How to Get Your Book into Stores

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Getting your self-published book into stores is one of the toughest nuts to crack when it comes to author- publishing, compared to how easy it is to get your print book into Amazon, Barnes&Noble or Apple. And then there are discounts, returns and commissions… not to speak of waiting times till your invoice is paid. Book distributors & wholesalers will take care of all this – for a price.
.

POD print and distribution
For small amounts of print books, say less than 2,000 books, an author is better off to have it “printed on demand”, done by CreateSpace or by LightningSource, who are also the distributors. The printing might be higher priced, but you can decide on discounts and there will not be any returns from book stores for unsold books, which can be costly. POD produces only after receiving orders.
.

Distributors
Let’s assume your book sells like hot cakes and you would like to have it distributed to book stores. So, how to find a book distributor? And should you go with a big, national or a smaller distributor?
An advantage to small distributors (often specialized in certain genres) is that they often know their bookstores better than larger distributors. The orders tend to be smaller but more realistic. Returns with larger distributors to bookstore chains can be very high: 30% returns is expected, but it can be as high as 70%.
.

Partner With a Medium-sized Publisher
Another option is to make an arrangement with a medium-size publisher who already has a distribution deal and a sales team. For a percentage of the sale, they could include your book in their catalog, which goes out with the sales reps to book stores across the country, and their sales team will present your book. Some publishers may want all the attention for their own titles, but some may like the idea: there’s no printing cost for them, for instance. Their catalogs are produced 5-6 months in advance.
,

Booksellers are Reluctant to Stock POD
Most booksellers will generally not stock Print-on-Demand books because they can’t return the book if it doesn’t sell and the percentage they get is lower. Printing one book at a time is more expensive per book (usually twice as expensive) than publishing a few thousand. That’s why many self-published authors can’t get their books into the large chains. It’s all about non-returnability. Bookstores only order the blockbuster titles they know they can sell. Books-a-Million, one of the book store chains, for example states it does not allow POD books into it’s stores at all.

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Many large US Book Distributors won’t take you on before you have at least five to ten books in print. They might also want you to have a sales team who will present your books to booksellers, to show that you are willing to move those books. They also prefer a contract for a certain number of years. Another issue with full service distribution is that they take a minimum of 20% commission, but it will often be closer to 30% if you’re a small publisher. Check them out before signing with any book distributor. Talk to their customers (both publishers and bookstores) to verify they would be a recommendable company for you to work with.
.

Selection of Book Distributors in the U.S.A.

Small Press United

Publishers Group West

Partner Publishers Group

National Book Network

Legato Publishers Group

Independent Publishers Group

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Be Aware of these Book Industry Distribution Arrangements

• Discounts: Bookstores get ($8 when a $20 book sells) or in percent, a 40% discount from the distributor, big box stores often get 45%.
• Returns: Bookstores can return books back for credit against future orders, on average, about 30% of their initial sales might be returned. Paperbacks are not “stripped” so they can be shipped out again when another bookstore orders them. However, distributors may charge for warehousing of returns.
• Commission: Sales reps work on commission and only gets paid when books “sell through” (sold to the consumer). The distribution company also works on commission, which is one of the reasons they are so picky about taking on non-validated clients: if the books don’t sell through, they lose the money they have spent storing and shipping the books, their commission is usually 25-30% ($5-6 on a $20 book).

.
Direct Sales via Your Website
There is an even more lucrative way to sell your print book and distribute it: through your own website. You keep 100% of your revenue, and you know exactly who bought your books. Valuable data that you can use for promotion of your next book releases. The only “work” you have, is to stuff envelopes and ship your books once or twice a week – or more if you sell a lot. Setting up a PayPal account and an ordering form on your website is pretty easy. Direct selling means that you can make almost three times the amount per book than you can make, compared to a sale through traditional bookstore distributors.
.

Book Fairs
Comb the Internet and regional newspapers for Book Fairs. Rent a booth or share one with other writers and have fun to meet readers in person, sign your books, maybe even meet library buyers and book store owners – and keep 100% revenue. Authors could even band together and exhibit at national and international book fairs, such as New York, Edinburgh, Leipzig, Bologna or Frankfurt. If ten or more authors for example share the cost for exhibition, travel and accommodation, it seems to be visible.
.

