What Does "POD" and "Short Run" Mean in 2009?
David Artman:
In another thread:Quote from: guildofblades on June 02, 2009, 08:52:13 AM
... POD board and box making at print runs starting at 100 units.
I couldn't help but double-take. I have always used "POD" as "Print On Demand," with the presumption that it was customer demand and, thus, typically meant one copy at a time. For any quantity worth mentioning (say, above 10), I'd call that "short run." In particular, I'd call a production run of 100 units intended to be wholesaled to a publish a "short run."
Not calling out Ryan--he may merely be the first I've heard use (misuse?) the acronym--but is it accurate, in 2009, to call a 100-unit run that is to be sold wholesale to a publisher a "POD" production? If yes, then what now distinguishes a short run from a POD? More than 200, say? 400? 1000? Does it all come down to how the individual print provider defines its customers; e.g. Guild of Blades might define any customer as a "retail" customer, regardless of size of run and cost breaks for quantity; while Lulu defines a customer as someone other than the producer of the creative content who is paying full retail. (I realize that, regarding Lulu, even a run of 1000, to be sold to the producer or to a total stranger off the street, is "POD"... but they don't make a quantity deal; or, put another way, the creator-purchaser pays full MSRP to Lulu for his or her own product and, eventually, gets the profit minus Lulu cut paid back to him or her.)
Does it merely come down to whether or not the print provider has press plates and, if not, needn't fill ink wells and set paper rolls and, thereby, do a large enough run to offset the setup costs (and the opportunity costs for tying up a $500K Heidelberg)? If so, then is the term "POD" obsolete, as a measure of scale and nature of customer; should it just be called "digital printing" (DP; as opposed to "web press," etc--i.e. defined by process, not customer or scale or price break)?
In closing, I ask (but not expect) that replies be restricted to appeals to authority (definitions) or to those in the industry who encounter the various terms in a variety of places. In other words, this is not a poll of "how I use the words." How does the industry and its clients, large and small, use the words?
Thanks;
David
Ron Edwards:
Hi David,
I posted extensively about this very issue in POD vs. distributors. As far as I know, all the points I made there apply in full today as well.
POD literally refers to customer-driven, one-copy printing, but in practice, it is also applied to any digital printer. The digital technology makes short-run publisher-driven printing far cheaper, and since the companies which do the one typically also do the other, the label is applied to both usages. Yes, I know it makes no sense. No one cares.
One quick correction to that older thread, though: I reversed some numerals in my Elfs example. The cost per copy at the time was $2.01, not $1.02.
Best, Ron
guildofblades:
From my experience, most digitally printed short run is considered "POD". Ala, print on demand does not necessarily mean "printing 1" as demand is not necessarily defined as "1" either. It is true that printing 100 board games or hard bound books might be a large enough expense to some folks that they might look at it as being practically no different than a more traditional 5,000 to 10,000 run, but for an awful lot of folks, 100 would be the difference of being able to go to print with their item or not. Therein lies the difference.
"Short run" is also a relative term. For us game industry types, that might be considered say anywhere from 100 to 500 or so, with the typical 1,000 being to start of a traditional run. But we all here look thrugh the colored lenses of a industry used to extremely small production runs. I have spoken with a fair number of printers who would consider 10,000 units to be a "short run". So its all pretty relative to your own perspective.
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.gobretail.com
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com
iago:
It's mostly a case of POD being catchier-sounding than "short run", and the equipment used to fulfill a one-off POD direct-to-customer order and the equipment used to fulfill a 100-copy short-run sold-to-manufacturer order being (usually) the same thing. So the consumer's experience of the final product, regardless of the delivery mechanism, is what I think cinched the lingo: "POD quality" was a big concern early on (though that has *generally* improved), and for the end consumer, the method of delivery had no impact on it, since the *source* was the same.
MatrixGamer:
POD has the connotation of being able to be done in units of one or a hundred. It is printing via lazer printer rather than offset press. For black and white printing POD is as good as offset printing but with color it lacks that ever loved shinnyness.
If one had a market for 500 or more of an item then switching to offset printing would be advisable both for price and quality. It's a commercial defintion rather than a technical one.
For example: When my dad did his etchings it involved hand inking a metal plate, placing the paper over it, and then running it through an intaglio press (two metal rollers with a slab of boiler plate between them). In theory this could be done one at a time - POD - but no one would call an art process like this POD.
You already know I'm thinking that this craft approach to production might be viable but that is another thread.
Chris Engle
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