POD and reviewing

[MJRevell]

I'm just wondering if any of our lovely authors here have considered (or used) a POD company such as Lulu to make a small number of books - two or three, say, to send out to other authors, magazines, stores etc for reviewing?

I'm just curious to find out if it is a viable option. If the average time from manuscript acceptance by a publisher, to book on shelf is over a year.. is it worth PODing a couple of copies to do this? You would then get your quotes to slap on the back cover and whatnot ready for when your traditionally published book hits the shops.

Or is this just me being a fool, and this idea is done all the time anyway? If not, do you wait for the book to be published before sending it to any possible reviewers? Do you simply send the manuscript to them? If so, surely this small-scale PODing would be a better solution, should your publisher allow it.

[I, Brian]

First thought is that you could muddy the publishing rights issue by publishing first elsewhere before offering the script mainstream.

Personally, if all it's for is for review comments, I'm sure any traditional publishing house will have that in hand as required.

2c.

[MJRevell]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

Personally, if all it's for is for review comments, I'm sure any traditional publishing house will have that in hand as required.

2c.

Ah, that clears it up, thanks

[Teresa Edgerton]

You wouldn't be getting many reviews (maybe not any, unless you knew someone who was willing to do you a favor) from professional reviewers anyway. Most of the places they work for won't publish reviews of POD books, and the reviewers themselves aren't going to be eager to take the time to review a book that isn't going to be generally available within a couple of months.

[pendragonpress]

Since I use digital printing anyway, I factor in review copies when I print a book... would seem rather pointless to go with another company just to print off a couple of copies.