Consignment at Bookstores
Some local independent bookstores will take books on consignment. A 60% to you, 40% to them split might seem a bit unfair to the uninitiated, but it’s the standard in the book trade. If sales are really good, some bookstores will offer to buy your book or you offer it to them which saves on paperwork and hassle. In this case you might offer them 50% discount.
.

e-Book Distribution through Kobo
Kobo has partnered with the American, as well as and British Booksellers Association. 3,000 book stores, including 1,000 independents, in the UK and Ireland will carry Kobo’s e-readers in the future and sell e-books directly to Kobo users.  Participating stores will receive a commission of every sale.
.

Fazit:
Small publishers and author-publishers with at least 3 books might be better off with LightningSource / Ingram and CreateSpace combined – until their book sale numbers are into the several thousands – also due to the print on demand possibilities that both companies offer.

Lightning Source connects you with the world’s largest distribution channel of book wholesalers and retailers. In addition to distributing books through their parent company Ingram Books, they print to order, which means, your book is printed and ready for shipment in 12 hours or less. With over 30,000 wholesalers, retailers and booksellers in over 100 countries your titles will gain the maximum exposure.

Lightning Source / Ingram work  with over 28,000 publishers of all sizes around the world. They deliver digital, print, wholesale and distribution services through a single source, and makes it easy for you to reach more customers in more places.

CreateSpace has slightly lower print on demand fees and set up fees per book, but it doesn’t get you into Ingram worldwide distribution. They offer something, called the Expanded Distribution Channel: “the “potential” to distribute your book to a larger audience through more outlets including: retailers, bookstores, libraries, academic institutions, wholesalers, and distributors.” Well “potential” which means actually nothing! If a bookstore is really willing to order a single book because a customers wants it, they will deliver…
.

Whole Sale and Book Distribution in USA

• BCH Fulfillment & Distribution – BCH is also a vendor for Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Amazon and Barnes and Noble. BCH offers 24/7 telephone order taking, an on-line catalog, representation at major trade shows, and more.
• Atlas Books – Distributes online, via wholesalers, and commissioned sales reps. AtlasBooks is the distribution and marketing arm of the BookMasters Group which represents small to mid-size publishers.
• Midpoint Trade Books – works with small and medium size publishers. No catalogs, so they can take on new titles any time of the year.
• National Book Network – Distributes for 85 publishers, they offer Print on Demand, starting at 20 books
  .

Book Whole Sale / Distribution in Canada:

• North 49 – trade book wholesaler with an inventory of over 3000 bestselling books from more than 500 publishers from Canada, UK and USA
• Librarybound – a wholesaler delivers Canadian books to libraries (fulfillment orders only, no warehousing)
  .

More resources:

Distributors and Wholesalers, compiled by IBPA, Independent Book Publishers Association
https://www.ibpa-online.org/resources/distributor-wholesalers/#.UWlwW7VO-So

Create Space Vs Lightning Source
http://write2publish.blogspot.ca/2011/02/why-create-space-is-better-than.html

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How dealing with Lightning Source exactly works can be learned “by the book”, actually two books, written by Aaron Shepard: “Aiming at Amazon” and “POD for Profit: More on the NEW Business of Self Publishing”.

<><><><><>
.

If you would like to get more support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or to learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer all this and more for only $179 for three months – or less than $2 per day! Learn more about this customized Online Seminar / Consulting for writers: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 1,070 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing
http://www.111publishing.com
http://www.e-Book-PR.com/
http://www.international-ebooks.com/
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

.

Hyper Smash

Pingate

 

How to Distribute Your Book to Stores

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.

Distribution of your book to stores is one of the toughest nuts to crack when it comes to author- publishing, compared to how easy it is to get your print book into Amazon, Barnes&Noble or Apple. And then there are discounts, returns and commissions… not to speak of waiting times till your invoice is paid. Book distributors & wholesalers take care of all this – for a price.
.

