Print on Demand - taking the plunge!
First entry in a heck of a while, but one I thought well worth mentioning.
I've decided to make my book available for purchase via print on demand. Through Createspace (which works with Amazon), self-publishers can sign up for their books to be printed and bound one at a time as each purchase happens. This means no taking a big risk on printing a thousand copies off your own back with no guarantee of them all selling (especially in the growing Kindle-Age), but it does offer the opportunity to expand your audience somewhat for those people who still love the feel of paper in hand as they turn the page. It also allows you to retain full ownership and rights to your work, so if an agent or publisher does pick you up, you don't need to fight with Createspace or Amazon for the rights to print it elsewhere.
The only downside as far as I can see if the minimum selling price you are forced to put it up for. Because print on demand is a one at a time process (and therefore requires frequent changes to materials settings, and parameters of the printing/binding equipment), the cost of production per book is much higher than setting the printer to "make a thousand" and letting it fly. This does however mean (in addition to Createspace taking their cut) that you have to set your book somewhat higher in price than you may have liked. For the most part I don't tend to buy books that are above £7.99 nowadays anyway (certainly not in Kindle format), but I was always happy to spend this much on a hardback copy. I'm hoping therefore that the £9.99 ($14.99) cover price is not too high that it puts potential buyers/readers off giving Greg, Leonard, and Leyana's adventures a try. If anything, I hope my cover design and description are professional enough that they draw in the reader and are enough for them to have a little faith in my work.
The main reason for doing this, aside from of course widening my audience, is the hope that with more formats of purchase there will follow more chances of my work showing up in search lists when shopping on Amazon. There is of course also the instances of seeing a book is only available in Kindle format, and therefore assuming it must be self-published and by default probably complete tosh. Now while the seven agents I submitted to were unable at the time to take me on as a client (either through a busy current client base, not quite their genre, or actually did not like it but did not want to tell me so), I still like to think that the work I have produced is significantly above a considerable amount of the self-published work available out there now that it has become so easy to do so. So many of the books available on Amazon in the "Kindle only" category include covers and descriptions of such shocking amateurism that I worry of being lumped in and ignored. Authors who think using Papyrus as a title font is being creative and edgy, or by slapping together some helicopter photos and a fiery background constitutes a professional effort in cover design; or those whose descriptions force in as many "quotes" from happy readers as possible, just make me worried for those who chose to go the self-published route but risk getting lost in the sandstorm.
It seems like a nothing to lose way to go, and I really hope it provides a means to be recognised more as someone who is trying to get their work read for the enjoyment and not because they think writing should be an easy way to make money. But as with all things, time will tell, readers will vote with their shopping basket clicks, and reviews can make or break a book.
I just hop in a few months there are one or two copies of Secret of the Nexus sitting on bedside tables somewhere in the world, and entertaining night time readers as much as the Kindle formats steadily (though less so this past month...) trundling their way out of the digital storage of Amazon's servers.
I've decided to make my book available for purchase via print on demand. Through Createspace (which works with Amazon), self-publishers can sign up for their books to be printed and bound one at a time as each purchase happens. This means no taking a big risk on printing a thousand copies off your own back with no guarantee of them all selling (especially in the growing Kindle-Age), but it does offer the opportunity to expand your audience somewhat for those people who still love the feel of paper in hand as they turn the page. It also allows you to retain full ownership and rights to your work, so if an agent or publisher does pick you up, you don't need to fight with Createspace or Amazon for the rights to print it elsewhere.
The only downside as far as I can see if the minimum selling price you are forced to put it up for. Because print on demand is a one at a time process (and therefore requires frequent changes to materials settings, and parameters of the printing/binding equipment), the cost of production per book is much higher than setting the printer to "make a thousand" and letting it fly. This does however mean (in addition to Createspace taking their cut) that you have to set your book somewhat higher in price than you may have liked. For the most part I don't tend to buy books that are above £7.99 nowadays anyway (certainly not in Kindle format), but I was always happy to spend this much on a hardback copy. I'm hoping therefore that the £9.99 ($14.99) cover price is not too high that it puts potential buyers/readers off giving Greg, Leonard, and Leyana's adventures a try. If anything, I hope my cover design and description are professional enough that they draw in the reader and are enough for them to have a little faith in my work.
The main reason for doing this, aside from of course widening my audience, is the hope that with more formats of purchase there will follow more chances of my work showing up in search lists when shopping on Amazon. There is of course also the instances of seeing a book is only available in Kindle format, and therefore assuming it must be self-published and by default probably complete tosh. Now while the seven agents I submitted to were unable at the time to take me on as a client (either through a busy current client base, not quite their genre, or actually did not like it but did not want to tell me so), I still like to think that the work I have produced is significantly above a considerable amount of the self-published work available out there now that it has become so easy to do so. So many of the books available on Amazon in the "Kindle only" category include covers and descriptions of such shocking amateurism that I worry of being lumped in and ignored. Authors who think using Papyrus as a title font is being creative and edgy, or by slapping together some helicopter photos and a fiery background constitutes a professional effort in cover design; or those whose descriptions force in as many "quotes" from happy readers as possible, just make me worried for those who chose to go the self-published route but risk getting lost in the sandstorm.
It seems like a nothing to lose way to go, and I really hope it provides a means to be recognised more as someone who is trying to get their work read for the enjoyment and not because they think writing should be an easy way to make money. But as with all things, time will tell, readers will vote with their shopping basket clicks, and reviews can make or break a book.
I just hop in a few months there are one or two copies of Secret of the Nexus sitting on bedside tables somewhere in the world, and entertaining night time readers as much as the Kindle formats steadily (though less so this past month...) trundling their way out of the digital storage of Amazon's servers.
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