japan are produced on digital presses, look comparable to offset, and they have an economy where low-run books can be reasonably priced. So the POD model isn’t impossible, we just have hurdles that are exclusive to our situation. They are numerous, but not insurmountable. I will agree with you that POD will likely never replace offset for publishers, but it’s viability as a publishing platform for individuals has been steadily improving. I don’t think POD is running out of time. Rather, it may be publishers and distributors.

>Not with so many competing technologies and a move away from print, in general…

I think it’s important to make a distinction between books as a medium, and printing as a technology. The fate of books is very much up in the air, but there will still be a need for printing for a long time to come, so the technology will continue to improve.

The big POD vs. offset decision is really determined by scale of operations, as Chris said. Commitment to an indy project that is hand-distributed is a massive undertaking that usually doesn’t break even.

Think about it: If Sim can’t (or won’t) reissue Cerebus through a major offset printer, odds are it has to do with lack of demand.

So POD may not be superior quality, but for the small fish or for “vanity” projects, it may be the best bet.

They only make more if they sell more copies. If they sell exactly as many of the offset book as they have of the POD book, then they would’ve made $300 less going this offset route (not counting any costs to ship and store those thousands of extra books.)

This is not an insignificant difference in viewpoint. Many a new publisher (my self included, back in the day) sees the low marginal printing costs of offset printing, and sets a print run of their first publication way too high.

Print On Demand is, at best, a poor way of making money. But it can be an excellent way of avoiding losing money… with that difference becoming more pronounced when we start talking about color printing.

DriveThru Comics is preparing a POD service of its own, and what has really excited me about it, enough for me to take part in their trial (and it’s completely to satisfy my curiosity about output quality and optimizing images for POD; it has nothing to do with us ending our print magazine) is that they are partnering with Lightning Source for production, and LS actually seems to know how to handle hi-res graphics. Once I have a test print, expect a very close inspection…

Having said that, though, I’ll be moving to offset for my next printing. I want that higher quality, and I’ll just have to find room in my basement somehow. But I’m still very glad I chose to do a small POD order for my first print run. After having seen how quickly I moved 250 copies, I feel much more confident that I can sell 1000 copies now. Also, this was our first experience sending digital files to a printer, and we inevitably made a few small mistakes. Now we have a chance to fix ‘em! :-)

I don’t work for Amazon and don’t own any stock in the company. I just had a good experience with their POD and got a much, much better than expected product from their service. POD done right can be quite good.

I remember commercial printers that I worked with more than five years ago offering “digital offset” printing that came pretty close to their regular offset color printing; this wasn’t superpremium, Fortune 500 annual report level quality in either case, but still very reasonable. And while my design work in recent years has drifted away from the offset printing realm, I feel safe guessing that digital print quality has advanced further still.

As for print-on-demand, I did buy my first POD book recently, from Lulu, and I was generally impressed by the quality. Admittedly it was black and white, and the scanned art was rough due to a 300 dpi resolution limit… but since the type was perfectly crisp and sharp, I assume that the printing process itself is capable of better art quality and that there’s some other factor involved, which hopefully they sort out in the relatively near future.

Putting books together mini-comic style is a pain, but for the low print runs you’re talking, I’d hope the time stapling books would be trivial compared to the creation of the work itself.

Only if they know there’s even a difference. Are the Glamourpuss back issues being labeled as first and second prints, depending on source?

Great post! Lots of things to think about. I’d be curious to hear you talk about how this strategy works with/against the idea that the collection is the preferred long-term reprint method. Is POD just a temporary gap-filler until there are enough back issues to make a book?