Episode 104 - The Fourth Process of Publishing: Distribution with Orna Ross
November 2, 2021
Orna Ross of the Alliance of Independent Authors joins me for the fourth of a series of seven episodes devoted to the Seven Processes of Publishing. This week the topic is distribution. As with the previous episodes in this series, we discuss ebook, print, and audio, including how to reach the most outlets in a way that is aligned with your business goals and that takes into account every indy author’s most limited resource: time.
We discuss the importance of not assuming that your own reading or listening habits are necessarily the habits of the readers and listeners you want to reach. And we discuss how making your print book available on a non-Amazon distributor is necessary but not sufficient for getting your book on the shelves of brick-and-mortar bookstores.
Orna Ross is the founder and head of the Alliance of Independent Authors, a non-profit professional business membership organization for self-publishing authors. ALLi provides trusted advice, supportive guidance, and a range of resources, within a welcoming community of authors and advisors.
"If you're tied in with just one self-publishing platform, one distribution outlet, then you are no more independent than the um, author who has licensed all their rights to one trade publisher." —Orna Ross
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[00:00:00] Matty: Hello, and welcome to part four of our series on the Seven Processes of Publishing. And I am here again with Orna Ross. Say, Orna, how are you doing?
[00:00:08] Orna: I'm doing very well. How are you Matty?
[00:00:10] Matty: I'm doing great. Thank you.
[00:00:12] So, this fourth process that we're going to be talking about today is Distribution. And similarly to what we talked about in the last episode with production, we're going to be talking about ebooks, print books and audiobooks, and I'm going to start right out with ebooks.
[00:00:27] So, Orna, I'm just going to open it up to you for your recommendations, ALLi's recommendations for ebook distribution.
[00:00:35] Orna: Sure. So production and distribution are very closely aligned and particularly in digital publishing, a lot of the platforms that have set up to distribute our books have actually provided us with great tools for producing our books. And I did mention in our last show that the guiding rule of thumb is, be everywhere. Just get out there.
[00:01:02] And so with distribution and especially with digital and with ebooks and the audiobooks in particular, it is not that hard to be all over the place and it is worth your while to do that. Because a lot of the countries, territories, platforms and things that have just been starting up in the last while are in massive growth mode. And so if you're not there, if you're just kind of restricting yourself to what you know, you're missing out on stuff.
[00:01:35] So with ebooks in particular, this is our general recommendation, but we recognize that this isn't going to work for everybody, and everybody makes their own choices depending on their particular set of circumstances. But we would recommend that you use Amazon for the Amazon ecosystem as a general rule of thumb. So, when distributing your books on Amazon use the Amazon platforms, which are for your ebooks and print books, it's KDP and KDP Print. You load them both essentially to the same dashboard. For audiobooks, it's ACX, and that is a completely different platform and a completely different dashboard.
[00:02:19] And we recommend that you distribute non-exclusively. Non-exclusivity is a big deal at ALLi. It's one of our core recommendations because the basis of being an independent publisher means that you can respond to different conditions in the market. When things change, if you're a tied in with just one self-publishing platform, one distribution outlet, then you are no more independent than the author who has licensed all their rights to one trade publisher. There is no independence there. You're very dependent, in fact, and we have seen members who have suffered through having their books distributed on just one platform. So yeah, non-exclusively, Amazon for the ecosystem. ...
[00:00:08] Orna: I'm doing very well. How are you Matty?
[00:00:10] Matty: I'm doing great. Thank you.
[00:00:12] So, this fourth process that we're going to be talking about today is Distribution. And similarly to what we talked about in the last episode with production, we're going to be talking about ebooks, print books and audiobooks, and I'm going to start right out with ebooks.
[00:00:27] So, Orna, I'm just going to open it up to you for your recommendations, ALLi's recommendations for ebook distribution.
[00:00:35] Orna: Sure. So production and distribution are very closely aligned and particularly in digital publishing, a lot of the platforms that have set up to distribute our books have actually provided us with great tools for producing our books. And I did mention in our last show that the guiding rule of thumb is, be everywhere. Just get out there.
[00:01:02] And so with distribution and especially with digital and with ebooks and the audiobooks in particular, it is not that hard to be all over the place and it is worth your while to do that. Because a lot of the countries, territories, platforms and things that have just been starting up in the last while are in massive growth mode. And so if you're not there, if you're just kind of restricting yourself to what you know, you're missing out on stuff.
[00:01:35] So with ebooks in particular, this is our general recommendation, but we recognize that this isn't going to work for everybody, and everybody makes their own choices depending on their particular set of circumstances. But we would recommend that you use Amazon for the Amazon ecosystem as a general rule of thumb. So, when distributing your books on Amazon use the Amazon platforms, which are for your ebooks and print books, it's KDP and KDP Print. You load them both essentially to the same dashboard. For audiobooks, it's ACX, and that is a completely different platform and a completely different dashboard.