POD print and distribution
For small amounts of print books, say less than 2,000 books, an author is better off to have it “printed on demand”, done by CreateSpace or by Lightning Source, who are also the distributors. The printing might be higher priced, but you can decide on discounts and there will not be any returns from book stores for unsold books, which can be costly. POD produces only after receiving orders.
.

Distributors
Let’s assume your book sells like hot cakes and you would like to have it distributed to book stores. So, how to find a book distributor? And should you go with a big, national or a smaller distributor?
An advantage to small distributors (often specialized in certain genres) is that they often know their bookstores better than larger distributors. The orders tend to be smaller but more realistic. Returns with larger distributors to bookstore chains can be very high: 30% returns is expected, but it can be as high as 70%.

Another option is to make an arrangement with a medium-size publisher who already has a distribution deal and a sales team. For a percentage of the sale, they could include your book in their catalog, which goes out with the sales reps to book stores across the country, and their sales team will present your book. Some publishers may want all the attention for their own titles, but some may like the idea: there’s no printing cost for them, for instance. Their catalogs are produced 5-6 months in advance.

Many large US book distributors won’t take you on before you have at least five to ten books in print. They might also want you to have a sales team who will present your books to booksellers, to show that you are willing to move those books. They also prefer a contract for a certain number of years. Another issue with full service distribution is that they take a minimum of 20% commission, but it will often be closer to 30% if you’re a small publisher. Check them out before signing with any book distributor. Talk to their customers (both publishers and bookstores) to verify they would be a recommendable company for you to work with.
.

Be aware of these book industry distribution arrangements

1. Discounts: Bookstores get ($8 when a $20 book sells) or in percent, a 40% discount from the distributor, big box stores often get 45%.
2. Returns: Bookstores can return books back for credit against future orders, on average, about 30% of their initial sales might be returned. Paperbacks are not “stripped” so they can be shipped out again when another bookstore orders them. However, distributors may charge for warehousing of returns.
3. Commission: Sales reps work on commission and only gets paid when books “sell through” (sold to the consumer). The distribution company also works on commission, which is one of the reasons they are so picky about taking on non-validated clients: if the books don’t sell through, they lose the money they have spent storing and shipping the books, their commission is usually 25-30% ($5-6 on a $20 book).

.
Direct Sales via your website
There is an even more lucrative way to sell your print book and distribute it: through your own website. You keep 100% of your revenue, and you know exactly who bought your books. Valuable data that you can use for promotion of your next book releases. The only “work” you have, is to stuff envelopes and ship your books once or twice a week – or more if you sell a lot. Setting up a PayPal account and an ordering form on your website is pretty easy. Direct selling means that you can make almost three times the amount per book than you can make, compared to a sale through traditional bookstore distributors.
.

Book Fairs
Comb the Internet and regional newspapers for Book Fairs. Rent a booth or share one with other writers and have fun to meet readers in person, sign your books, maybe even meet library buyers and book store owners – and keep 100% revenue. Authors could even band together and exhibit at national and international book fairs, such as New York, Edinburgh, Leipzig, Bologna or Frankfurt. If ten or more authors for example share the cost for exhibition, travel and accommodation, it seems to be visible.
.

Consignment at Bookstores
Some local independent bookstores will take books on consignment. A 60% to you, 40% to them split might seem a bit unfair to the uninitiated, but it’s the standard in the book trade. If sales are really good, some bookstores will offer to buy your book or you offer it to them which saves on paperwork and hassle. In this case you might offer them 50% discount.
.

Fazit:
Small publishers and author-publishers with at least 3 books might be better off with Lightning Source / Ingram and CreateSpace combined – until their book sale numbers are into the several thousands – also due to the print on demand possibilities that both companies offer.

Lightning Source connects you with the world’s largest distribution channel of book wholesalers and retailers. In addition to distributing books through their parent company Ingram Books, they print to order, which means, your book is printed and ready for shipment in 12 hours or less. With over 30,000 wholesalers, retailers and booksellers in over 100 countries your titles will gain the maximum exposure.

