UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion
Author Zone - Readers Welcome!
>
Print on demand
I think PoD is a good morale booster - to see your book as a physical item! Most of my few sales have been to people who actually know me offline, but paperbacks are also good for getting into schools. It's hard to get them into stores (from what I hear).PoD printing costs more than bulk printing, so many self-published paperbacks are a lot more than £7.99. However, I do think the average person doesn't expect to pay more than that, so I've experimented with different paper, trim sizes, etc. and now have my 92,000-word novel down to £5.39 (shipping is not free though - costs £2.99).
Probably not £7.99 to a complete unknown. I have bought a few POD books from people I have met on the forums, but I have have to know something about the author first.
Thanks both of you.I'm not sure that I'd want my books getting into schools - some of them have risqué moments.
How did you managed to get down to £5.39? With whom?
I used Antony Rowe (part of CPI group from memory) - v pleased with the quality. The costs do add up tho, it's not just the per book printing cost (which was £3.50 I think) - you'll also need a barcode (£25?), there's carriage on the books, initial set up costs, and they charge an annual 'storeage' charge to keep the files for future use. I also have the proofreader's fee of around £250 to factor in. In the 'old days' a bookshop would expect a one third discount to stock. These days, it's more likely to be 40 to 50%, if they will stock you at all. But it is useful to have 'real' books for review copies, and for author events - not figured out a way of doing a virtual booksigning for an ebook yet!
It's certainly not cheap, hence the popularity of ebook only!
POD is a total waste of time for selling your books unless you have a in built market. The postage costs alone are high.Most of my books are available from lulu.com, but they don't sell.
However, it is fantastic to have a proper printed copy of your book on your shelves and a few others to hand out to friends etc who might want to read them, or to take to a marketing event or something.
The formatting for lulu.com takes some time to get right, but it's worth it. You won't make your fortune on it though.
Just remembered... if you have a print version, you'll need to donate a copy to the British Library for the Legal Deposit collection & may get asked to donate to the other 5 collecting libraries as well. On the plus side, it's worth contacting your own local library service as they may buy a few copies (if they have any money left, or indeed any libaries... )
I've got to say that my experience so far with POD has been great. I know we've had a PM chat about this already, Rosen, but others may be interested so I thought I'd share my experience, and there may be something we didn't discuss.I wasn't going 'paper' at all when I set out, but by the end of last year I'd had a few people ask if they could get my book in paperback - non eReader owners and people who wanted to buy a copy for a friend. So I had a look around and settled on FeedARead. Createspace was the runner up because of the Amazon connection, but dealing in dollars wasn't so appealing. I found things easy to setup with FeedARead and they have online tools and advice to help you with formatting.
I'm really glad I went 'paper' in the end. My book retails at £7.99 and I went for 7x9 inches to keep paper costs down to a minimum (that was the least I was allowed to charge for it) as my book runs to 110,000 words. Print quality is excellent and I've heard of no complaints from anyone who has bought it.
The thing that has amazed me most is that it is selling very well at that price point. I see sales on Amazon every day in the UK, US and France where it even made the top 100 recently (slipped a bit now). I thought it would struggle because so many good books are discounted. Why would anyone pay £7.99? But they are.
I paid a one off fee of £88 to have my book go into FeedAread's distribution channel. That covers a copy for the British Library, the ISBN and the printer's distribution. You don't have to pay anything at all though to setup or maintain things with FeedAread, although at a minimum you will want to by a proof copy for yourself - which you would do anyway. Getting the paperback onto amazon, which links to the Kindle version, has been the key to getting sales for me, because the Kindle version of my book was doing well when I released the paperback and the reviews and bestseller ratings also spilled over to the paperback when anyone went browsing, so it had as much exposure as the much cheaper Kindle version.
I love the fact that I don't have to do anything, too. Some authors want to go out and sell their books, I'm sure, but I just wanted to write, so for me the distribution package FeedAread offers really made sense. I've yet to test the entire process, which ends with a sales statement and getting paid, which is twice annually direct from the distributor via Paypal 3rd week in March and October.
Outside of my original book thread information, I think that was my longest post! :o)
Lol! And can I just add as a purchaser of Steve's book in paperback the quality is very good :-) x
... and very useful it is too, Steve! Def worth considering for my next one, tho
personally I do need more physical copies cos of doing craft fairs & book fairs, plus the review copies and gifts
Karen wrote: "... and very useful it is too, Steve! Def worth considering for my next one, tho
personally I do need more physical copies cos of doing craft fairs & book fairs, plus the review copies and gifts"
You can order copies for your own distribution at a discount. I think it's about £5.40 a copy to the author. Through distribution I get £1 per copy, but I don't have to do anything.
Emma is officially fantastic! according to David wrote: "Lol! And can I just add as a purchaser of Steve's book in paperback the quality is very good :-) x"Another satisfied customer ;ox
I have always produced physical paperbacks of my books, although usually in small numbers - 50 or so. They are very handy for reaching friends and family for whom the Kindle is an impossibly complex piece of advanced technology...Since I have no distribution channel, I sell mine at £4.99 each which seems reasonable (especially as one is 140,000 words). But as Darren says, postage costs are high, and the cost per paperback of producing them means I'm barely breaking even.
