Film and television director/writer Josh Becker never thought his first book, “The Complete Guide to Low-Budget Feature Filmmaking,” would get a lot of attention from big-name publishers. The title, which was aimed at a niche market, would find better reception at a small independent company, Becker reasoned.
His New York literary agent had different ideas. She said, “Here’s a list of who I’m going to take it to,” Becker recalled, “and it was like the 10 biggest publishers in the world. And after the first five turned her down, she said, ‘Nobody likes your book. I’m giving up.’ ”
That’s when Point Blank Publishing, operated by J.T. Lindroos and Kathleen Martin in New Albany, Ind., came to the rescue.
“Immediately, J.T. read it and went, ‘Hey, that’s a good book. I’d like to publish it,’ ” said Becker,
Such niche markets are an important part of publishing, said Tina Jordan, vice president of the Association of American Publishers in New York. Helping to push their success, she said, is on-demand printing, which allows smaller book-printing runs than are practical with traditional methods.
On-demand printing — not to be confused with self-publishing or vanity press operations — limits the need for warehouse space and gives publishers more control over the number of copies they must print, which is “extremely valuable,” Jordan said.
Point Blank uses both traditional and on-demand printing, depending on the book to be published, Lindroos said.
Photo by Point Blank Publishing.
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