by GreenLake » Sun Apr 28, 2019 3:28 pm
There are print on demand services that will accept PDF files and return lovely paperback books (minimum order: 1). You can use them to print a PDF for your own purposes, but someone like Roger could also set things up so anyone can order a printed version of his book with guaranteed royalties to him.
I actually have experience with that. For the last several years I've been typesetting and publishing a set of textbooks by a fellow author using a service like that. You prepare a PDF to their specifications (not terribly difficult). We chose the 6"x9" page size, as that's a good format for a book, but I understand they now also do full-page. For black&white, the production costs are reasonable, and it includes a color cover (separate PDF file). You can set a "list price" and make the book public on their site, at which point anyone can purchase it directly there and they will forward the difference between list price and production cost to the author.
Sweet Deal. No more need for inventory or running your own shipping.
Some services allow your book to be listed on amazon or other book distributors, but the downside is that you need to fork over a substantial cut to the middleman. That can work out if you have a potentially wide-spread audience that is difficult to reach, but for something like Roger's book the direct distribution method from the print-on-demand service is probably a better fit. Anyway, that's my standing recommendation for anyone considering book publication for this kind of predefined audience.
(I'll be happy to give further details in private messages, because this is going off-topic for this forum).
~ green ~ lake ~ ~