Lightning Source / Ingram work  with over 28,000 publishers of all sizes around the world. They deliver digital, print, wholesale and distribution services through a single source, and makes it easy for you to reach more customers in more places.

CreateSpace has slightly lower print on demand fees and set up fees per book, but it doesn’t get you into Ingram worldwide distribution. They offer something, called the Expanded Distribution Channel: “the potential to distribute your book to a larger audience through more outlets including: retailers, bookstores, libraries, academic institutions, wholesalers, and distributors.” Well “potential” which means actually nothing! If a bookstore is really willing to order a single book from them, they will deliver…
.

Whole Sale and Book Distribution in USA

• BCH Fulfillment & Distribution – BCH is also a vendor for Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Amazon and Barnes and Noble. BCH offers 24/7 telephone order taking, an on-line catalog, representation at major trade shows, and more.
• Atlas Books – Distributes online, via wholesalers, and commissioned sales reps. AtlasBooks is the distribution and marketing arm of the BookMasters Group which represents small to mid-size publishers.
• Midpoint Trade Books – works with small and medium size publishers. No catalogs, so they can take on new titles any time of the year.
• National Book Network – Distributes for 85 publishers, they offer Print on Demand, starting at 20 books
  .

Book Whole Sale / Distribution in Canada:

• North 49 – trade book wholesaler with an inventory of over 3000 bestselling books from more than 500 publishers from Canada, UK and USA
• Librarybound – a wholesaler delivers Canadian books to libraries (fulfillment orders only, no warehousing)
  .

More resources:

Distributors and Wholesalers, compiled by IBPA, Independent Book Publishers Association
https://www.ibpa-online.org/resources/distributor-wholesalers/#.UWlwW7VO-So

Create Space Vs Lightning Source
http://write2publish.blogspot.ca/2011/02/why-create-space-is-better-than.html

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<><><><><>
.

With more than 30 years experience in both, print and now e-publishing, we can provide you with many more tips, background information and support – additional to the huge amount of promotion you get in our online and off-line seminars. http://www.111Publishing.com/seminars

 

If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 940 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing
http://www.111publishing.com
http://www.e-Book-PR.com/
http://www.international-ebooks.com/
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

.

.

Hyper Smash

Pingate

 

Want to Sell More of Your Books?

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E-books are great, but there is also still a huge market for print books.  How to get your book(s) successful into book stores worldwide?  Ingram and its subsidiary Lightning Source ( for Print on Demand) are international book distributors for both electronic and print books.

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Aaron Shepard: Aiming at Amazon

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The best way to get your paper book(s) both, into the major chains, as well as Amazon, and in individual book stores is through Lightning Source. This company is not only international distributor of books and affiliated with Ingram, the biggest U.S. book wholesaler, which delivers basically all bookstores in the country, as well as many libraries and schools.  Lightning Source offers international business solutions to publishers worldwide. The opportunity to easily access local markets around the world.

But Lightning Source also prints on demand (POD) for self-publishing companies, small and big ones. In fact they are printing almost two million books per month!  But how can you get your foot in the door of this valuable distribution system? Lightning prefers to deal with publishers and self publishing companies rather than with authors directly as they do not provide support to newbies.

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Aaron Shephards book POD for Profit

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If you want to cut out all these middleman in POD publishing, order a package of ISBN’s (International Standard Book Numbers) and register your own small publishing company and get a savvy computer guy (or girl) helping you to deal with uploading your files etc. if you are not already a computer whiz.

How dealing with Lightning Source exactly works can be learned “by the book”, actually two books, written by Aaron Shepard: “Aiming at Amazon” and “POD for Profit: More on the NEW Business of Self Publishing”.

.

<><><><><>

.

If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar

Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 740 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing

http://on.fb.me/TvqDaK
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

.

.
Hyper Smash

Pingates

 

Distribution of Your Print Book

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New York City – Manhattan

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A proud moment for every author: to discover their book in a bookstore or library. However distribution of your book to stores is one of the toughest nuts to crack when it comes to publishing, compared to how easy it is to get your print book into Amazon, Barnes&Noble or Apple. And then there are discounts, returns and commissions… not to speak of waiting times till your invoice is paid. Book distributors & wholesalers take care of all this – for a price.
.