Basically I've made a huge loss on paperbacks, but there was a time when they were the only way to reach people!
Thanks to everybody for your suggestions.FeedARead sounds like the most attractive package.
Proofreading is another expense I need to fork out for before I can go to print. I haven't previously paid a proofreader due to:
- lack of funds
- the ease of uploading changes on Amazon
- the small number of readers
However, it's got to the point where my Kindle books are losing stars due to typos, so perhaps proofreading is an essential expense whether I go POD or not.
Steve wrote: "Emma is officially fantastic! according to David wrote: "Lol! And can I just add as a purchaser of Steve's book in paperback the quality is very good :-) x"Another satisfied customer ;ox"
And another here. My copy of Steve's paperback is prominently on display in my lounge.
Most PoD's allow you (sometimes free) to have a proof copy. I find that's excellent for proofreading.Sorry - I'm with lulu. I got it down by going for the 9x6 format. The font size is at 12 (or was it 13?) and 92,000 words takes up about 232 pages (including all back and front matter). ISBN and distribution are free. Did all my own editing and proofing. Inevitably I missed some bits, but with feedback from those who bought the book (proof readers who pay you ;)) I caught a lot of the typos I'd missed and brought out a second edition. I'm fairly sure it's pretty clean now.
I'm not sure if an author is "unknown" or "known" makes much difference in the world of traditional publishing regarding pricing - does it (or should it) in self-publishing?
I also took a bit hit on my revenue by keeping it that cheap. I get 78p per book. I can probably increase the price another £1-2 if I wanted to, and still keep it within the realm of the range it'd be in a store - but people sort of expect cheap or free shipping (from Amazon) and lulu charge £2.99 basic...
Very interesting. I've had quite a few people enquire about a printed version of mine, and FeedARead sounds like good value for money.
FeedARead's benefit is that it is UK-based, but the £88 seems a bit hefty compared to lulu and CS. I'm also a little bit concerned about its long-term stability and value, as it's backed by government funding.
I thought that lulu's paperbacks were now printed in the UK so the delivery time is drastically reduced to what it used to be.
Darren wrote: "I thought that lulu's paperbacks were now printed in the UK so the delivery time is drastically reduced to what it used to be."That's interesting Darren. Can anybody expand on this?
D.M. wrote: "£88 seems a bit hefty compared to lulu and CS. I'm also a little bit concerned about its long-term stability and value, as it's backed by governm..."
Yeah, I am worried about the £88. However, do paperback sales get aggregated with Kindle book sales? If I sold 50 paperbacks and it improved my Amazon position, it could lead to more Kindle sales. Or have I got that wrong.
Good point about Government funding being cut.
Yes, lulu uses a printer in the UK. I order a book and it usually prints within a day or two and then takes another day or two to get to me. I've ordered on a Friday before now, and got it to the following Tuesday.I think sales ranking isn't affected by the printer - as long as Amazon actually carries a title, the ranking kicks in. Of course, it makes more sense for people to buy direct from lulu rather than Amazon (depending on where they live and shipping costs/option).
It's not just the cutting of government funding - in fact that would be a good thing in some ways because it would show how strong they were on their own. A company with the ability to make a success on its own doesn't need government funding, and there's a tendency to not look after the customer or do the best for them when they know they'll get gauranteed money from "forced customers" (tax payers - or it might have been lottery players. Can't remember.)
Patti (Yes! We STILL have no bananas!) wrote: "Steve wrote: "Emma is officially fantastic! according to David wrote: "Lol! And can I just add as a purchaser of Steve's book in paperback the quality is very good :-) x"Another satisfied custome..."
I hope you made a clingfilm dust jacket for it. :o)
Paperback and Kindle version sales rankings are separate on Amazon - a sale from one does not increase the ranking of the other. For some reason though, the genre rankings and positions do - or to be more specific, if I search the historical crime fiction chart under "books" I'm high on the list, but because of Kindle sales, not paperback sales. So the genre chart position of the Kindle version also helps to increase the exposure of the paperback, which equals more paperback sales.
Really? They don't aggregate? Even if you link the books?
From what I can tell, FeedAread are middle-persons (how PC) between writer and printer, and I don't think it's likely to matter to me that they are backed by the arts council. They take a small percentage of my book sales, so they have every interest in keeping their writers selling. As I see it, the printer does all the work once the book is set up. They handle the distribution channel, the printing (obviously) and the delivery of books ordered by Amazon, Waterstones, WHSmith etc, all of whom and many more are listing my book. I thought £88 was a bargain for all that. They made it available everywhere online. They just don't get it into shops for you, but that will always be a problem for indies as bookshops need to physically stock books and without the external advertising needed to bring customers in to buy the book, what chance have they got of selling it in the quantities they need to? A book needs buzz or the chance of it for a major bookshop to stock it - or a pre-existent following for the author.