[00:02:19] And we recommend that you distribute non-exclusively. Non-exclusivity is a big deal at ALLi. It's one of our core recommendations because the basis of being an independent publisher means that you can respond to different conditions in the market. When things change, if you're a tied in with just one self-publishing platform, one distribution outlet, then you are no more independent than the author who has licensed all their rights to one trade publisher. There is no independence there. You're very dependent, in fact, and we have seen members who have suffered through having their books distributed on just one platform. So yeah, non-exclusively, Amazon for the ecosystem. ...
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[00:03:14] And then when you get outside of Amazon, there are aggregators who will distribute your books for you. I know you use, Matty, very popular in the US is Draft2Digital. Fantastic organization and platform, and really easy to use. But there are lots of outlets that Draft2Digital doesn't reach. There is PublishDrive in Hungary. They have a really very broad reach into lots of different territories. And there is StreetLib in Italy, and they also have an extraordinary reach actually. We're talking literally hundreds of outlets. Some of these acts are very small. But the thing is you just need to upload your book there once. And then they look after the really widespread distribution of the books.
[00:04:06] And you can use these together. It isn't a matter of having to choose between them. So you can use, you can choose to use Draft2Digital, go to the various stores that they distributed to, use PublishDrive for the ones that they don't use StreetLib for the ones that they don't or have one aggregator and just use them for everything. Some people want the simplicity of just uploading their book once until they've used one, I gave her an even use us aggregator to distribute indirectly to Amazon.
[00:04:37] So the choice is yours, but our recommendation is if you want to maximize your revenue from your ebooks is to be out there as widely as possible. And as the outlier, you might call them, territories and platforms begin to rise, you're there. Your books are there.
[00:04:57] Now that just distributing a book isn't enough. Generally speaking, sometimes it is sometimes a book just takes off and I'll be reading those high something has happened, but you've don't know what it is. But generally speaking, you're going to need to do marketing. We'll be talking about that next time. But just distributing your book isn't enough. If you're not there, then you can't be accessed. If you're not in, you can't win as they say.
[00:05:19] So it's very little extra work, a bit like we were talking about having the different formats last time, for very little extra expense and very little extra time, you can really increase the possibility of your distribution. And so why not?
[00:05:37] Matty: You had talked in an earlier episode about the fact that when you're first starting out, sometimes it's better to get started simple and work your way up. And since I think a lot of people in the US and UK, and I'm sure other countries who are indy authors, their first sights are on Amazon, they may go to Amazon KDP, upload their ebook. And if they know that they're not going to have the mental bandwidth to go to other platforms for a period of time, they just want to get it up on Amazon, but they have long-term goals of being wide, are there pros and cons to turning on the exclusive button on KDP for a period of time, let's say for the 90-day period, or should you retain your wide ability right from the start, even if you're not capitalizing on it right away?
[00:06:27] Orna: There is a danger if you go KDP Select and then you pull your books, particularly if you're writing in series. And so if all the books are standalone, it doesn't apply so much, but it does a bit because from the reader's point of view, they're on a subscription model and they've just got to know you. They've just got to like you. They want more of your books and whoopsy-do, they're not available to them on subscription. They have to buy them, and they may not like that. So that's the danger if you kind of go in and pull out.
[00:06:59] It takes time to establish yourself on KDP, on the Amazon platform, or the wide platforms, no matter where you go, it's not as easy anymore if indeed it ever was. If there ever was this mythical golden age where you just put a book up and it sold in its gazillions, I'm not sure that ever really existed for any, for us all, but it certainly does not exist now, when books are just being put out by the new time, day in, day out. So it's going to take you time to build up whatever it is you're going to do.
[00:07:33] So I would say work out your strategy from day one, and then don't waste time building an audience in a place that isn't part of your ongoing strategy. Let each step build on the last step slowly but surely taking you where you want to go. Of course, if it doesn't make sense or something happens and then comes in, changes your mind, learn from your experiences, experiment, explore, all of that. Absolutely. I'm not saying you shouldn't do that, but I am saying that I've seen authors who have just about built a good following on KU suddenly decide, oh, I really should be wide. And then they pull out and then they get extremely frustrated because they didn't really recce that they had to start all over again.
[00:08:23] And you do. It's a different platform. It's a different outlet. The regions are different. You can't really transfer your readership across. So it's worth putting some thought into your process at the beginning. And then I would say, just confine yourself to that in the interest of simplicity.
[00:08:42] Matty: Well, one other episode of the podcast, then we're going to point people to is Episode 63, which was Mark Lefebvre, talking about WIDE FOR THE WIN. And Mark is usually such like a calm and friendly person, but he got quite exercised about it. So, that's a good one to watch as a companion to distribution to understand some of the ins and outs from someone who clearly appreciates the value of going wide.
[00:09:05] Other recommendations for ebooks beyond Amazon?
[00:09:09] Orna: Yes, absolutely. So, all of the aggregators that we were talking about there, PublishDrive, Draft2Digital and StreetLib, they're publishing to distributors that are worldwide, in different countries, from Mexico to the Philippines. So there will be all sorts of distributors that you may not have heard of. And particularly for our US friends, we're very Amazon-minded, but if you go somewhere like Germany, Tolino sells far more ebooks than Amazon, as an example. That's just one off the top of my head. So the idea here is, as I said, just getting them out there as widely as you possibly can. So use Amazon for the Amazon ecosystem and then use at least one other aggregator, ideally the three, to reach everybody else. And that will see your books distributed widely.
