Keith Grahams Wanderings: Rudy Rucker on POD Publishing

I have always thought that publishing your own book was a last resort. I have never gone the final mile to POD and self publishing on any of my collections because it would be admitting defeat. I felt that finding an audience without the distribution channels of a large publishing house would be impossible and I would never sell more than a few dozen books.

I may be wrong about POD (publish on demand).

I regularly read Rudy Rucker's blog and I think of him as one the writers on my Top Ten Science Fiction Writers list that I have yet to compile. It turns out that his Wares books are doing well and he can get them reprinted at a big house, his other books are more problematic. This is downright silly. He is a good writer and an excellent read. I have half a dozen books of his on my shelves and I have even paid for some his stories and lectures on tape.

It seems outrageous that Rudy Rucker would have to go the POD route, but Rudy writes:

"I’ve been thinking about options for making some of my out of print novels available again. There’s still some hope I can get a mainstream publisher to reissue the four books in my Ware series, but my other out of print books are more problematic. I’m thinking of Spacetime Donuts and The Sex Sphere in particular, and maybe eventually The Secret of Life, which is available only in ebook form."

The blog entry lists many of his options eBooks, LuLu, Lighting Source and Amazon BookSurge and Kindle. It would be cool if SamsDotPublishing.com could get Rudy to let them handle some of his books. J has published his books on Kindle and using Lighting Source and probably LuLu. Tyree pushes the SamsDot books relentlessly at the conventions and the editors at SamsDot are all just plain nice people. (I lurk on their discussion board.)

If Rudy Rucker can't get his books, and he has a name, then what chance is there for the rest of us. It looks like POD is not the last resort that I thought it was, but perhaps the only resort, even if you are writing Pro quality stuff.

It is time to start really working on my Indian Publishing Scheme.

Rudy’s Blog

2 Comments:

J Erwine said...: POD and self-publishing are not the same thing. A lot of small press publishers use POD because it's economically more feasible than printing a couple hundred copies of a book that might sell...or might not. So just because a book is listed as POD, it does not imply a lower quality.

As far as Tyree, drop him an e-mail early next week when he gets back from whatever con he's at...; 2:30 PM
Keith said...: J you are absolutely right. The assumption (at least in my mind when I was writing this post) is that I see POD being used as a Vanity press (with a capital V). Obviously if Rudy Rucker decides to use it, then I need to reexamine that assumption.

I would hope that you contact Rudy using a Nomadic Delirium Press email and impress him with advantages of going with a small but enthusiastic publishing house.

I'll take the Tyree mention out of the post. My wife hates it when I am passive-aggressive. It is one of my many character flaws. Tyree will get to me in his own sweet time. He always seems insanely busy. The story was not a strong one anyway: it was left over from when I was writing lots of bad flash stories, trying to work out some themes.; 3:20 PM

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