#writerslife Distribution
One night about a year and a half ago, I arrived home after spending the entire day at the hospital with my daughter, who was 36 weeks pregnant. Baby E threatened to make an appearance, then decided, nope. Gonna stay put. Because of that adrenaline-then-letdown, I was exhausted when I got home.
But, as an indie writer, you don’t get to take days off because you’re exhausted.
If you decide to be an indie author, there are many steps to getting published. Please, please, please, I BEG of you, before you present your book to the masses, make sure you edit, rewrite, run it through software (such as ProWritingAid), get the feedback of beta readers, and an editor. Your book must be as polished and perfect as possible.
The final actual act of publishing, is to, well, publish. You want others to be able to publish your work. You’re likely familiar with the end-result: walking into a bookstore or browsing Amazon or Kobo or Nook Books. But how does your book get there?
Direct or Distributor?
Direct means you as the author and publisher, contract directly with the book seller (Amazon, Nook Press, Kobo (Rakuten Kobo), iBooks, etc.).
Distributor means you, as the author and publisher, contract with a distributor (or aggregator) who will make your book available through various retail outlets such as Kobo, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, etc.
Two of the main distributors that I’ve worked with are Smashwords and IngramSpark. There are others out there, such as Draft2Digital. For me, I prefer Smashwords. If you go that route, however, make sure you follow the Style Guide to the letter. No matter what route you go, that’s a good rule of thumb because Mark Coker’s Style Guide is a masterclass in formatting. Using a distributor is the easier method.
If you choose to go the direct route, you will upload your manuscript directly to KDP (Amazon), Nook Press, Kobo, iBooks, etc. That means that you will have a separate contract with each of them to distribute your book. It also means that any change you make to your book must be made on every single platform. Additionally, each platform will have its own fee schedule and royalty dashboard. If you are an indie writer and want to spend your time doing this, you’re welcome to do so. I caution you, though, to consider carefully whether your time is spent better writing or serving in an administrative capacity.
What are your questions about distribution?
