Are there any self-publishing writers who have experience in dealing with distributor

[mlee1189]

I am continuing my fathers book ministry and would love some advice on dealing with wholesellers and distributors Doug Gingrich,Roy Gingrich Book Ministry

[lynnmosher]

I wish I had some information for you but unfortunately I have none in this area. I hope someone will be able to help you.

[lynnmosher]

Doug, Whom have you contacted?

[mlee1189]

I was just hopeful someone who has experience could share with me some dos and don,ts

[Gravity]

Spring Arbor distributes Christian books, but I think you have to have an ISBN.

[mlee1189]

thank you,we do have isbn numbers, however again what are the pitfalls.advantages, usual discounts. Thanks, Doug, Roy Gingrich Book Ministry

[Eblackwell]

I just finished my book and it is POD. I used a company called LightningSource.com I hear that most over companies like AuthorHouse.com etc is a middle man for lightningsource. Anyway, when you print with them, they also have a distribution program through Ingrahm. I how this helps.

[Raine]

I do not follow the POD strategy. I realize that it is a way to get your work published, but it seems to me that it fails on every level.

From a business standpoint, YOU pay to have YOUR work published. There may be a few, and I would bet very few, who ever recapture their initial investment. Let alone any return on the investment, after you take out time and effort for your labor.

Second, it would seem to me that MOST (not all...) of the self published books available on the market are POD for a reason; poor writing.

I don't want to sound mean, but the road to hell was paved with good intentions. It may make sense to POD a small run of church books or for an inner office event, but it can never make sense from a business standpoint.

Am I crazy, or did I miss something?



v/r

Raine

[ChrisD123]

Raine,

I studied the self-publishing / hybrid / POD alternative and I did not like the conclusions I reached. It is not made for the writer to make money, but for everyone else in the chain.

I have recently established a publishing company and have just gone through the process of designing and contracting the printing of my first Christian children's book. I am a little biased, but I think I pulled it off pretty well.

Obtaining an ISBN, copyrighting and finding the right printer took time, but now I have a template from which to work which will make it possible for me to actually make money on every copy I sell.

I would like to try to deal directly with distributors down the road and I would be interested in hearing tips and successes that might make that easier.

Chris D

[Raine]

I have printed a ton of marketing materiel in the past two years. I did some pretty good research on getting the best price in town. I could not beat printingforless.com

I think they do full size books as well, at very cut rate prices. You will have a tough time getting distributers to take your work. Many of the large franchise stores will not even consider self published.

I think that to get it right, on your own (note The Christmas Box...) you have to be at the absolute TOP of your game. If not, you are shooting blanks in the dark. You're publishing, versus self publishing, but even that is a cut throat racket.


Good luck, though.

Blessings

Raine

[mlee1189]

thank you, doug gingrich

[pacwriter]

If you just want a printed book and a place to sell it on the web that will cost you $0.00 go to Lulu.com. there is no place more reasonable or easy to use.

[jvdoles]

The ministry my wife and I founded, Walking Barefoot Ministries, is the publisher of my books. I got a block of ISBNs. I also invested in Pagemaker and Photoshop, and traveled the learning curve on how to use them (Pagemaker for interior formatting, Photoshop for cover design). The upfront cost and time investment made sense for our situation. We have published six books so far.

We use Lightning Source as our printer. POD is PRINT on Demand, not Publish on demand. That is, it is a method of printing. A lot of traditional publishers use it to keep their backlist active With POD they don't have to warehouse a lot of slow-selling books, and their books do not have to go "out of print." With Print on Demand technology, the are always in print at a moment's notice.

Since Lightning is associated with Ingram and Spring Arbor (Christian), our books are listed with them, available for bookstore. More importantly for our interests, this makes the books available on Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com, BooksaMillion.com and a number of other online booksellers.

The cost per book price is pretty good up to about 500 copies. At that point it becomes cheaper to go with a good traditional offset printer. Right now, we order by 25 or 50 copies at a time for our personal distribution (from our website and "back of the room" sales). So we end up with good accessibility online and low inventory and warehouse requirements.

[brookkidron]

My experience is with retailers, since I was both publisher and distributor. One thing I learnt is that some retailers are willing to stock your book (S/R, of course) but the tune changes when they make sales and have to pay you. They start dragging the feet, talking about bureaucracy, one thing or the other. My dealings with two of them are presently hanging. I just don’t have the motivation to go back to them – after all, I’m a Christian writer first and business man second. But there are certainly some really fine ones, who are a delight to work with

[obwanocolby]

Howdy, I found a book at goodwill for 2 bucks called 'the complete guide to successful publishing,' by Avery Cardoza. You could probably find it at the library or online. I was really impressed and it had addresses and contacts for just about everything you need. It was geared for self-publishing and creating your own publishing house.

I wrote and published my first book back in '88. Without the internet I sold 2500 copies which I consider an accomplishment. This time around though, I elected to pay a publisher and let them do all the work. Of course they had to accept the book first which they did.

Whats nice is I have the other book still and will offer them that one to. It has proved itself and am fairly confident. I chose the royalty thing because I don't want to do all that work again. Just typing addresses burned me out.

Make sure you send good press releases to libraries, 'cream of the crop'. Good luck and hope you great success, Colby !thumbsup!

[writegirl1949]

One thing I've always encouraged CW members is BEFORE going POD, check out small publishers. My book was published by a small publisher and while I do ALL the marketing, I make a pretty good percentage, especially when I order copies and sell at book signings, etc.

True, marketing is a BIG challenge but lots of large publishing houses don't do a lot of marketing for many of their authors.

Just a thought before you go POD.

Blessings, Francine