[00:10:10] There are a couple of other people though, that we feel it's worth going directly to. And each time you upload direct, it's a bit of a drag, you know, do recognize that the platforms work slightly differently, and you have to familiarize yourself with a number of them. Apple is one. Apple Books is a really good outlet for ebooks for all sorts of reasons, not least because people who purchase Apple devices very often stay on the Apple ecosystem. If you go directly to Apple again, you will have advantages that you won't have if you go to them through aggregators.
[00:10:53] Some of the aggregators also have arrangements with Apple, but just generally speaking, that is true. And also, it's a very good platform from the point of view, it's not as price sensitive at all as Amazon. So you could charge more for your ebooks. Its reach is fantastic and they're in far more countries than Amazon is in. And yeah, it really is well worth going direct to Apple if you have the bandwidth.
[00:11:25] Kobo, also another fantastic platform, coming out of Canada, but they have lots of partnerships with various distributors around the world and they've partnered in a really clever way that allowed them to grow and expand and get a real global reach very fast. So and if you can go directly to Kobo again, they run promotions that if you are a direct with them, it really makes a difference in terms all move in your books on the platform.
[00:12:00] Barnes and Noble in the US is still, I mean, this has all sorts of problems. Nook, its ebook distributor, had terrible problems. They've now relaunched as not going all that well, but nonetheless, they have a massive mailing list, people who are very into books. And if you are somebody who has done well on that platform, it can be well-worth file uploading directly.
[00:12:26] If you do upload direct to some of these platforms that I'm talking about, do reach out to them. They would like to hear from you and know what you're doing. And there are humans, there are algorithms as well, of course, but they're less algorithm driven than Amazon. And so lots of the books, for example, on Apple are human curated. And so promoting them and selling them and getting them out there is quite a different sort of setup to trying to do well on Amazon. It's different.
[00:12:56] There are some others I could mention, but I think that's enough for now. The only other one I would definitely mention is your own website. We are big in favor and seeing authors doing really well now with selling direct. So five years ago, even, direct selling from your own website was something that most readers didn't purchase ebooks direct. They wanted to buy from Amazon or wherever they normally bought their books. They didn't want to set up a different account. In short, they weren't as used to buying online as they are now. And the pandemic and lockdown and all of that has accelerated this development very much.
[00:13:36] Now readers love buying directly from authors. They love to feel that you've done better, they love to feel that kind of direct connection, and when you sell a book to a reader online yourself, you get their email address and so they become part of your asset base, which you don't get that information from the other distributors,
[00:13:56] So not by any means saying that you should go direct and not use the other distributors. Again, it isn't either or, it's both. But we're seeing people do better and better with direct. It's growing and growing as a proportion of successful indy authors' income. So really would urge you to think about it.
[00:14:17] Matty: Since a lot of people I think won't have the technical wherewithal to really understand how to set up a mechanism to feed digital data to customers, for example, I use PayHip. So it's not on my website, I have links to it from my website. Is that the approach you're recommending or, is that okay? Or is there a benefit to actually having something on your website and if so, what mechanism do you use to do that?
[00:14:45] Orna: Yeah, so you can use PayHip or Selz. To distribute on your own website, you need two things. You need the transaction engine, if you like, where the reader is going to come and actually pay the money, and then you need somebody to deliver the file. So it's a combination of PayHip, you probably use BookFunnel or somebody to do the actual file delivery. You can download any digital file using PayHip as far as I know. PayHip is a partner member and highly recommend as a really fantastic, an ALLi partner member, and so is BookFunnel.
[00:15:20] So, I think the best way to think about it is just do some research on this and we have an article on selling your books directly on the self-publishing advice site, which is SelfPublishingAdvice.org. If you just, or to Google "direct selling Alliance of Independent Authors," you'll get it.
[00:15:37] But essentially, what you need is, as I said, you need a transaction facility where you can take a credit card number or a PayPal or whatever, and then you need the delivery mechanism. And so you could use somebody like PayHip, which is a third party, and you pay them a percentage of the transaction payment on each file. I use personally and we use on the ALLi site WooCommerce, which is built into WordPress. If you have a WordPress site, you have access to a WooCommerce site. WooCommerce and BookFunnel then does the delivery.
[00:16:08] So essentially, you just have to think about how am I going to take the money? How am I going to handle the file? And it's a setup, it's something that most people can do for one book in a couple of hours. It's just a matter of working out what way you want to do it. Then you can sell that book for years and add to your bookstore on your website as time goes on.
