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Richard Curtis, literary agent and founder of E-Reads, the independent ebook publisher, recently posted an article on Digital Book World about print on demand. He was subsequently interviewed about it by GoodeReader.

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“E-Reads has been using Lightning Source for its POD services since we began in 2000. LSI is the biggest in the industry, perhaps in the world, in print-on-demand. Because they are a division of Ingram, a book distribution company that has very successfully made the transition from a company that serviced print publishers to a company that now services the digital book industry, we feel that there are advantages to being with LSI that you simply cannot get with any other POD publisher. Among other things, their core source service enables us to reach indie bookstores, a great many of which we could not otherwise reach.”

One aspect of POD that Curtis mentioned in his recent blog post is the prohibitive cost per book when comparing a typical print run of a trade paperback with the cost of printing one title at a time per customer request. Lightning Source has countered that cost in a deal with EPAC, one of the largest POD suppliers in Germany.

“From speaking to executives at LSI and asking if there is any possibility in the future that the costs of producing PODs might come down, they have told me that there are developments that they cannot currently discuss that make them hopeful that the prices will come down.”

But why such a keen interest in print-on-demand? Isn’t the point of digital publishing and the surge in popularity of e-reading related to all the negative things that digital has stripped away, like eliminating paper and ink costs, shipping costs, and wait times to receive new books?

“Many authors want their books available in paper and many readers still want to read books in paper even though they are available in digital format. I’m considered somewhat of a trailblazer in the digital world but I still much prefer to hold a printed book in my hand than to read one on a screen. Even though POD used to represent about 50% of our income in the days when there were no Kindles or Nooks or viable digital readers, POD now represents about 8% of E-Reads revenue, the rest being from digital. Even though POD books are very expensive compared to those printed in the traditional way. A book that might have been $12 to $15 in a traditional print run might cost $20 as a POD, but people are willing to pay it.”

While POD might be a smart move for the indie authors and a certain demographic of readers, whether the publishing industry as a whole will adopt POD as a viable solution remains to be seen.

“I think the industry is being forced into it. The closing of Borders and of so many independent bookstores, the reduction of floor space in bookstore chains like Barnes&Noble, all point to a reduction to the space available to deliver printed books to the consumer on the street. This same segment of the population is going to have to turn to POD. The publishing industry for the last 100 years has distributed its books on a returnable basis. At the beginning of the industry 5-10% of books were returned; now we’re up to as much as 50% of books being returned by bookstores. It’s no longer possible for publishers to sustain 50% returns when POD is an alternative.

“My vision for POD is kind of the Espresso vision, where the Espresso Book Machine will come down in size and complexity to where it will be truly closer to desktop than refrigerator sized. When that happens, you’ll see bookstores with kiosks with thousands of books displayed where you can choose one, but they’re not on a bookshelf, they’re on a screen. You can browse electronically, pick one out, and have a cup of coffee while it prints. It may not be in the immediate future, but I would say within the next ten years you will be able to go into a space and print the book you want. Right now, you have that by simply going on Amazon, but if you prefer the experience of going into a store and browsing for a book that looks interesting, you will see that model evolving. And when someone predicts 10 years, it’s usually five.”

Print-On-Demand: The Future of Publishing? A Talk with Richard Curtis
By Mercy Pilkington

E-Reads has signed a deal with UK publisher Gollancz to publish e-book editions in the UK and Commonwealth of almost 400 science fiction and fantasy titles as part of Gollancz’s Gateway initiative.

Orion deputy CEO and publisher Malcolm Edwards and Gollancz digital publisher Darren Nash negotiated the deal, which includes works by more than 50 authors, with E-Reads founder and president Richard Curtis and agent Danny Baror of Baror International. Titles by authors such as Greg Bear, Harlan Ellison, James Gunn, Fritz Leiber and George Zebrowski will be published in Gateway editions in 2011.

Deputy CEO and publisher Malcolm Edwards said: “Richard Curtis has been a pioneering figure in e-book publishing in the USA, and E-Reads has acquired rights in a lot of books which were on our wish list for Gateway. I’m therefore delighted that we’ve managed to persuade Richard that we’re able to offer a persuasive plan for selling them in our markets.”

Curtis said: “Though E-Reads has been distributing its e-books in the UK, we felt that our authors would be better served having a British publisher take charge of sales and marketing. And what better publisher than Gollancz, whose amazing fantasy and science fiction list is a perfect fit for our own?”

Gollancz’s Gateway project launched earlier this month, making more than 1,000 titles by authors including Philip K Dick and Arthur C Clarke available as e-books through all major e-retailers.

Responding to input both from readers and authors, E-Reads has cut list prices for a wide range of selected e-book titles.  Many novels previously priced at $9.99 have been slashed as low as $2.99.  All nonfiction, previously priced at $12.99, will now list at $9.99 or lower.

“After surveying readers and authors and studying creative pricing strategies developed by independent authors, we felt that a drop in price per unit would be balanced by a rise in volume,” said E-Reads CEO Richard Curtis. “The move seems to have worked, as our volume has already risen 10% in the month since the changes took hold. We will continue reviewing and adjusting prices as the market demands.”