POD print and distribution
For small amounts of print books, say less than 2,000 books, an author is better off to have it “printed on demand”, done by CreateSpace or by Lightning Source, who are also the distributors. The printing might be higher priced, but you can decide on discounts and there will not be any returns from book stores for unsold books, which can be costly. POD produces only after receiving orders.
.

Distributors
Let’s assume your book sells like hot cakes and you would like to have it distributed to book stores. So, how to find a book distributor? And should you go with a big, national or a smaller distributor?
An advantage to small distributors (often specialized in certain genres) is that they often know their bookstores better than larger distributors. The orders tend to be smaller but more realistic. Returns with larger distributors to bookstore chains can be very high: 30% returns is expected, but it can be as high as 70%.

Another option is to make an arrangement with a medium-size publisher who already has a distribution deal and a sales team. For a percentage of the sale, they could include your book in their catalog, which goes out with the sales reps to book stores across the country, and their sales team will present your book. Some publishers may want all the attention for their own titles, but some may like the idea: there’s no printing cost for them, for instance. Their catalogs are produced 5-6 months in advance.

Many large US book distributors won’t take you on before you have at least five to ten books in print. They might also want you to have a sales team who will present your books to booksellers, to show that you are willing to move those books. They also prefer a contract for a certain number of years. Another issue with full service distribution is that they take a minimum of 20% commission, but it will often be closer to 30% if you’re a small publisher. Check them out before signing with any book distributor. Talk to their customers (both publishers and bookstores) to verify they would be a recommendable company for you to work with.
.

Be aware of these book industry distribution arrangements

1. Discounts: Bookstores get ($8 when a $20 book sells) or in percent, a 40% discount from the distributor, big box stores often get 45%.
2. Returns: Bookstores can return books back for credit against future orders, on average, about 30% of their initial sales might be returned. Paperbacks are not “stripped” so they can be shipped out again when another bookstore orders them. However, distributors may charge for warehousing of returns.
3. Commission: Sales reps work on commission and only gets paid when books “sell through” (sold to the consumer). The distribution company also works on commission, which is one of the reasons they are so picky about taking on non-validated clients: if the books don’t sell through, they lose the money they have spent storing and shipping the books, their commission is usually 25-30% ($5-6 on a $20 book).

.
Direct Sales via your website
There is an even more lucrative way to sell your print book and distribute it: through your own website. You keep 100% of your revenue, and you know exactly who bought your books. Valuable data that you can use for promotion of your next book releases. The only “work” you have, is to stuff envelopes and ship your books once or twice a week – or more if you sell a lot. Setting up a PayPal account and an ordering form on your website is pretty easy. Direct selling means that you can make almost three times the amount per book than you can make, compared to a sale through traditional bookstore distributors.
.

Book Fairs
Comb the Internet and regional newspapers for Book Fairs. Rent a booth or share one with other writers and have fun to meet readers in person, sign your books, maybe even meet library buyers and book store owners – and keep 100% revenue. Authors could even band together and exhibit at national and international book fairs, such as New York, Edinburgh, Leipzig, Bologna or Frankfurt. If ten or more authors for example share the cost for exhibition, travel and accommodation, it seems to be visible.
.

Consignment at Bookstores
Some local independent bookstores will take books on consignment. A 60% to you, 40% to them split might seem a bit unfair to the uninitiated, but it’s the standard in the book trade. If sales are really good, some bookstores will offer to buy your book or you offer it to them which saves on paperwork and hassle. In this case you might offer them 50% discount.
.

Fazit:
Small publishers and author-publishers with at least 3 books might be better off with Lightning Source / Ingram and CreateSpace combined – until their book sale numbers are into the several thousands – also due to the print on demand possibilities that both companies offer.

Lightning Source connects you with the world’s largest distribution channel of book wholesalers and retailers. In addition to distributing books through their parent company Ingram Books, they print to order, which means, your book is printed and ready for shipment in 12 hours or less. With over 30,000 wholesalers, retailers and booksellers in over 100 countries your titles will gain the maximum exposure.