[00:16:32] If you trade published, if you're published by a third party, it makes sense that your website is just kind of like a brochure. It really just tells the reader what you do and what your books are roughly about and gives them a sense of your author platform and you know who you are and what you do. But if you are an indy author, it makes total sense that your website is an actual distribution delivery mechanism. Because they land on your site somehow, read a blog or listen to your podcast, saw you at an event, whatever it might be, they go to your website. They're there, they're keen. They want to buy. And you're bringing them off somewhere else to buy. Why not have that sale yourself? It really does make sense. So, yeah, I would urge people to, if you're just starting out, think of your own website as the core of your activity and all the other distribution outlets as kind of a circle around that core.
[00:17:29] Orna: My book CREATIVE SELF-PUBLISHING talks about these processes and how they link together and how you set up so that you can kind of integrate and follow your readers where you want them to go. Because that's kind of what you're thinking about. I think when we start off, as authors, we do the first bit and then we do the next bit, we do the next bit, and it's kind of like a jigsaw puzzle. But if you're thinking, if you were a different sort of business, when you originally sit down with your business developer, they would be very sales-focused and they will be saying, what is your business, what is your website trying to do? How is it getting them over? How are you getting the email that you want, how are you getting... so, it can be very hard to unpick that and pull it all apart.
[00:18:16] The blog is a mechanism by which we try to integrate this. And I will talk about it a little bit more when we come to the marketing one and the whole idea of access marketing and the drawing them in through your own world, if you like, bringing them in to your funnel. But with a lot of people, I think it's trial and error and it all comes together in the end.
[00:18:41] You also can try different, I tried PayHip, and I tried Selz, and I actually ended up with WooCommerce. So I think there's a bit of experimentation here as well. The main thing is that you have your goal in mind. What is it you want them to do? Author sites fall into two. You either want to get the email as your number one, their email address, or you want to get the sale as your number one. And once you decide that, I think then you decide which bits you're putting together and what bits go out front.
[00:19:14] So, when we started off, we weren't clear where, we were all, you know, Dean Wesley Smith talks about writing in the dark. We were all publishing in the dark. We were doing our best. Now the tools tend to be better, so Aweber was designed as business minded tool. Now, there are tools that are just for authors, websites that are just for authors.
[00:19:37] But I do think that the key to it is what is your core goal? Because there can be three or four different things that you want to happen, but what's your number one? When the reader lands on your website or comes into your orbit, your social media or wherever that might be, what is it you want them to do? And setting up the signposting so that it's really clear and in a sense then letting go of all the other things that you kind of like them to do, but you have to forgo.
[00:20:05] Matty: Yep. Great advice.
[00:20:08] I did want to get back to something you had said about using some of the other platforms like PublishDrive and StreetLib. And even though those are based outside the US / UK sphere, I'm assuming you're recommending, even if you do not have translations, these are still worthwhile platforms to go to with English language books.
[00:20:27] Orna: Yes. They're not about translated books at all, they're all about books in English. They do have translation options as a different thing, but these are all just about distributing your English book. So PublishDrive and Streetlib can distribute your books to Amazon as well, as we said, though we recommend that you would go direct. Apple and all the other major distributors, as well as the minor ones. So they are for English books and English book distribution in countries around the world, because every single country has loads of people who read in English, either immigrants or people who know English. We are so lucky to be writing and publishing in the world language that is English, and so it takes advantage of that.
[00:21:11] Matty: Yeah. Anything else on the distribution of ebooks front?
[00:21:19] Orna: The only thing I would say is take it easy. Again, build step by step. So we spoke about not jumping into exclusivity, if we're going to jump back out of it, but you know, you don't have to publish on all these platforms at once, but you can leave that door open so that you can come back to them. And that's the way to proceed, I think, and get to know one platform and understand it. Then it's a bit easier next time out.
[00:21:46] It seems impossible to believe when you're on your first book, but by the time you're on your third book, production and distribution is actually the thing you will think about least. Once you've decided on your processes, then it's very straightforward. And it’s just literally repeat, whereas writing and marketing are constantly challenging and evolving. Production and distribution are actually the most straightforward part of self-publishing, even though when people talk about publishing a book, very often, what they really mean is production and distribution. And it is only one part of publishing, and in fact it is the most straightforward part.
[00:22:28] So, it literally is just learning by doing. So whatever you do, do it, because until you do it, you won't know. You'll hear people telling you, you should do this, and you shouldn't do that, and this is the other way to do it, and blah, blah, blah. This is something really where you can only learn by doing.
[00:22:48] Matty: And I think it's worth repeating something that I believe you said in the last episode, which is make notes about all this stuff, because with production and distribution tasks, depending on what your release schedule is, you might do it every month, but you might only do it every couple of years. And so, your make your way through it, and then you go back two years later and it's like you've never seen it before. So it's worth capturing the links and making the notes and can you use HTML in this platform's book description, but not in this book platform's book description? So, just making it so you don't have to start from scratch every time. So we've got to do these repetitive tasks.
[00:23:22] Orna: Absolutely, in your own words can make a big difference when it comes to facing in second time, third time. And the other thing I would say is, all of the platforms, their customer service is really excellent and very helpful. Don't be shy about using them. They really want to hear from you. They do not want you struggling and having a problem and trying to reinvent the wheel, when you know, a few words of advice from them can make a difference. So don't be afraid to ask your questions. First port of call is always the platforms themselves. If you're not having success then, do feel free to get in touch with us at ALLi and we'll see what we can do for you.
