17 August 2001
Print On-Demand publishing offers relief from
handling all the orders and sales transactions that you would have to
handle if you printed 5000 copies of your book, stored them in your
garage and handled all the order fulfillment yourself. Print on-demand
companies usually arrange for the book to be listed with bookstores and
databases under their name. When someone orders the book, the order goes
to the POD company. The company processes the check or credit card,
prints the book and fulfills it.
TRACKING ORDERS
Many marketing books suggest that each ad or
promotional piece you do should contain a code somewhere, that allows
you to track which campaign your customer responded to. This helps you
to track your marketing efforts, select the most effective, and build on
it. This only works, however, if you are taking every order for your
product. If your POD company is receiving orders it is unlikely that
they will collect this kind of information for you. This means that your
ability to track the effectiveness of your marketing is limited. You
can, of course, still check the dates of a sale and, in some cases, the
geographical location. This helps you to see that the talk you gave in
Poughkeepsie in January, was probably the reason that 12 people from
Upstate New York ordered your book at the start of the year.
DISCOUNTS
One of the most powerful ways to encourage people
to buy a product is to offer them a discount and to put a time limit on
it. (‘Save 20%, this weekend only!’). Self-publishers often offer
discounts at book signings and events, or if someone buys more than one
copy. It is important to remember that, with books printed on-demand,
the profit margin is usually smaller than with volume-printed books.
This means that you have less room for offering discounts. You may be
buying author copies at a 20-40% discount off the retail price. If you
sell the book at even a 10% discount, you will cut into your earnings
significantly.
In addition, any discounts you offer will be valid
only for books the reader buys directly from you. Just as you cannot
force a bookseller to offer the book at a lower price, you cannot force
your POD company to keep track of this month’s promotional offer on
your book and the 10,000 other titles they produce. (With technological
advances this may be possible in time, but for now the POD companies are
simply not sophisticated enough to do this).
You may add value by inviting people to come to a
web-page with more information about the book – free to purchasers.
You may invite them to request a free booklet or workbook associated
with your book.
BOOKSTORES
Do you long to see your book on the shelves in
bookstores? Why?
Print on-demand book, by their very nature, are not
printed in large quantities, warehoused or displayed in bookstores. They
are printed when they are ordered. You are unlikely to ship large
quantities of a print on-demand book to bookstores for display. It is
important to remember, however, that bookstores are not a promotional
vehicle for books, they are simply somewhere people go to buy books.
Most readers buy books that they have read something about or have had
recommended to them, or that seem to be on a subject they are interested
in. It is also important to remember that most books do not stay on
bookstore shelves for more than 6-18 months, unless they are
consistently good sellers.
It is certainly a nice boost to the ego to see your
book on a bookstore shelf, but it does not necessarily boost sales. In
addition, bookstores take a 40% discount, cutting into your profits,
dramatically.
It may help to think of your book as a mail-order
product and market it accordingly. Identify your audience and ways that
you can communicate with them. Direct targeted mailings at them.
Encourage them to order your book directly from the POD provider (and
yes, they can do that by mail, with a check).
Placing a book on a bookstore shelf is a very
passive, very ineffective method of marketing your book. With the advent
of online stores, readers are increasingly accustomed to ordering a book
and waiting a few days for it to arrive. Take advantage of this.
PROMOTION
You must be willing to promote your book everywhere
you go. Without the power of a publishing house behind you, you are
responsible for all the marketing and promotion. If you hope to sell any
books you must be willing to tell people about your book. You must also
– and here’s the hard part – be willing to tell people how good
the book is. If you can use other people’s comments, so much the
better, but you will have to swallow your modesty at some point and
stand behind your product.
Are you willing to:
If not, do not expect to sell many self-published
books.
EARNINGS
It is important to have realistic sales goals. Do
not expect to earn money from this venture. Expect to break even, at
best.
This statement holds true for almost all kinds of
publishing, traditional, self-publishing, vanity, or print on-demand.
Most books in traditional publishing do not earn out their advance. This
means that the publisher has calculated how many copies it thinks the
book can sell, and paid the author an advance equal to the royalties on
that number of books. Most books do not reach their projected goals, do
not go into a second print-run and do not earn the author any further
royalties. And these are books with the power of a major publishing
house behind them.
But this is not all bad news. Chances are you are
not writing to get rich – if you were, you’d be writing dull
financial documentation for a bank. You are writing because you have to,
because you want to be read, or because you want to build a reputation
as an expert in your field. In this case, the more books you can get out
into the world, the better, whether or not you make a profit in the long
run. Remember this when deciding how much money to invest in setting up
your POD book and promoting it.
If you are wildly successful you may make a profit,
but remember: only an estimated 6% of all writers earn their living
solely from their writings. Writing, especially fiction writing, is an
avocation, not an occupation. Print on-demand offers an inexpensive way
for you to share those writings, in book form, with a wider audience. If
this is your main goal, print on-demand may offer the best solution and
the least risk, and a safe way to test the waters of self-publishing.
In
this article I have attempted to cover a lot of ground, quickly, and
have not tried to give all the answers thoroughly. If I have raised
questions and you want a more thorough answer, email me at jd@jdwrite.com
and I’ll be happy to clarify, expand on any point in this article, or
address new questions.
***
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your comments on this article: was it helpful; have you questions or
comments about self-publishing or print on-demand, send them editor@jdwrite.com.
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