Create Space distribution options

One of the decisions you'll need to make if you publish your book on Create Space is whether to opt for Expanded Distribution. Create Space now lets you opt for this for free now (it used to cost $20 or so). If you do opt for this, your book can be available on websites other than Amazon.com and can also be sold in brick and mortar bookstores. What's not to like?

As it turns out, plenty.

I have opted for Expanded Distribution for a couple of my Create Space books. One book was a public domain title that I was re-issuing and I thought it might be something that could be used in university courses on Hinduism. Expanded distribution, I thought, might make it easier to sell to that market.

The first thing I found out was that expanded distribution increases the minimum price you can charge for your book. This minimum price is for all channels, not just the expanded ones. So if you give your book a realistic price you'll get hardly any royalty from your expanded distribution sales and ALL of your customers will pay more for the book.

Did I say ALL your customers? Well, not quite all. Your expanded distribution customers will pay the price you set, but your Amazon customers will pay a discounted price, plus they might get free shipping. So there isn't much reason for anyone to buy your book from anyone but Amazon, and even if they do you'll get hardly any royalties. You'd be better off pricing your book cheaper and only selling it through Amazon.

What about brick and mortar book stores? Well, what about them? Have you seen any lately? They're a dying breed. And even if they were thriving print on demand books don't work with their business model. Self published books don't either. So basically you might get your book sold at the Barnes and Noble website in addition to Amazon, but Amazon will sell it cheaper. Always.

There is another option for distribution you might consider, which is to have your own e-bookstore. Create Space will give you this for free. Here's one of mine:

https://www.createspace.com/4299888

Now having this doesn't make your book pricier. On the contrary, if you only had this you could make your book a couple of bucks cheaper and make the same royalty you would selling it on Amazon. You would just lose all the sales you'd get if you offered the book on Amazon. Plus you'd have to actually get people to find your store.

Good luck with that.

You can of course have your Store and Amazon too. Just don't expect to sell much through your Store, and don't spend a lot of money putting it together. I did one for my Create Space books using Google Sites, which is free:

https://sites.google.com/site/bhaktaj...

I frankly did this only for my own amusement.

Strangely enough, I have sold more of this book I put in Expanded Distribution through the expanded channel than I have through Amazon.

I sold 8 or 9 copies, total, and made 40 cents on each sale. Since I paid twenty bucks for expanded distribution (again, it's free now) I didn't break even. Public domain Hindu scriptures aren't hot sellers, I guess.

Now if you're already pricing your book several dollars over the minimum price expanded distribution can't hurt. Amazon will still be the cheapest place to buy your book, and you'll get a larger royalty for those sales than from the expanded sales, but whatever sales you get that way aren't costing you anything.

There are probably situations where selling books only through your own Create Space eStore makes sense, but I can't think of any.

Create Space introduced another option recently, which is to get a matte book cover instead of a glossy book cover. I like my glossy covers, so I don't plan to use this. But it's nice to have options.