Working together with Publication Distributors
Self-published authors, however, will wonder whether it is worthwhile to partner with a book distributor. While you can find costs involved that can bite into your get hold of income from book sales by reducing your profit per book, ultimately the result may be more books sold.
As self-published authors, we often hear that the bonus is we get to keep most of the profit, rather than simply a small percentage, such as a royalty of 5-10% with a conventional publisher. But what does “keep most of the profit” really mean?
Let’s say you paid $7.00 to print your book and own it shipped for your requirements, and you’re going to market it for $20.00 plus your state’s sales tax. Had that book been traditionally published and you got a 10% royalty, you’d have made $2.00 a copy (remember you didn’t have any printing costs).
In the event that you sell your self-published book right to an individual, you get to keep all $20.00, a profit of $13.00 per book.
By comparison, in the event that you sell through a bookstore, gift shop, or other outlet, you have to provide the bookstore a percentage, typically 40%, although it can differ by store. At 40%, which means you receive back $12.00. That’s still a $5 profit and nearly a dual return in your investment.
A book distributor will probably want a more impressive percentage because it will resell your book to a bookstore that’ll want 40%. Typically, book distributors want about 55%, giving them a 15% profit. Which means you would receive $9.00 for the book, leaving you with only a profit of $2.00 (10% like your royalty may have been).
Along with that, the distributor will order books from you that you have to pay to ship, and if the books don’t sell, the books will soon be returned to you-frequently with bent or worn covers that make it difficult for you to resell them independently. In other words, you may end up getting books that aren’t sellable and no money from your efforts.
So why make use of a book distributor?
Because a book distributor can get your book into multiple stores across the country. An author can just only achieve this much on his / her own. It is simple to deliver books face-to-face to stores in your town, possibly even in your state, but the costs of gas, postage, and your own time quickly ensure it is impractical to try to market your book right to stores outside of your area. 총판모집 Bookstores in the neighboring state aren’t likely even to understand about your book in the event that you don’t let them know, and even nearby bookstores might not manage to, or might not wish to, use you as an individual.
Certain corporate bookstores such as for instance Barnes & Noble require that their stores order only through a book distributor rather than dealing with individual authors. Other stores may just choose to order only from a supplier because it’s easier to pay one vendor than keep track of invoices for fifty individual authors. If you’d like your book in a major bookstore chain, you’ll desire a distributor.
Will book distributors market your book to these stores? No, they won’t individually communicate with each store about your book, nevertheless they regularly produce catalogs that’ll have your book listed. These catalogs head to tens of thousands of bookstores in the united states, and while your book is competing with the hundreds of other books in the catalog, or at the very least the few dozen in the exact same category as yours, your book is more apt to be seen by more decision makers in more bookstores than you might have done in your own.
Furthermore, bookstores are often leery of self-published authors because they think self-published authors might not know industry basics including the dependence on an ISBN number. A book distributor won’t promote a book that doesn’t meet industry standards so being in a supplier catalog lets bookstores know your book looks “professional.”
Your book is still certainly one of hundreds in the catalog, but sometimes distributors have special catalogs, such as a regional catalog that’ll market your book to its target regional audience. You can even sign up for ads in the catalogs. Ads may cost anywhere from about $50 to some hundred dollars, but if you get enough orders, the ad can pay for itself.
If you’re still unsure whether you ought to make use of a book distributor, give it a try. Contracts are usually limited to a couple of years and most distributors will soon be willing to negotiate the contract somewhat.
The major distributors to choose from are Partners, Ingram, and Baker & Taylor, but smaller distributors exist that handle only specific regions or specialize in distributing specific kinds of books. Do a little research online and talk to your local bookstores to find out which distributors they use and what they’d recommend.