E-Reads, founded in 2000, is a leading independent reprinter of previously published books. Its e-books are sold worldwide in the English language at the Kindle, Nook, Sony, Apple, Diesel, Kobo and other retail and library websites, and trade paperbacks at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Apropos of our recent posting The Real Kindle Killer…

Richard Curtis did not just witness the evolution of the publishing industry from print to digital, he had a significant hand in shaping it.  In a Digital Book World interview conducted by Rich Fahle, the agent and e-book publisher candidly discusses his role. The video may be seen below or on DBW’s website.

From the interview:

“Agents find themselves more and more providing services they never needed to render in the past: cover approval, correcting cover copy, editing, spellchecking authors’ manuscripts, marketing and other tasks that should be the publisher’s, but publishers either can’t or won’t do some of these things. They keep pushing the burden of responsibility back on the author. And if the author can’t do it or is helpless or doesn’t want to, the agent has to do it…

Mr. Curtis said he expects to eventually see product placement in digital books that will generate ads for e-books. “If you see a link in a novel to a product being advertised, you’re generating synergy between the content and the advertiser. It will be the same principle as product placement in movies and television,” he said.
(Richard Curtis, New York literary agent and digital book publisher, commenting in the Wall Street Journal on Amazon’s introduction of a Kindle carrying advertising.)

Product placement in novels? Hmm, just how would that work….?

Donna applied one last dab of lipstick and critically appraised her makeup in the magnifying mirror on her vanity table.  She frowned as the  image revealed the merest hint of a wrinkle on her brow. Tonight she had to be perfect: she’d been casually dating Todd for three weeks but she knew that tonight he was going to make his move. For the third time in five minutes she peered out of her bedroom window searching the street for his familiar car with the dented right fender. From the moment she’s set eyes on his face she’d wondered what it would be like to kiss that sensuous mouth…

Richard Curtis

Agent and E-Reads publisher Richard Curtis was interviewed by Gatekeepers Post publisher Jeff Rivera. The two industry leaders explored the emergence of a corps of gatekeepers that is very far from the establishment elite that we grew up with.

You can listen to the podcast here.

You can also read Richard Curtis’s posting about Gatekeepers here . ************************************

The Gatekeepers Post is the leading social media book publishing community on the web Richard Curtis is probably one of the most respected people in the book publishing industry. He’s incredibly smart, wise and a true visionary who foresaw the eBook revolution years before the masses. In today’s audio interview with the veteran literary agent and Publisher of E-eads, he discusses with us the true pros and cons authors need to keep in mind when they are deciding between publishing directly or publishing with an e-book publisher such as his company. If you’re about to load your book on Kindle yourself, you might give serious thought to listening to this interview first.

Another prominent e-book publisher, Smashwords’ Mark Coker, has checked in with Galley Cat’s Jeff Rivera with ten predictions for the coming year. Here are the headlines.

1.Ebook sales rise, unit consumption surprises

2. Agents write the next chapter of the ebook revolution

3. More big authors reluctant to part with digital rights

4. Self Publishing goes from option of last resort to option of first resort among unpublished authors

5. Big 6 publishers increase ebook royalties

6. Ebook prices to fall

7. The customer is king- Readers will decide which books become hits, not publishers.

8. International ebook market explodes, causing publishers to rethink territory rights restrictions

9. Discoverability becomes HOT

10. Big 6 publishers refuse to abandon DRM

For the juicy details check out Galley Cat: Predictions for 2011 from Smashwords Founder

And compare Coker’s to those of E-Reads founder Richard Curtis.

As he did last year, Galley Cat‘s Jeff Rivera invited literary agent and E-Reads’ President Richard Curtis to make some predictions in the book and e-book industry for the coming year. He produced ten, and here’s one that will raise a few eyebrows:

The Big Six publishers will raise their current royalty rate over the standard 25% they currently offer.

To read all ten, visit Publishing Predictions for 2011 from Richard Curtis

“Enhanced e-books” was one of the most overused catchphrases in 2010. Publishers stampeded to load up conventional e-books with all manner of enhancements ranging from author out-takes to big-name intros to film and video clips. The idea was to justify boosting the price of their souped-up e-books.

Some of these products were interesting, entertaining and attractive, But were they worth those extra bucks? Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg of the Wall Street Journal asked that very question in Testing Enhanced E-Books.

Ana Maria Allessi, publisher of HarperMedia, says definitely yes. “When both digital editions are available, and consumers are given the choice, in half the cases they’ll pay more for extra content,” she says. Sourcebooks’ publisher Dominique Racca thinks so too: “I can imagine a product where you multiply by 100 percent because it has so much more value than the non-enhanced editions.”

But a very different view was expressed by Tony Woodlief, oddly enough in the Wall Street Journal too. He had a one word explanation for why most enhanced e-books will flop.  Click here if you’d like to learn what it is.

And if you’d like to hear it expressed poetically…

Publishers expressed enchantment
With the notion of enhancement.
Audio, video, music, flix,
Bangles, baubles, Bar Mitzvah pix.
A tune or two was all it took
To constitute a mobile vook.
They tossed in every kind of crap
And designated it an app.*

Richard Curtis

* From 2010 (The App) by Richard Curtis with permission of Publishers Weekly, PWxyz, (c) 2010 Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by The Wall Street Journal.