A print-on-demand service *is* a publisher… just one that’s geared towards printing a small number of copies of many different books.
I take it you mean a publisher who pays you, and puts some effort into marketing the book, and gets it into bookshops? If that’s what you want, then no, print-on-demand is not the way to get it. Nobody from HarperCollins or Random House is trawling Lulu, looking for the next big thing. Publishers receive hundreds or thousands of manuscripts every month. They publish about 1% of them, but that’s enough to keep the business going and make a respectable profit. They have no need to look anywhere else for the next new author.
Print-on-demand companies will print anything, which means that most of it is really, really bad. You might find the odd gem, but it’s not worth the bother of sifting through all the crap for it.
Having said that, I’ve heard that if you can sell 2000 copies of a self-published or print-on-demand book, you can use that fact to attract the attention of a traditional publisher. Before you whip out your credit card, bear in mind that the average self-published novel sells about 40 copies, mainly to the author’s friends and family. If you can write a book that’s good enough to sell 2000 copies, despite not being available in bookshops, AND you have the marketing skills to sell those 2000 copies yourself, you almost certainly have the skills to write a query letter and synopsis that will make an agent or editor sign you up before you have to sell any copies.
A print-on-demand service *is* a publisher… just one that’s geared towards printing a small number of copies of many different books.
I take it you mean a publisher who pays you, and puts some effort into marketing the book, and gets it into bookshops? If that’s what you want, then no, print-on-demand is not the way to get it. Nobody from HarperCollins or Random House is trawling Lulu, looking for the next big thing. Publishers receive hundreds or thousands of manuscripts every month. They publish about 1% of them, but that’s enough to keep the business going and make a respectable profit. They have no need to look anywhere else for the next new author.
Print-on-demand companies will print anything, which means that most of it is really, really bad. You might find the odd gem, but it’s not worth the bother of sifting through all the crap for it.
Having said that, I’ve heard that if you can sell 2000 copies of a self-published or print-on-demand book, you can use that fact to attract the attention of a traditional publisher. Before you whip out your credit card, bear in mind that the average self-published novel sells about 40 copies, mainly to the author’s friends and family. If you can write a book that’s good enough to sell 2000 copies, despite not being available in bookshops, AND you have the marketing skills to sell those 2000 copies yourself, you almost certainly have the skills to write a query letter and synopsis that will make an agent or editor sign you up before you have to sell any copies.
No.
The likelihood is infinitesimally small.
~Dr. B.~
It would be easier if you just look for a publisher and send them your book proposal.