[00:24:03] Matty: Great. Should we move on to a distribution of print books next?
[00:24:08] Orna: Yes.
[00:24:10] Matty: So once again, what are your and ALLi's recommendations on that front?
[00:24:15] Orna: Yeah. So we spoke a little bit about this already when we talked about production in the last program. So yeah, when it comes to print, it's KDP Print for the Amazon ecosystem and it's IngramSpark for the rest of the world. So you very often hear people talking about 8,000 outlets worldwide. That is essentially where the Ingram catalog is picked up by distribution and wholesalers around the world. That enables a library, bookstore, or another book institution or business to access your book. And that's what you want.
[00:24:57] Distribution is all about just being there, just getting them out there. So we recommend that you use both that when you upload your book to Amazon KDP, you do not take expanded distribution. If you do take expanded distribution, that means that Amazon would send your book over to Ingram. And there are all sorts of issues that arise around that. But not least is the fact that if you have any interest in your book being picked up by bookstores, they are not likely to pick up KDP Amazon published books. They are much more likely to pick up a book if it's distributed by somebody else and that's to do with just marketplace realities in terms of how bookstores feel about Amazon's presence in the bookselling arena. So that's one reason, and there are other reasons too, so you don't take expanded or extended distribution in Amazon, and then you upload your book to IngramSpark.
[00:25:57] So you just, as we said at the production program, your interior file will do for both, you just need a slightly different cover. Their systems are quite different, and you just get your head around that and you just upload to the two, but you've only got two. It's not like on ebook world where you've got 200,000. So, it is relatively simple, and we are very lucky. I know that there are problems with the platforms and the platforms are not perfect, but they are amazing tools. There was no way an author could publish, print, and distribute it around the world, just ten years ago. Ten years ago, that was an actual impossibility. The only way you could then self-publish a printed book was to go to a printer, run off thousands of copies, and then you were left with the distribution headache. How am I going to actually get these to people? How am I going to let people know they exist?
[00:26:49] The fact that we have these tools, they're not perfect, they're getting better. Ingram is having trouble at the moment with the integrity of its catalog, I know, and some people are getting caught in that process and it can be very frustrating if you've planned your launch, and you find you can't do it because you get caught in some problem within the platform. But these platforms are working hard on our behalf. They're taking indy authors into places that we couldn't go before. And yeah, they really are fantastic tools. So, take your time and get used to them. I really recommend you use them.
[00:27:58] Matty: I wanted to use that as an entree to talk about discounting and returns. And we talked a little bit earlier about how by discounting we don't mean putting something on sale, but rather a discount that you as the publisher provide to the retailers when they're purchasing your book to sell it in a bookstore, for example. Can you talk a little bit about how that works and what considerations indy authors should take into account when they're considering the discounting options?
[00:28:24] Orna: Yes. So, the first thing to say, I think the most important thing to say, is we talk about using IngramSpark because it opens the potential for bookstores to access our books, and wholesalers and distributors to access our books. And Ingram is more satisfactory in some territories than in others. So in the US it's very straightforward. Outside of the US, depending on the country, it's less so. And even here in the UK, where it is the most developed outside of the US, Ingram would not be the first distributor of choice for most bookstores. So it's worth bearing in mind. What uploading your book to IngramSpark does is it gives you the opportunity to have your book chosen by a bookstore or a retailer.
[00:29:14] Now, bookselling of print books through bookstores is a crazy business and it's a miracle that anybody makes any money at all. First of all, it's done on sale or return basis. So, they take the books. If they sell them, you get paid. If they don't sell them, they send them back to you or destroy them. Hundreds of thousands, countless numbers of books are pulped each year because publishers don't want them back. As I said, it’s a crazy business.
[00:29:45] Say the book costs $10, then the wholesaler or distributor will take a percentage from that. By the time it gets to the bookstore, they want to discount 55% to sell your book, to put your book on a bookstore shelf. Very often indy authors, when they do the math, it just doesn't add up. They cannot make a profit, but they may decide to go ahead and do it anyway because it opens up a distribution outlet and they may develop that relationship, and then perhaps use a different form of print. Or lots and lots we've seen all sorts of different things happen, and there are different programs on the platform as well that can help you.
[00:30:30] You won't just get your book into bookstores, generally speaking, there's going to have to be some sort of marketing going at the receiver end. And what it does allow is that if there is an event that you're at, a literary festival or something like that, if you're running an event in a bookstore, and then sometimes just for some reason, a store does start to sell your books.
[00:30:59] So it's all about the ability to have it there, but it's not by any means guaranteeing that now my book is up on IngramSpark, now all the bookstores are going to start carrying my book. No. The main publishers have sales reps who are going in and persuading people at head office level in the chains and all the way down the chain to actually take their books this season. And bookselling is based very much on a front list and a back list kind of mentality, because they only have so much space on the shelf. This is why the launch is so important in traditional publishing. Your book only has a number of weeks to make it. If it doesn't start to really sell, then you're into the returns thing.
