Friday, August 3, 2012

Self-Publishing and Distribution Houses.

If you self publish paper books Baker and Taylor (which for some reason is also on Smashwords) is probably the easiest distribution house to work with - although there are different distribution ho uses for different purposes. I have them list in my “How To Write A Book That Positions You As An Expert In Your Field.” Distribution through the distribution houses is a bear. The big distribution houses expect that if you are going to work through them that you have a national program in place. Even if you tell them that you are only going to work the California market they do not listen and then they get annoyed when you don’t make New York sales. You have to decide early in the game of writing exactly what you are going to use your books for and realistically how you’re going to market them. And most importantly how many you really need. You have to decide how much of your time you’re going to spend marketing, how you’re going to market and where. If you only need a few dozen books for back of the room sales you can go the print-on-demand route. You make less profit but you still make profit. You can make your books available on the digitals and you can make your paperback books available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Be very realistic about how much time you are going to spend marketing and what you project the results of your efforts are going to be. If you order 2,000 books that is going to mean that you have boxes and boxes of books that have to be stored somewhere. If your business pops and you suddenly need 2,000 books you can get them in a matter of weeks from your on demand printer. My advice – be very, very conservative in the beginning. Read over Create Space for print on demand. It’s an Amazon company – and I’ve had good luck with Amazon so far. Keep in mind that the bookstores don’t like Amazon – BUT the bookstores particularly the big chains like Barnes and Noble are not Indie writer friendly any way.

No comments:

Post a Comment