Lightning Source / Ingram work  with over 28,000 publishers of all sizes around the world. They deliver digital, print, wholesale and distribution services through a single source, and makes it easy for you to reach more customers in more places.

CreateSpace has slightly lower print on demand fees and set up fees per book, but it doesn’t get you into Ingram worldwide distribution. They offer something, called the Expanded Distribution Channel: “the potential to distribute your book to a larger audience through more outlets including: retailers, bookstores, libraries, academic institutions, wholesalers, and distributors.” Well “potential” which means actually nothing! If a bookstore is really willing to order a single book from them, they will deliver…

Whole Sale and Book Distribution in USA

• BCH Fulfillment & Distribution – BCH is also a vendor for Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Amazon and Barnes and Noble. BCH offers 24/7 telephone order taking, an on-line catalog, representation at major trade shows, and more.
• Atlas Books – Distributes online, via wholesalers, and commissioned sales reps. AtlasBooks is the distribution and marketing arm of the BookMasters Group which represents small to mid-size publishers.
• Midpoint Trade Books – works with small and medium size publishers. No catalogs, so they can take on new titles any time of the year. 
• National Book Network – Distributes for 85 publishers, they offer Print on Demand, starting at 20 books
  .

Book Whole Sale / Distribution in Canada:

• North 49 – trade book wholesaler with an inventory of over 3000 bestselling books from more than 500 publishers from Canada, UK and USA 
• Librarybound – a wholesaler delivers Canadian books to libraries (fulfillment orders only, no warehousing)
  .

More resources:

Distributors and Wholesalers, compiled by IBPA, Independent Book Publishers Association
https://www.ibpa-online.org/resources/distributor-wholesalers/#.UWlwW7VO-So

Create Space Vs Lightning Source
http://write2publish.blogspot.ca/2011/02/why-create-space-is-better-than.html

.

<><><><><>
.

With 30 years experience in both, print and now e-publishing, we can provide you with many more tips, background information and support – additional to the huge amount of promotion you get in our online and off-line seminars. http://www.111Publishing.com/seminars

 

If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar

If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 710 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing

http://on.fb.me/TvqDaK
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

.

.
Hyper Smash
.
.

Pingates

 

How to Distribute Your Book Worldwide?

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Lightning Source / Ingram are one of the most important book distributors in the world and a household name to small and big publishers alike.

If you are publishing at least more than three books and if you are computer-savvy you might distribute your (paper) books through them.

In this case, don’t forget to list your books with Bowker to be in the directory for the whole world’s booksellers. See an earlier blog post “Expose your Book to the World“.
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photo: NASA

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Shepard wrote that Lightnings Distribution will be extended through partnerships with printers/distributors in other countries, starting with Germany and Brazil.  Read the whole article in Aaron Shepard’s blog.

The local company will market the book to local retailers, then borrow the print files from Lightning and fulfill the order. By default, a book’s pricing and discount will be based on its settings in your home currency. No returns will be allowed.  My comment: Long overdue!  And this no-return-policy will hopefully be the beginning of the end of this unfortunate practice. Overdue too!

The Self-Publishers-Notebook blog wrote: “While foreign sales might not be large in number for most authors, a book sale is a book sale. If you are already using LSI for your POD service, this new program is worth looking into. It costs nothing to participate in the program.”

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<><><><><>

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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts (there are more than 560 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

Follow on Twitter: @111publishing

And don’t forget to spread the word on other social networking sites of your choice for other writers who might also enjoy this blog and find it useful. Thanks, Doris
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Hyper Smash

Pingates

 

CreateSpace, Lightning Source – or Both?

CreateSpace, Lightning Source – or both?
a guest blog by author Linda Austin
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Most authors are familiar with CreateSpace (CS), Amazon’s self-publishing arm. With little financial outlay, authors can upload their formatted manuscripts to CreateSpace and post their own cover, or perhaps one made using a free CS template or one designed at extra cost by one of CreateSpace’s designers. CS also offers editing services for a fee. CS will provide an ISBN for free or allow you to use your own.