[00:31:44] So this is a very long-winded way of saying, unless you actually have a plan for bookstore distribution of your book, then you may want to forget about putting the higher level of discount that the bookstores demand, the 55% plus discount in Ingram. You may want to offer a lower discount and you may not want to take returns because all of that is set up with a bookstore in mind. But if you don't have an actual plan for bookstore sales, they are unlikely to suddenly take off by themselves, and then you're setting lower discounts for the books that do sell.
[00:32:25] Matty: At all. My books are non-returnable. I give the maximum discount I can and still make a profit, which in some cases is like 7 cents. But, as much discount as I can up to 55%, which I think is the standard retail discount. but turn off returns because I did get burned big time once at a bookstore event where they ordered way more books than they should. And then they all went back except a couple. And I think that event costs me like $150.
[00:32:54] And in my business plan, bookstores I'm kind of doing it as community outreach. I'm making it available as community outreach because it's not a significant part of my business, but of course I don't want to deter someone who is interested, but I'm not, it's not a market I'm going after.
[00:33:09] Orna: Very wise. And that's the way to do it. And the returns thing just doesn't work because when you get the books back, they're not even salable. Very often they're damaged. And it's actually a real environmental problem as well, undermining that whole business model. So, whether it will change or not in times to come, a lot of intelligent people have tried to improve this system, failed so far.
[00:33:34] But yeah, so that's really why, Matty, I would kind of urge listeners to do is to work out the plan. We all involve the idea of our books being at the front of a bookstore, but the truth is without the backing of a major publisher who has paid for that placement as part of their marketing on the authors' behalf, it's highly unlikely. And even those authors who have been trade published have got into bookstores that way, very often the book is there in the back, invisible to people, doesn't move, and just ends up being sent back. So for most indy authors, keep the focus on online selling from your own website, ebook selling, audiobook all much, much easier. Nothing is harder than print book through bookstore.
[00:34:28] Matty: One organization that I think is doing a good job of stepping into a needed spaces is Bookshop. So a bookshop.org being a group that people can order books through but print copies of books and a portion of the proceeds goes to indy bookstores. And if you're an affiliate, which I am, you can set up a shop, I've set up shop with my own books. And so if somebody buys one of my books through Bookshop, I'm getting a royalty, but I'm also getting a little bit of money as an affiliate. Is bookshop.org, an organization that ALLi recommends?
[00:35:01] Orna: Yes, we love them. They're great. And love the creative thinking behind the organization and the wish to shake up this world that does need a shaking up. So, yeah, they're a great organization.
[00:35:16] Matty: The other thing I've really liked about Bookshop is that I really wanted to get out of the business of packaging up and sending out books. Very occasionally people would purchase books. The one selling I actually do on my website is I do have it set up so that people can purchase signed copies, but it was a lot of trouble, and it didn't happen enough. Like I wasn't going to disappoint that many people. So what I ended up doing is pointing people to Bookshop, and then if they drop me a note, I'll send them a signed bookplate, because that's much easier to handle. And in the end, they have a book that's inscribed specifically to them. But yeah, just another, as you were saying, hold it up to your business plan, and I did not want to spend my time packaging up books and driving to the post authors. So a Bookshop was a nice alternative there.
[00:36:03] Orna: That's great. And then there are other people for whom packing up books and sending them to their beloved readers is their idea of heaven. They actually love it. And if that's you then by all means, and if you are determined to get your book into bookstores, we have seen indy authors do great things in bookstores. I'm not saying it's not possible, but I am saying too many indies think just putting their book up on IngramSpark is going to do it. It's not.
[00:36:30] Matty: Yeah. And for all these things, I always say, weigh the time you're going to spend with the benefit that you expect to get and then align your actions to match up to your goals.
[00:36:40] Orna: Absolutely.
[00:36:41] Matty: Would you consider pricing part of distribution, the determining the price for your books?
[00:36:47] Orna: Yeah, again, it's one of these crossover ones, isn't it? A crossover is between promotion and distribution. But yeah, the way I tend to think about it is that setting your base price is distribution and then setting your promotional pricing is promotion. So yes, I think deciding or experimenting to find out your ideal price point is part of becoming a good book distributor. And that is very often for people, a bit of trial and error.
[00:37:20] So this is the question that comes up in ALLi a lot. People hear from other people, I didn't buy your book because it was only 2 99, I just assumed it wasn't any good. And then people who think pricing is all about being cheaper go, that's crazy, nobody does that. But they actually do. And so people have very different relationships with money. And you need to get clear about your genre and where your typical readers fall around that. There are genres that are price sensitive and the big genres that are read by the whale readers tend to be more price sensitive. So the romance and fantasy and so on. There are other genres that are not price sensitive at all and there are genres where they really want quality books, something like say poetry, some really beautiful books that don't have very many words in them, but a huge amount of production has gone in and the pricing reflects that accordingly. So yeah. The main thing for you to know, first of all, is your readers typically, are they price sensitive?
