Reviews!
Two great reviews for Irreconcilable Differences!
In chronological order, first, Jeff Duntemann summarized his review with "In short, highly recommended.". Much appreciated. I'm a fan of Jeff's work as well, as you may see from my review of his Souls in Silicon. I honestly thought I'd mentioned that review before now in this weblog.
Most recently, Michael S. Sargent called Irreconcilable Differences A First-Rate Story & A Glimpse Into The Future Of A Genre Yow. High praise indeed. :) Mike's an old and dear friend, and the review is much appreciated. :)
-JRS
4 comments:
Border's Books in NYC did not stock the book. I ordered it and should have in a few days.
The clerk indicated it's a print on demand publisher. As a writer just entering the market with several submissions pending and a novel in the works, I'm curious about your decision to use print on demand.
Looking forward to reading Irreconciable Differences this wekend
Flying Pen Press uses Lightning Source for manufacturing its books on an as-needed basis. Thus, technically the books are printed on demand. The front end of FPP is very traditional, however - I submit to a submissions editor, who recommends for or against my work to the publisher, who (if he accepts the book) hands it off to another editor, cover artist(s), typesetters, etc. FPP is a small press, so manufacture on demand makes the most economic sense for them.
However, if I read your question right, you're asking about self publishing, which the PoD industry is strongly associated with. Unfortunately I don't know anything about it, except that a great many self-published books are of remarkably poor quality. I know from experience that it's easy to overlook editorial failures that an outside editor will catch immediately.
Bearing in mind that I've never self-published, if that's the route you chose to take, I'd strongly urge you to hire a professional editor. My editor, Scott Humphries, also freelances. His website is here: http://www.scotthumphries.com/.
Hope this answers your questions, and thanks! Hope you enjoy Irreconcilable Differences. :)
-JRS
I'm not really interested in self-publishing, was just curious about the benefits of print on demand.
Thanks for the editor's link. I will definitely reach out to him regarding my short fiction.
Ahh. Well, the biggest advantages of print-on-demand are that the publisher need not warehouse several thousand copies of the book. They're manufactured as they are ordered. This reduces the publisher's risk dramatically. It does complicate things in terms of the contract, since you now have to contract for a length of time rather than a print run. Apparently some less scrupulous publishers are using this to allow them to keep rights to a book forever, since if it's POD they can say it's in print forever.
So PoD is not without complications, but if you look at your average bookstore at all the Trade Paperback formatted books, there's a good chance some of them were printed on demand rather than bulk printed. If you pick up the book and smell it, and it smells like a copy machine, then odds are very good that's how it was made, since PoD books are basically laser printed rather than web press printed. Clearly, the wave of the future.
-JRS
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