Their program is easy to use, and Amazon takes control of all sales and shipping and will direct-deposit monies earned, minus its cut, to the author’s bank account each month. Authors can purchase copies of their own print book at a discount, and can choose to pay for an Amazon service that creates an e-book from the CS print version if the author doesn’t want to do it herself. For those who choose to go the self-publishing route, what’s not to like?

For one thing, CreateSpace books are found only on Amazon. This in itself is not necessarily bad as Amazon owns the lion’s share of print book sales. What about selling to libraries and real, physical bookstores? Libraries and physical stores don’t buy from Amazon unless a customer requests a book that is available no other way. Libraries and physical stores purchase through their favorite wholesaler-distributors, usually Ingram and/or Baker & Taylor, who give them an industry-standard discount rate. They will not buy from your website, either, as they like to keep their accounting simple.

Many experienced self-publishers use Lightning Source, Inc. (LSI), as their printer because of its connection to Ingram. Ingram opens up distribution of their books nearly worldwide, including on Amazon, and offers industry-standard discount rates to book buyers –the LSI author has total control of his/her book pricing and can set the discount sales rate to standard 55% with returns allowed.

LSI requires an author to have her own ISBNs registered to her own company. LSI also requires a high-quality pdf book file, such as those created by Adobe In-Design or other professional publishing software program, and there is an initial set-up cost. Not quite as simple or inexpensive as using CreateSpace for your MS Word file, however this Ingram connection is important for authors who expect their well-written and well-formatted books to be attractive to libraries and booksellers because of subject matter or popularity due to their determined marketing efforts. For $25 per year, your book will appear in the Ingram online catalog.

Cherry Blossoms in Twilight

But, have you heard CreateSpace has an expanded distribution option for only $25 per year? Yes, it does, making your book available through Ingram and most other online bookselling sites, including Barnes & Noble within the United States.

The Amazon-Ingram connection, though, does not allow Ingram to offer the industry standard terms expected by libraries and physical bookstores, so these entities will likely not want to buy books this way unless necessary, by customer request. Again, perhaps this is not a concern, depending on type of book, quality of writing and book production, and the author’s marketing determination.

Unfortunately, since last summer, Amazon has taken to posting availability times for LSI books coming out as anywhere from 2-8 weeks, even though the digitally-printed books ship almost immediately, as usual. For this reason, many serious authors have taken to loading their books to both CreateSpace for online orders from the general public as well as to LSI for its professional-level, low-cost worldwide distribution. And the same (author-owned) ISBN is used since it is the same book, just through different printers. The same author-provided cover should be used to avoid confusion.

In summary, an author who plans to be a serious contender in the book market, and has a book that will pass muster with librarians and store book buyers, should consider going beyond the Amazon experience.

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Linda Austin wrote and published her mother’s story, “Cherry Blossoms in Twilight,” a WWII Japan memoir of history and culture. She is owner of Moonbridge Publications, encouraging life writing and educating authors on the art of successful indie-publishing. She is a board member of the St. Louis Publishers Association.

http://moonbridgebooks.com

Twitter @moonbridgebooks

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Pingates

 

Does Apple launch a Genuine Self-Publishing Program?

This would be a huge step forward for Apple to compete with Amazon and Barnes & Noble and would tremendously benefit independent authors who want to submit directly to Apple and not be forced to go through various Aggregators in order to have their ebooks submitted to the iPad.

One of the advantages that Amazon and Barnes&Noble have over Apple, is their own self-publishing program. Even though Apple does have a little known process to publish your own books – it involves a validated ePub file, ISBN identifiers from the Library of Congress and a willingness to run the daunting work of Apple’s contracts, paperwork, and use iTunes Connect. This entire process is very time consuming and many users are even unaware of its existence.

Instead of dealing directly with Apple, self-published authors have been using official Aggregator’s such as; Ingram, INscribe Digital, LibreDigital or Lulu or Bookwire in Europe. Publishing Aggregator’s are proving to be a popular option for people to self-publish with because they help you along the entire process and normally submit to many other bookstores. But they have their downsites: Most of them appear officially as the publisher and get a nice junk out of your royalties. Be aware:  Even if these aggregators offer free upfront service to download to Apple, it will cut into your earnings, once your book is successful as they cut your royalties from Apple.

