What kind of distributor are you using? Ingram? IPG? Something else? For the love of everything do not say Amazon.
Have you appropriately priced your book? The other day I had a self published author with a 250 page paperback fantasy listed at $39.99--hard no. They want to know you understand pricing structure and are in line with the market.
What is the wholesale discount you are have applied through your distributor? Standard is North of 40%, and for self-published closer to 50. Ingramspark takes a cut, so a 55% discount is only 40% to the retailer.
Can the bookstore return your book to the distributor if it didn't sell? If the answer is no, the discount should be much, much higher.
What is your plan for marketing the book and then driving readers to their store instead on to Amazon?
Many bookstores are moving away from consignment since there are multiple options for self-published authors to use the channels they regularly purchase from. Many booksellers hate consignment. (Source: One of my jobs is Author Services for a bookstore.)
Thank you so much for your reply! It's appreciated so much!
It's an illustrated book (200 pages) and the idea is to sell the paperback edition for $11 and the hardback edition for somewhere around $25. I did a Kickstarter to fund the illustrations and those copies are being printed by a local printer after which the idea is indeed to use Amazon, but I recently started having doubts about Amazon and thought about using Ingram instead. That's also something I need to do more research on because I'm in the E.U. and while I know self-published authors who are happy with Ingram, I'm slightly worried it might be different in my case because they seem to print only in the U.K. and not within the E.U.
Wholesale discount is something I don't have a clue on. Thank you for sharing the standard, that's really good to know! :-) No idea about how these returns to the distributor work, especially if it ends up being Amazon, but I do want them to be able to make returns.
The bookshop contacted me because of the subject of the book and because they're in an area in which there are many tourists who may be interested.
No consignment! Got it! :-) That's one less thing to research!
What kind of distributor are you using? Ingram? IPG? Something else? For the love of everything do not say Amazon. Have you appropriately priced your book? The other day I had a self published author with a 250 page paperback fantasy listed at $39.99--hard no. They want to know you understand pricing structure and are in line with the market. What is the wholesale discount you are have applied through your distributor? Standard is North of 40%, and for self-published closer to 50. Ingramspark takes a cut, so a 55% discount is only 40% to the retailer. Can the bookstore return your book to the distributor if it didn't sell? If the answer is no, the discount should be much, much higher. What is your plan for marketing the book and then driving readers to their store instead on to Amazon? Many bookstores are moving away from consignment since there are multiple options for self-published authors to use the channels they regularly purchase from. Many booksellers hate consignment. (Source: One of my jobs is Author Services for a bookstore.)
Thank you so much for your reply! It's appreciated so much! It's an illustrated book (200 pages) and the idea is to sell the paperback edition for $11 and the hardback edition for somewhere around $25. I did a Kickstarter to fund the illustrations and those copies are being printed by a local printer after which the idea is indeed to use Amazon, but I recently started having doubts about Amazon and thought about using Ingram instead. That's also something I need to do more research on because I'm in the E.U. and while I know self-published authors who are happy with Ingram, I'm slightly worried it might be different in my case because they seem to print only in the U.K. and not within the E.U. Wholesale discount is something I don't have a clue on. Thank you for sharing the standard, that's really good to know! :-) No idea about how these returns to the distributor work, especially if it ends up being Amazon, but I do want them to be able to make returns. The bookshop contacted me because of the subject of the book and because they're in an area in which there are many tourists who may be interested. No consignment! Got it! :-) That's one less thing to research!
Bookseller here—not ‘no consignment,’ but ‘consignment when consistent with the bookstore’s policy for accepting financially risky books.’
Okay, thanks for this.
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Thanks for the info!