About Us \  Services & Prices  \  Shopping Cart \  Affiliates  \   Authors Only  \  Contact Us
 

How Will Ingram’s New Stocking Policy Change POD?

By Deborah Greenspan

May 2005: When I started publishing POD books, I saw this digital process as a lifeline for writers.  As a writer myself, I’d learned the hard way how indifferent major publishers are to unknowns.  Even if you could get a foot in the door (which after fifteen years I finally was able to do); even if they liked your book and put it under review; even if it was a great book, it could still get lost in the shuffle.  And nine months later you could still get a letter saying it was “too similar to something else on their list,” which, by the way, it wasn’t. 

Completely demoralized, I decided I’d waited long enough for someone in NY to give me permission to be a published writer and I began exploring self publishing options. That’s when I discovered POD and decided to dedicate myself to helping writers instead of exploiting them as so many POD publishers seem to have been set up to do. My plan was to make sure that books published under Llumina were edited and well written. That way, we’d establish a good reputation in the industry and overcome the stigma of self-publishing.

At first glance, and even second and third, POD looked like a godsend.  Ingram provided distribution and our books could be purchased through just about any bookseller in the world.  Or so I thought. It was never mentioned anywhere, but there were serious limitations to the distribution system. The problem was that Ingram’s systems were not created for POD.  The way it worked was: Ingram got a new POD title and then printed one or two copies to put in their warehouse(s). If orders came in, then Ingram would print more. The trouble, which began showing its face to me about a year after I’d started publishing,  was two-fold. 

First, when those two original books were sold, they weren’t replaced unless there was a demand.  And until the books were in the warehouse, the title would come up on Ingram’s systems as “unavailable.” Now, imagine  you’re an author trying to get a bookstore to stock your book.  They buyer looks it up on Ingram’s iPage and it comes up as unavailable, or you do a radio show and send people to Amazon to get the book. It comes up as taking 4 to 6 weeks for delivery.  They called it Print on Demand because the books wouldn’t be printed unless there was a “demand.” But a “demand” is in fact, an order. And rarely would orders be placed if there was no stock.  True demand, under this system, was rarely met. 

When I discovered this, I went into a deep depression. I wrote the CEO of Ingram and asked what they were going to do to correct this catch-22.  I was told that booksellers only had to backorder and all would be well.  Lacking anything else to say, I explained this to my authors: “Tell booksellers that they have to backorder the books.”  Few booksellers would do that and this became a new source of frustration. Later on, I discovered that some booksellers, like Barnes & Noble, weren’t even allowed to backorder. Their systems are set up to kick out any order if there isn’t enough stock in the warehouse to fill it. So, in essence, what Ingram had sold us was a system that required booksellers to backorder, but the largest booksellers were unable to do so.

Well, all that has changed at last.  Because LSI is now able to handle the demand, and really can print an order within 24 hours, Ingram finally seems to be making good on the promise of POD. Their new stocking policy shows a virtual inventory of at least 100 on POD books.  So now POD orders won’t get kicked out of the system and the books will come up as available. Will it work or is there another hidden catch in the works? I am confident it will; although, given Ingram’s track record, I do have some reservations.

Copyright 2000 Media Creations Inc.