What is a POD Publisher?
A POD Publisher is a publisher who publishes books strictly on an as needed basis using a POD printer. They carry no inventory and sell on an as needed basis. While a handful of legitimate POD publishers do exist, most POD publishers are Vanity Press Publishers who charge authors a premium to publish their book.
Print on demand (POD), sometimes called publish on demand, is a printing technology and business process in which new copies of a book (or other document) are not printed until an order has been received. “Print on Demand” developed only after digital printing began, because it was not economical to print single copies using traditional printing technology such as letterpress and offset printing. Many traditional small presses have replaced their traditional printing equipment with POD equipment or contract their printing out to POD service providers. Many academic publishers, including university presses, use POD services to maintain a large backlist; some even use POD for all of their publications. Larger publishers may use POD in special circumstances, such as reprinting older titles that had been out of print or doing test marketing.
