Greetings book lovers—both writers of books and readers of them! The process of publishing and printing books, you may have noticed, has come a long way since the 1800s. This featured photo shows a printing press from that era. An antique dentist chair for books? Complex and highly mechanical. But I’m thankful someone did that grunt work and paved the way for printing inventions to be made that improved the way books are printed. Writers and publishers and readers everywhere benefit. Now, what to do with the books after you publish them?
Distribution: a book can’t live without it
Today we are also lucky to have more efficient ways of distributing books making it easier and faster for readers to get their hands and eyes on them. This post is a short infomercial for the book making company, IngramSpark. I am not being paid to rave about them. I’m just putting the word out about them because lately more folks are asking me how I do my self-publishing. IngramSpark is on my best friend list. It’s what’s called a “print-on-demand” company. As it did for Undertow, it will print my upcoming book and distribute it to booksellers around the world.
The word distribution of course, applies to the way any product makes its way to customers: groceries via trucks, electricity from power plants via wires, and Netflix via whatchamacallit. Most of those products are usually, not always, fairly easy to deliver to customers waiting for them. But for authors who choose to publish their own books, often the distribution of those books is a bit tricky. I faced that problem and solved it with IngramSpark.
Why IngramSpark?
I’d heard nightmare stories of other self-publishers who used what’s called Vanity Presses, or even predatory presses, and other services that promise they’ll do whatever you need to publish your book. Some legit services are called concierge publishers. Like a concierge in a hotel. Essentially, that means someone else finds the book designer, editor, and printer for you, and does all other tasks you would normally do if you were self-publishing your book, such as buying an ISBN number, buying the barcode that goes on the back cover, etc. I did all that myself when I published Undertow. Had a lot of good advice. For more on that, keep reading.
Unfortunately, using certain kinds of publishers, some authors end up with boxes of books stacked in their garage but have no way to move them into readers’ hands. Granted, they’ve sold some to friends and family and at book fairs and events, but they still have leftover books collecting mildew out back. Now what?
It’s true that many authors sell their books from their own author websites, which I did with Undertow for the first month after it published. But still, the distribution is narrowed to the folks who know you have a book, know you sell it on your website and know how to use PayPal or some such payment service. If you want a wider audience, these days it takes getting your book out there on the internet where all the book sellers are.
For me, selling directly from my website for one month let me offer signed books and a personal way of connecting with interested readers/buyers. But doing business that way requires ongoing attention to orders coming in, postal expense, and time set aside for offering this sort of service.
A print-on-demand company saves trees, garage space, and possibly your sanity
If you don’t want to sell your book directly from your website (or like me, you want to only offer it for a while), let the vendors who have agreements with IngramSpark do the order-filling for you. And then let IngramSpark do the math for you, meaning they’ll send monthly sales reports to you and pay you via direct deposit to your bank account. All this saves at least a forest full of paper.
So, print-on-demand means exactly that. IngramSpark does not print a book until there is a demand, a.k.a. an order for a copy. Orders come to IngramSpark through vendors like Barnes and Noble, Amazon, etc. whose customers pay for the book. How do those vendors get your books so they can sell them? From you via IngramSpark. You upload on IngramSpark’s website the electronic files of your book and its cover file. They have very good instructions about how to do all this. BTW, they can also convert your book into an eBook.
Here’s a nice bit of info from IngramSpark’s website:
When authors and publishers upload a title into the IngramSpark platform and then enable that title for book distribution, they are making their book available to order by online retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, and Target, as well as thousands of independent bookstores and libraries.
Undertow with IngramSpark for nearly five years
In my view, given my nearly five years of experience with this company, I can say it produces high-quality books and treats authors well. Their sales reports are clear and payments to me are always on time. I’m proud to recommend them to any writer seeking to self-publish a book.
Also, we authors can buy quantities of our own books directly from IngramSpark at a nicely reduced price and then sell those books ourselves. I’ve done that at more than twenty in-person presentations I gave about Undertow. It was a great way to connect with readers and share the story!
The trick, of course, is not to overestimate how many books you think you can sell on your own. Live and learn. Use your imagination, that’s one thing I’ve learned, too. My new writing and marketing mantra is a phrase from Annie Dillard which she didn’t use in the context of marketing, but I do: “Are you a woman or a mouse?” Sometimes that means thoughtfully forgetting about making any money on a book and giving it away free. For example, I’ve sent complimentary copies to a few university professors whose books on fundamentalism, cults, religion, etc. inspired me. I’ve also donated copies to local libraries.
How I survived self-publishing Undertow
For more about how I self-published Undertow—and I’m in the same process with my second book Work Done: Flash Fiction, Poetry, and Bits about Writing—click here.
Get ready, in November, here comes Work Done.
Thanks for reading!
Your writer on the wing,
Charlene
Steve Muratore
Thanks for posting your positive learning/experience! ?
Linda Goddard
Charlene,
Thank you so much for sharing all this good advice about publishing. You are so generous to take the time to post what you have. I am so grateful to you, dear one.