While podcasting author David Bowles this morning, I asked him how he published his book, Spring House. He said he started his own publishing company and decided on offset printing rather than POD publishing. When I asked him why, he said, “Because you can’t sell fish from an empty wheelbarrow.”

What a great way to explain the difference between self-publishing and POD publishing. (Don’t get me wrong here, POD publishing is a good model for some authors, but the purpose of this post is to explain the difference between POD publishing and self-publishing.) Essentially, POD publishing and Self-Publishing are the same “fish,” but the big difference is that when you POD publish, books are not printed until you sell a book. That’s why it is called Print-On-Demand. This is what Mr. Bowles meant when he said you can’t sell fish from an empty wheelbarrow.

David has a fifth-wheel trailer he pulls behind his pick-up and he has his book title and phone number and other information advertised on the outside. When he pulls into a RV park, people often come up to him and ask to buy his book. If he didn’t have a ready inventory, he would lose sales.

The great advantage of POD publishing is that the author does not need to spend a lot of money on inventory. This is why you can find many ads on Google prompting you to “Self-Publish for Free!” While I strongly believe in having a small inventory of books so authors can focus their limited dollars on book promotion, I’m not a big fan of POD publishing for the simple fact that a lot of an author’s sales will come by the author selling his or her book directly and when you have a fish on the hook, you need to close the sale.

The three basic ways to print books is to use a POD publisher like LuLu, to print large quantities with an offset printer or to use a digital printer like ZDocs to print smaller quantities. For the most part, offset printed books and digitally printed books are similar in quality. The main difference is price. For quantities of 150 to 2,000, digital printing is usually the most cost-effective. For quantities over 2,000, offset printing is usually cheaper. Offset printing, by the way, refers to traditional presses that use ink and digital printing refers to large copy machines that use toner.

How you should print all depends on your sales strategy. When you go through the Authors On The Net system and create your strategy, deciding the best way for you to print will become clear. If you’re not a member already, be sure to join today. Membership is free. We’ll help you keep your wheelbarrow full of fish, I mean books.