Who benefits from Apples new program?
If Apple does start their own self-pub service in the next few weeks many authors and publishers will adapt it because of Apples famous “ease of use” philosophy.  Small and medium size publishing companies and organizations right now publish rich media titles or kids books and sell them as apps. In the future they have the option to publish ebooks with their same Apple developer account while making the process more streamlined.

How Apple iBooks needs to compete with Amazon: Better author tools

Erica Sadun wrote a great article about the deficiencies of Apples current publisher program:
Apple’s iBooks program currently allows authors to self-publish ebooks. Authors create their own business built around iTunes Connect, just as they do for self-published apps.So where does Apple have room to improve?iBooks tools are frustrating. You can publish on Amazon with little more than an account, a doc file and a smile. For iBooks, you need validated ePub files, ISBN identifiers from the Library of Congress and a willingness to run the gauntlet of contracts, paperwork, and the hell that is iTunes Connect.

iTunes Connect
It’s not that iTunes Connect is so unusuable from a web page perspective, it’s that its servers are often so loaded that each request may take several minutes to complete for each region. You can lose an entire day of work just moving through paperwork details.

Amazon makes it so simple and intuitive to list books that when you have to move over to iTunes, the difference hits you right in the face. If Apple is to make its mark in iBooks, it has to simplify publishing for independents.

Read this great article doted with more valuable tips here:
http://www.tuaw.com/2012/01/05/how-apple-ibooks-needs-to-compete-with-amazon-better-author-too/

 

 

Are You a POD Publisher?

And if so, did you work with Lightning Source, the leading U.S. provider of print on demand (POD) to distribute your books via Ingram to retailers all over the USA and also deliver to Amazon? Or did you plan to work with them in order to have the highest royalty in paper book publishing?

Have a look at Aaron Shepard’s latest info blog regarding the availability of your paper books on Amazon, or what he calls “Trouble in Paradise” and “In Pursuit of Plan B”. His blog also covers quite a lot of helpful FAQ’s.

http://www.newselfpublishing.com/PlanB.html

 

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How to get your book(s) successful into book stores

Aaron Shephards book Aiming at Amazon

The only way to get your paper book(s) both, into the major chains, as well as Amazon, and in individual book stores is through Lightning Source. This company is not only international distributor of books and affiliated with Ingram, the biggest U.S. book wholesaler, which delivers basically all bookstores in the country, as well as many libraries and schools.

But Lightning Source also prints on demand (POD) for self-publishing COMPANIES, small and big ones. In fact they are printing almost two million books per month!  But how can you get your foot in the door of this valuable distribution system? Lightning prefers to deal with publishers and self publishing companies rather than with authors directly as they do not provide support to newbies.

Aaron Shephards book POD for profit

If you want to cut out all these middleman in POD publishing, order a package of ISBN’s (International Standard Book Numbers) and register your own small publishing company and get a savvy computer guy (or girl) helping you to deal with uploading your files etc. if you are not already a computer whiz.

How dealing with Lightning Source exactly works can be learned “by the book”, actually two books, written by Aaron Shepard: “Aiming at Amazon” and “POD for Profit: More on the NEW Business of Self Publishing”.

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Australian Publishers get connected

Lightning Source / Ingram, the major US book distributor is running its brand new Print On Demand facility in Scoresby, Melbourne, Australia, which signals a new boom not only for POD paper books but also for e-books in Australia.

Publishers in Australia who want to expand their reach can do so easily with Lightning Source, who manufacture these books in one of their US or UK facility and send them out through the appropriate resellers. By producing and shipping books in North America or Europe, Australian publishers avoid the expense and complication of getting physical inventory across borders. Order fulfillment is accelerated while freight costs are cut.

Lightning Source / Ingram, the global leader in POD (and book distribution) connects publishers – big and small – and has the world’s largest distribution channel of book wholesalers and retailers.