Rosen wrote: "Really? They don't aggregate? Even if you link the books?"The two versions of the book are linked on the Amazon product page, but they have independent rankings.
My book's current overall chart positions:
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #508 Paid in Kindle Store
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 32,337 in Books
But the higher rating and the reviews for the Kindle version are reflected when searching in 'books', effectively giving the paperback a leg up.
An example of that is that when I search in "Books" by Avg. Customer Review, it appears 8th in the list.
And when I look in "Books" under Crime, Thrillers and Mystery -> Historical by popularity (ranking) my book is 5th on the list.
So in both cases, the reviews and chart position of the Kindle version are being passed on to the paperback.
It's the postage that's the killer. It makes your books totally uneconomic. I've self published three books so far but I'm going the Kindle route from now on.
Thanks for that post on how to use FeedARead. I think I'm about to change my mind about sticking to e books as this sounds the best possible compromise.
FeedARead does sound brilliant.Am I right in thinking that postage costs are covered in the distribution fee?
And the postage on author copies doesn't seem too bad.
I just had it confirmed that FeedARead's sales reports are six monthly. This is very disappointing. How are we supposed to budget, track sales trends etc, without live sales data?
I decided to use FeedARead. So far, a very positive experience - just like Steve said.A number of writers have asked me for feedback, so I've written a blog post about it, which you can find here:
http://rosentrevithick.co.uk/92/feeda...
Pros: very fast, helpful staff, good quality paperbacks
Cons: six-monthly royalty reporting
Thanks for the feedback, very useful, Rosen. (and thanks again to Steve for the original info!)
Interesting blog post, Rosen. I'm with Lulu and can't fault them so far. Very quick to print, and pleased with the quality, but I'm told it can take several weeks for the paperbacks to become available on amazon. Price is £6.99 + £2.99 postage. Might put some on ebay too - postage will be cheaper, I guarantee!
Will people be able to buy your Lulu books on Amazon for £6.99 and qualify for free supersaver delivery?
I hope so. It seems that others who have published through Lulu have that facility. I guess I'll have to wait until they show up.
I couldn't post my book for less than £3 with Royal Mail, Nicola. Maybe yours is lighter, but postage is quite pricey. Amazon do us a great service there by giving free postage. I'm sure they offer that on all books sold directly by them.
If that's the case, that free postage will apply on amazon, good news! I wasn't sure. My book is 41000 words, so quite a bit lighter than yours, Steve.
I went into two Waterstones stores today.The good news: they both agreed to stock my print on demand book.
The bad news: one of the stores complained because the distributor Gardeners (used by FeedARead) apparently only allow stores a 10% margin, when they're used to 50%.
At least they stocked it anyway, but I'd prefer to give my local bookstores a larger cut.
Hey Rosen!That is great news!!!
I see what you mean about the stores getting their cut but hey!!
I want to see pictures of them on shelves, chick. :)
I want those pictures too! They said they'll stock one or two, and see how that goes, before ordering more.I was hoping to see a stack big enough to sit on, in the shop window, but I guess that's not quite how it works - yet... ;-)
That's great news, Rosen. I have been thinking of feedaread as well.Of course, it's easy to get my books into the shops - I just take them to the local charity shop ;)
Of course, it's easy to get my books into the shops - I just take them to the local charity shop ;)"Ha ha! Nice work.
I highly recommend FeedARead. There seem to be a fair few people from this forum on there.
Yes, I went with Lulu because you can do it all without spending a penny :)Now I have some pennies from the sale of my book, I'll look at feedaread - did you go with the £88 option?
£88, eh?I'll throw in the extra quid and you can spend the money ON A KINDLE, DM!!!
hehe. But which one?!!!
Yes, I paid the £88 for premium distribution. It makes life so much easier.I worked out that FeedARead was more cost effective (for my book) than Lulu, even with the £88. I can't, however, remember how I did the calculation.
Being in the UK, feedaread may well be a better option. I sell very few paperbacks and basically use them for promotion purposes. But getting a listing in Waterstones might be beneficial...
I published my pod book with FeedAread in February and have not been disappointed. The one-off fee of £88 is well worth it and as Steve has been saying, you, as the author, don't have to do a thing. It takes between 3-6 weeks for the book to show up on other websites. Mine took about 10 days or so on Amazon and 14 days for Barnes and Noble and Waterstones, so it was pretty quick. The quality of the book is excellent too. Best decision I ever made and can't wait to get my sequel out (though it may take a year or two!)
D.M. Andrews (GoodReads author) wrote: "That's great news, Rosen. I have been thinking of feedaread as well.Of course, it's easy to get my books into the shops - I just take them to the local charity shop ;)"
Oh that's so funny! And probably very cost effective in spreading the word... mmmm... maybe not a bad idea after all lol!
Which services do you use? Have you found using POD beneficial? How much success have you had getting stores to stock your books?
Readers - does £7.99 seem like a reasonable price for a paperback by an indie writer (assuming it's been professionally proof-read and printed.) If you didn't know the writer, would you risk it?