[00:38:27] The other thing to be aware of. And I think I did mention this already, but just to say it again, because it's important, Amazon is the most price sensitive of the platforms. It's whole raison d'etre is you won't buy it cheaper anywhere else. So they will price match if your book is cheaper somewhere else. So just holding that awareness that your book doesn't have to be the same price on every platform, and it doesn't have to be the same price on your own website. You can't undercut Amazon on your own websites. They will just price match or lower. So you don't want to try to do that, but the opposite very often, if the reader who's on your website, it's not going to be running around comparing prices and seeing if the book feels like a reasonable buy to them, that would be quite happy to buy it directly from you for a bit more.
[00:39:14] So the main thing to do is play with your pricing as well. Don't feel it's set. And it's well worth seeing what your sweet spot is, and that can take a bit of trial and error. You want the place where the price doesn't put off volume, so that you're getting that sweet spot between the number of copies sold and the amount that you're charging for the book that delivers the most revenue for you. And as I said, we have had many times on I myself can attest to having put my prices up and having sold more copies when they were more expensive than when they were cheaper. So it definitely does happen.
[00:39:54] Matty: I'll point people to another Mark Lefebvre episode of The Indy Author Podcast, which was way back in 20 WORKING WITH LIBRARIES AND BOOKSTORES. So Mark had some great information to share about that. And then, I just spoke with J K Ellem about TAKING THE LONG VIEW FOR PUBLISHING SUCCESS, and he was encouraging me to put up the price of my novels. I don't know why this is such a mental block for me, but they're now 4 99 and I'm on the fence about going over $5.
[00:40:21] But I think my biggest pricing challenge is international pricing. So there are all these platforms that are now enabling reach into more and more countries. And oftentimes on platforms like Google Play is the craziest, because you can set your book price in all sorts of countries, and it could be a full-time job just to research what are reasonable prices. And normally they'll suggest the price. So you put in 4 99 for the US and then it'll suggest the price that you could charge in other countries in other currencies. But I have never been able to tell if they're strictly doing a dollar conversion into that currency, or if they're somehow factoring in that country's price tolerance. Do you have any insight into that?
[00:41:08] Orna: Yeah, unfortunately it's just a straight currency thing. So that leaves your book too expensive, generally speaking, in India or other countries such as you say that the price thing tolerance isn't high enough. Again, I would say not to get too hung up on this, and certainly not at the beginning. If you have a relationship in a particular country, if you find the difference are selling a lot in a particular country, then it's worth going in there and working at your pricing there just as you would in your home territory. But if they're selling little or nothing at all in those countries, then don't worry too much about it. It's unlikely that just changing the price is going to be the thing that will actually start or stop them selling. You would want to be going in and fixing up the price and fixing up some marketing as well, to have a plan in other words to make it worth your while to go to the bother of working out of what you feel that should be there.
[00:42:04] Matty: Yeah. Other thoughts about distribution of print books?
[00:42:10] Orna: I think that's it. It is the trickiest one to distribute yourself. It's much easier for you to distribute on your website. I'm talking about not a direct distribution, which is your few to distribute books and audio than it is print. Print is harder and you may not want to do that. And you can develop print partnerships, I think is something that we're seeing indy authors do more. So small indy publishers that are already working in print and have a print distribution outlet, some have worked out a good print strategy. It can be a good thing to team up with them and let them take that weight because print is different and it's harder. So unless you really want to go into print in a big way, I would say keep it simple, just KDP and IngramSpark it and it's available and then you can go from there.
[00:43:07] Matty: Okay, great. So now we're going to turn to distribution of audiobooks, and we covered this a little bit in the last episode about what platforms are available. Do you just want to do a quick recap of the distribution angle on that information?
[00:43:22] Orna: Yeah, so audio again, it's kind of Amazon and the rest. So in terms of distributing your books on Amazon and getting them available on Amazon, which also means Audible, and Audible is the biggest seller of audiobooks in the US by some margin estimates in some verticals, they say up to 90%, so that's a lot. So yeah, you go through ACX in terms of distributor, your book through, Amazon. I, I mentioned in the last program that there are issues around that, but nonetheless, we do recommend indy authors not to turn their back on, on that enormous platform. but not to go exclusive with ACX. So in other words, to keep your options open.
[00:44:11] There are lots of new options emerging in audio. Audiobooks are in growth almost everywhere in the world and there are lots of different platforms that are emerging to take advantage of that. So in addition to ACX, you may want to Findaway or Authors Republic or Soundwise or one of the other end distributors of audiobooks.
[00:44:38] It's not so much with eBooks the different aggregators, you can match them up, there are ones that some aggregators go to and others don't. There is overlap, but there are lots of different ones. With an audiobook distribution, ACX and one other, will suffice, will get you into the vast majority of the audiobook distribution outlets around the world.
[00:45:05] And don't neglect audiobook. It is as easy to download an audiobook as it is to download an ebook. And that's kind of hard for some people who are not used to audio to wrap their heads around, but basically, it's just a digital file. So once the device can take it and your mechanism, again, I do a shout out for BookFunnel here. They do a great job in terms of distributing audio directly for authors. And so don't shy away from audio because you're not an audio listener yourself, for example, or because you think it is hugely complex. From a distribution point of view, it is as easy to distribute an audiobook as it is an ebook.
