Bookshops are not places you would normally associate with the cut and thrust of technology innovation but in their own quiet way they will become just that over the next five years, as digital technology enhances the way books are manufactured, sold and consumed. But whatever the pitfalls of replacing a simple, efficient technology with a complex and expensive one, the distribution and manufacturing process behind paper-based books can be wasteful and inefficient, which is where publishing on demand comes in.

Although people have been talking about it for years, companies have only now put the building blocks into place for a viable business model. Europe, Scandinavia and the Far East are experimenting with it while the UK is kicking off large-scale projects in bookstores-cum-publishers such as www.writersworld.co.uk. The most visible sign here may be your high street shop compiling and printing you a personalised book while you put your feet up and have a coffee.

But there are other benefits. The key to POD is recognising that publishing has been digital for as long as there have been word processors and desktop publishing. In other words, once publishers have digitised and laid out a text, it exists for as long as the disks it is stored on exist, regardless of whether that text is ever made into a book. It can be reproduced in any form, and distributed online and worldwide for next to nothing. POD at its simplest means using digital library technologies such as those associated with IBM�s DB2 database, together with digital print-and-bind technologies to make a physical book only when customers order it. IBM�s digital library facility with DB2 works like a cash point, only you withdraw fully licensed and secure content from it rather than cash.

But for paper-based books specifically, POD opens up a world of possibilities and solutions to age-old problems for those publishers who see it as a licence to print money. One of paper�s unique strengths is also its greatest weakness - it decays. While a Harry Potter or a Delia Smith can be piled high and sold cheaply and quickly, a first novel in paperback, or a promotional tie-in with this year�s boy band may lie in tomorrow�s warehouse full of unsold books. If you have a book you wish to publish please go to www.writersworld.co.uk

WRITERSWORLD have just concluded a deal with an American based Print on Demand publisher which would not only make your book available as a Print on Demand in the UK via Bertrams (wholesaler to the retail trade), Amazon and Cypher, it would also make it available through the biggest book distributors in the United States - Ingrams and Baker & Taylor. If the book is ordered in the USA it would be printed and distributed there. There will soon be machines at major airports and book stores where you will be able publish the�book of your choice.

Your book would�be available at�every major internet bookshop in the United Kingdom and the United States including; Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bol, Waterstones, WHSmith, Ottakar's, Hammicks, Blackwell�s, Methvens etc; on websites throughout Europe, the Far East, Australia, America, and over 12,500 retail booksellers. If you choose WRITERSWORLD for your book they can also arrange for it to be published in Spanish, German, French, Italian and Norwegian and translate your book. If you have a coloured book they�can give you a fixed price quote on it.

E-BOOKS: If you have a published e- book that has been properly formatted (word format) , edited, proofread and which has a professional cover in 300 DPI, we will publish it as a Print on Demand book available in the United Kingdom and the United States for �350.00. This price includes issuing an ISBN number, listing the book with all the major book retailers, supplying six copies to the Legal Deposit Libraries in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, and supplying the first hundred copies at cost (plus shipping charges). We reserve the right to refuse to publish any book that is racist, defamatory, badly written or does not have an acceptable cover. If supplied in PDF format only there may be an extra charge.

HEALTH WARNING

If you decide to use a book publisher make sure of the following:

1. Before you part with a penny of your money make sure you have a fixed price quotation for the design of the book cover, editing and proofreading and all other set up costs. Do not be lured into a bottomless pit of extra charges. That is how some of these companies work; they will lure you in with what appears a low charge and then start adding on to this. With WRITERSWORLD you know exactly where you stand, no more or no less.

2. Make sure that they deposit all six copies of your book with the Legal Deposit Libraries. This is a legal requirement for every book published in the UK.

�3. Make sure your book will appear at every major retail outlet in the UK and USA. Amazon is not the be-all and end-all.

4. Pin them down as to exactly what each copy of your book will cost if you order it direct from the publisher. This is another way publishers extract money from writers. Do all of this before you spend a penny with any book publisher.

Unlike some of our�competitors who, because of their enormous overhead publish virtually anything we are discerning. We will not take a new writer on unless and until they have checked out the service we provide with past and present clients. We will provide you with the references to check.

WRITERSWORLD have also moved into the book reprint market in a big way and have a great free Newsletter.�Please contact us at [email protected]