Although the Espresso Machine and POD services like Ingram's Lightning Source and Amazon's BookSurge have gotten much attention lately, there's another POD company specializing in books. Called the Troy Book Makers, Troy, N.Y., it's been in business three years, is in the black and was founded by two booksellers, Susan Novotny and Eric Wilska. Novotny owns two bookstores, the Book House at Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y., and Market Block Books, Troy, N.Y. Wilska is the owner of the Bookloft, Great Barrington, Mass. (Troy Book Makers and Market Block Books are in the same building in downtown Troy.)
"People are talking about independent bookstores" doing POD, Novotny, pictured below, said. "But we have been doing it. I like to think we're a little ahead of the curve."
Troy Book Makers, whose motto is "let your inner book out!" and whose name is a play on Troy's gambling past, has printed more than 300 titles and now does one or two new titles a week. Novotny and Wilska, she said, "do the marketing and drive the business." She added: "I never thought I'd be in a position to have to learn all about binding, ink and paper. I have immense respect for commercial printers."
Troy Book Makers is ready to expand its services to other booksellers. "We're ready to start a national focus," Novotny said. The company will send a mailing soon to other independent booksellers, starting with the region, encouraging them to send customers who want to be authors to them as well as to consider printing both new and oop titles of local and regional interest. Part of the pitch is that Troy will offer booksellers $100 for referrals. Another part of the pitch: unlike many POD printers, Novotny said, "We give special TLC to every book."
Troy Book Makers considered an Instabook Machine before it started, but decided to use a variety of machines that make the production area of its office look like a very sophisticated copy center. Three high-end printers run about 55 pages a minute. A Duplo machine handles binding. Nearby Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute helped create some proprietary systems.
The company's charges for printing vary depending on length of book, type of paper, numbers of copies, etc. After a one-time set up fee for books with fewer than 500 copies, a standard charge for a 200-page 6" x 9" book is $9.70 a copy. There is a minimum of 10 copies. For extra fees, the company provides a range of additional services, from design and layout and obtaining an ISBN to creating and hosting author websites, marketing and publicity. No editing is done in-house; the company recommends freelance editors.
The company can take material in a variety of forms and does color illustrations. Troy Book Makers can bind a book with a maximum of 600 pages. (Larger books must be handled by binderies.)
Book distribution is the authors' responsibility, but Troy Book Makers will put the books on consignment in the three related bookstores for six months and lists them online.
"Handholding" authors is a major part of her job, said Melissa Mykal Batalin, art director and manager. "I have say, 'You're not going to book on Oprah.' " (Besides Batalin, the fulltime staff includes Anne Smith, author liaison.)
Novotny added: "Most authors are realistic, but we have a contract that politely says if you're a pain in the ass, we'll throw you out on the curb."
Besides books intended for local and regional markets, many of the titles that Troy Book Makers has printed are family books as well as memoirs. "World War II memoirs" are especially popular, Novotny said. The family histories and family cookbooks are often done in printings of 30-40 copies and given out at reunions or as Christmas presents.
Some titles are by academics who are well-known in their fields. The company has also handled chap books and poetry books and, of course, novels.
The company is printing some historical books in cooperation with Arcadia, which solicits photos for historical societies and makes books out of them.
Troy Book Makers publishes some titles that are in the public domain, both of local and general interest. "Dover does a lot of this kind of publishing and quite cheaply," Novotny said. "But we've done a few and done them very well." (The company has made some small books with this kind of material that it has sold in stores as stocking stuffers.)
Most books have the TBM logo or use an author's imprint. The only general limitations: the company won't print anything that it deems libelous or pornographic. So far, it hasn't rejected any submissions.
One of the first titles was typical: a title of intense local interest that has sold well in the area that probably would not have been published otherwise. The memoir is called A Man Named Nebraska by Nebraska Brace, whom Novotny described as "a local pimp and politician." Brace dictated the story, "a real Albany story," and has mainly sold the book out of the trunk of his car. He's also done events, including at the Book House. Altogether Brace has sold more than 500 copies of A Man Named Nebraska at $23 each--copies that cost $8 each to make. The book has sold more than 150 copies in Novotny's stores.
Judith Barnes, who is a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute alumna (RPI is a half mile up the hill from Troy Book Makers's offices) and lives in Albany, has published Good to Be Here, essays she has read on NPR, which have sold more than 400 copies in Novotny's bookstores at $14.95 each.
Known for his mysteries, dog books and journalism, Jon Katz lives on a farm near Troy and has done several books with the company under his Bedlam Farm Books imprint. Out of the Shadows is his account of a struggle with mental illness and "his return to the light." My Place on Earth is a collection of poems by Mary Kellogg with photographs by Katz.
An unusual title is Son of the Mountains: My Life as a Kurd and a Terror Suspect by Yassin Aref with a foreword by a local lawyer. The book has been sold at local fundraisers and has sold 1,500 copies. Aref, who was arrested five years ago, is in federal prison and denies that he is a terrorist, now has a literary agent.
Inside the Club: Stories of the Employees of the former Lake Placid Club by Barbara A. Campbell is another example of a niche market--but still a profitable one.
At the Bookloft, Eric Wilksa has sold several hundred copies of The Berkshires with Kids: 44 Outings by Christine Hensel Triantos in the store and at other locations in the area. Another bestseller this summer at Bookloft was the Troy Book Makers title Gibson's Grove and Turner's Landing: Lake Buel's Century as a Summer Resort by Bernard A. Drew.
In case after case, Novotny emphasized, Troy Book Makers and its partners have had a nice spread on retail over printing costs, so that odds are high for nice profits.
Novotny will be talking about this, POD in general and Troy Book Makers on Thursday, October 1, from 4-5:30, on a panel at the New England Independent Booksellers Association trade show in Hartford, Conn.--John Mutter