Self-published authors, however, will wonder whether it’s worthwhile to partner with a book distributor. While you can find costs involved that could bite into your take home income from book sales by reducing your profit per book, ultimately the end 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 tiny 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 to you, and you’re going to sell 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).
If you sell your self-published book right to an individual, you get to keep all $20.00, a gain of $13.00 per book.
By comparison, if you sell through a bookstore, gift shop, or other outlet, you’ve to give the bookstore a portion, typically 40%, though it may 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 guide distributor will want a bigger percentage because it’ll resell your book to a bookstore which will want 40%. Typically, book distributors want somewhere around 55%, giving them a 15% profit. That means you’d receive $9.00 for the book, leaving you with only a gain of $2.00 (10% like your royalty may have been).
Along with that, the distributor will order books from you that you’ve to cover to ship, and if the books do not 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 might get books that aren’t sellable and no money from your own efforts.
So just why make use of a book distributor?
Because a book distributor could possibly get your book into multiple stores over the country. An author can only just do so much on their own. It is possible to deliver books in person to stores locally, possibly even in your state, but the expenses of gas, postage, and your own time quickly allow it to be impractical to try to market your book right to stores outside of your area. Bookstores in the neighboring state are not likely even to learn about your book if you don’t inform them, and even nearby bookstores may not have the ability to, or may not desire to, use you as an individual.
Certain corporate bookstores such as for instance Barnes & Noble require that most their stores order only through a book distributor rather than working with individual authors. Other stores might prefer to order only from a distributor because it’s easier to cover one vendor than keep an eye on 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 keep in touch with each store about your book, nevertheless they regularly produce catalogs which will have your book listed. These catalogs go to tens and thousands of bookstores across the country, and while your book is competing with the countless other books in the catalog, or at the very least the few dozen in the exact same category as yours, your book is more probably be seen by more decision makers in more bookstores than you could have done in your own.
Furthermore, bookstores are often leery of self-published authors because they believe self-published authors may not know industry basics including the significance of an ISBN number. A guide distributor won’t promote a book that doesn’t meet industry standards so being in a distributor catalog lets bookstores know your book looks “professional.”
Your book continues to be among hundreds in the catalog, but sometimes distributors have special catalogs, such as a regional catalog which will market your book to its target regional audience. You can even remove ads in the catalogs. 총판구인구직 Ads could cost anywhere from about $50 to a few hundred dollars, but when you obtain enough orders, the ad will probably pay for itself.
If you’re still unsure whether you must make use of a book distributor, give it a try. Contracts are generally only for a year or two and most distributors will soon be prepared to negotiate the contract somewhat.
The major distributors to select from are Partners, Ingram, and Baker & Taylor, but smaller distributors exist that handle only specific regions or specialize in distributing specific kinds of books. Perform a little research online and speak to your local bookstores to learn which distributors they choose and what they’d recommend.