In Kolkata. Image – Getty: Dibakar Roy
By Arpita Das | @arpitayodapress
‘Ultimately Print on Demand Is Winning’
A couple of years before we headed into the first pandemic lockdown in India (25 March to 31 may 2020), my colleagues and I took tentative steps toward putting our backlist on PoD (print on demand).We tied up with a local PoD platform run by friends whom we trusted and started sending them the files for our backlist titles. They could then service orders for these titles that came in through their own online presence or larger ones like Amazon.com.
Arpita Das
We made this decision because as a small, independent press, we were finding ourselves low on resources that would have allowed us to do multiple reprints of popular backlist titles. We also felt the need to prioritize new books for offset printing. The added benefit was that once we made a title available through PoD, it technically would never be out-of-print, which is exactly what we wanted for our popular backlist titles.
Once the pandemic lockdown trapped us in our homes—and everything and everyone moved to remote working for some time—all publishing work came to a resounding standstill. However, in late 2020, the market picked up again, even though everyone was largely still at home, and there was almost no brick-and-mortar market to speak of. Readers might remember that this was the time when we first saw a significant spike in ebook sales. Accompanying this interesting new spike was another one: a spike in the demand for “classics” and books in every genre that were considered “iconic” by Millennials and also by the new-kids-on-the-block, Gen Z readers.
This meant a spike in backlist titles for almost all publishers who had managed to survive the initial lockdown. In our tiny remote publishing office, where one hardly ever gets a lucky break, we found that we had done absolutely the right thing by putting most of our backlist on PoD by then. Our partners were now able to service orders for these titles seamlessly and more quickly than ever before.
“We found that we had done absolutely the right thing by putting most of our backlist on PoD.”Arpita Das
Just as things seemed to be returning to some semblance of normalcy, Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Because of the war, fuel costs skyrocketed, leading to the domino effect of transport becoming more expensive, which, in turn, raised the cost of deliveries, including those of paper for printing as well as printed books. All of this made the price of printing go up alarmingly at a time when the entire industry had spent a couple of months firefighting. This, in turn, made many of us small publishers— and yes, many large ones too—take recourse to a solution that had already helped us in the past couple of years: PoD, this time for new titles as well.
Not only did we not have to reckon with increasing printing costs, but PoD also took away printing costs entirely from the equation.
The added benefits? Many of us were struggling with storage options at the time with old office premises having closed, and larger establishments were opting for smaller spaces, and so on. PoD meant we had to worry less about warehousing for our new stocks. Who we spoke to in the industry at the time said that PoD was saving their lives.
We also noticed, however, that many publishing folks were avoiding telling their authors about this, since the general feeling was that authors would not understand, or that authors would want stocks of printed books to be available regardless of the problems the industry was facing.
Looking Back Three Years
Three years on, I decided to write this column, as I wondered if anything had changed in terms of the growing popularity of PoD in India. A market research report by Pune-based Straits Research based in Pune, a city in western India’s Maharashtra, recently stated that the print on demand market in India “is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 27.8 percent during the forecast period (2023-2031).” To give you the gist of the report, they based it not just on the obvious fact of the exploding population in India (overtaking China as the world’s most populous country in 2023), but also on the rise in India’s middle-class population, set to exceed 200 million this year, according to the report, although other articles suggested it was as high as 450 million in 2020-21.
In other words, a higher disposable income which, in turn, means higher purchasing power. Combine this with increased Internet usage and smartphone use, and you end up with more online buying and e-commerce expansion. Thus, print on demand. The reader would do well to keep in mind that “books and reading material” was only one of eight product categories in the report, and these must have fallen by the wayside in terms of importance when compared to other products such as apparel and decor and babies’ and kids’ items.
At this point, I wondered if the tone was as bullish for the PoD market in my own industry, or rather in that of our sister-industry, printing.
In an insightful December 2024 article by the trade journal PrintWeek, Bindwel’s managing director P. Sajith listed all his industry was doing to gear up for the “ever-increasing demand for short-run book printing.” The article mentioned that short runs of 50 to 1,000 copies and micro-runs of fewer than 50 copies were becoming normal.
To add to the optimism, I found any number of Instagram stories and LinkedIn posts giving tips on “Things to Know for Print on Demand Publishing.” After all, the rise of the behemoth called self-publishing in India since around 2014 also owed itself to the availability of digital printing, the very innovation that had made PoD a possibility.
A Skidding Stop
I came to a skidding stop on my rollercoaster ride toward PoD heaven, however, when I started speaking to fellow publishers.
“When my colleague had a chat with the printers we generally work with to see what their perspective was on the matter, we realized that ultimately PoD is winning.”Arpita Das
The publishing head of a reputed independent firm with deep pockets said that even though they had books on PoD, they faced resistance from agents who “usually wanted an assurance that having the book up only on PoD does not count as being in print.”
Except it does. As long as files are available with distribution platforms, it actually does mean that the books are in print in perpetuity.
As a matter of fact, even bookstores are waking up to this. A wonderful neighborhood bookstore in Mumbai, for instance, gets in touch directly with one of our PoD providers every time they want to re-order our titles. Exactly in the same way that retailers order printed titles from stocking distributors.
Another veteran publisher told me that they only used PoD for small quantities but never did a single-copy model as it didn’t work for them “in terms of economics.” When I prodded them for more, they explained that it was because PoD made the cover price go up and this was difficult, given that the standard (high) discount—sometimes 50 to 60 percent—remains in place when it comes to distribution in the Indian industry. They firmly pointed out, however, in response to authors and agents who look askance at PoD, that printing small quantities “does mean the book is in print.”
Another small publisher who mostly publishes picture books understandably demurred when asked about PoD because it simply does not work for 4-color picture books; the unit cost of a single copy works out to almost 10 times the unit cost of an offset print in such a case. The head of one of our largest independent houses added that they used PoD “only for backlist titles.” Others agreed. They were also quick to add that this was an arrangement authors were generally happy with.
When my colleague had a chat with the printers we generally work with to see what their perspective was on the matter, we realized that ultimately PoD is winning.
A small family-run printing enterprise we had worked with for almost a decade—which was always marvelous with offset printing and old-fashioned binding—was now investing heavily in digital printers and offering PoD services.
On the other hand, a large printing establishment we go to for our four-color work stopped digital printing for a while and decided to invest more in offset printing. However, an interesting thing happened. Their revenues fell when they made this decision, and they had to restart digital printing and print-on-demand services to make sure they were back on track financially.
In conclusion, PoD is certainly here to stay, and everyone seems to be using it in one way or another. In order for it to be used more extensively and less shamefacedly, perhaps we need to talk more about it to authors and agents? It’s indeed vital, in my opinion, to make them see that this is perhaps one of the most eco-friendly, and power- and space-saving ways to keep their books in circulation—and also a viable way for independent and diverse publishing to thrive.
Join us for Arpita Das’ columns to come. More coverage of her work from Publishing Perspectives is here. Arpita Das’ opinions are her own, of course, and not necessarily reflective of those of Publishing Perspectives.