[00:45:46] So do you remember, I was saying this a transaction method and then there's the download method. So BookFunnel provides the download mechanism, but you need to set up your payment facility and then you just give the BookFunnel link. And you don't have to do that. You can just provide your EPUB yourself and that should be downloaded, but for a not very significant annual sum, they look after all the "my ebook hasn't downloaded" emails that you don't want to be getting. And their system is just so well set up. They can also collect email addresses for you. So you can see exactly who did download or didn't, sometimes we make sales, and the person doesn't read the book, it happens, all of these kinds of things.
[00:46:34] So there's loads of things that BookFunnel can do for you that you can't do for yourself. It's a service that's well worth paying for, but it isn't essential. So all it is handling that download. There are many ways for you to take the transaction payment, which would be Selz or PayHip's the one that you use. There are lots of them and that will also deliver the download as part of the sale. I use WooCommerce and ALLi uses WooCommerce together with BookFunnel to ensure just ease of download.
[00:47:09] Matty: Any of those things where somebody might call you up and say, my download didn't complete or something like that. Like we were talking earlier about the fact that one of the things I wanted to get rid of was packaging up books. And you pointed out quite rightly that there's some people who would find that very gratifying. But I don't know that anybody really finds it gratifying to answer questions about why a file didn't download. And so any of those things, I think that the options for asking some other expert person and organization to help you do that, they're so affordable that from a business point of view, it would be hard to justify, no, I'm going to slog through that myself because I want to save the cost of having somebody else take care of it for me. Just pay the money and then spend that time writing more stuff.
[00:47:51] Orna: I totally agree with that. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:47:55] Matty: We had talked a little bit before, also about the difficulty of coordinating launches across media. I guess now we're sort of spilling into the next episodes, which are going to be about marketing and promotion, but we had said that it is very difficult, but it's very hard to anticipate when an audiobook is going to be available. So with eBooks, you can go on there and say, my launch date is December 1st or whatever it is. And you have control of that, but I don't know of any platform for audio that you don't just put it up there and then sit back and then pretty soon they say, your audiobooks up.
[00:48:28] And I think you could almost make a benefit of that by just making it like a separate launch. Because I think if you launch it all at once, there are certainly benefits to be had there. But, if you have to spread it out, then you can make a virtue of it by saying the audiobook isn't going to get lost in the availability of the ebook and the print book. I can kind of rev up the excitement for that again.
[00:48:49] Orna: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, traditionally again, and we can learn a lot from traditional publishing and how they do things. It was always the hardback launch and then the soft back launch, and they were seen as two different publicity opportunities. And it's the same for us. You can have your ebook launch, then do your print, then do your audio. There's nothing to stop you doing that. And all the while you're collecting reviews, hopefully, and blurb quotes and things that can be used in the next launch. And then very often if you've had two prior launches and then have your audio launch, at that point, you can begin to reach out to media and stuff because you've got some demonstrable feedback and reviews and things. So yeah, you could definitely make a virtue of a staggered launch.
[00:49:37] As you say, there's also something to be said for they all go up at the same time. They're all in favor of it. At the same time, you're not getting the emails saying why does he have your book out? All of that kind of thing. But the staggered launch if you're just looking at it from a marketing perspective, it makes sense to actually stagger your launches.
[00:49:56] Matty: Do you have any thoughts about audio to libraries?
[00:50:01] Orna: Yes. It's becoming much more popular, digital audio. So libraries always liked audio. They've had CD ROM and CD and tapes and things going way back when and digital audio is now really popular. So in terms of reaching that library market, Overdrive has traditionally been the distributor for ebook, and they are also active in audio. There are lots of people coming into that market to provide that bridge. Kobo is involved as well.
[00:50:37] So yeah, again, it's just a matter of making sure that you have widely distributed. If you've used the various services that we're talking about, then you will find yourself in the right place. If you haven't, then you're just not there so it won't happen for you. Being there doesn't guarantee that it will happen, but it makes it possible.
[00:50:59] Matty: Yeah. We did talk about audio quite a bit in the previous episode, but are there any other aspects of audio distribution that you want to highlight?
[00:51:10] Orna: No, except I probably want to just say again, what I said at the beginning is not to neglect audio as a format that is easily distributed on your own website. And I suppose the other thing is not to neglect audio overall because I do hear indy authors saying, oh, I don't listen to audiobooks, who listens to audiobooks. To recognize this really is a growth market. The other thing that I hear a lot when it comes to audiobook distribution is authors are selling their audio rights to audiobook "publishers" who are really distributors, who are taking them I'm out there and paying very little for the privilege.
[00:51:52] So when you speak to an author about that very often than say, oh, for me, audiobooks are just the jam. So I concentrated on my eBooks and anything that happens with audiobooks is. But I would say that every format, audiobooks really have the potential to do extremely well for indy authors. And I think we're not taking advantage of that enough. So I would say, think again if one of the audiobook distributors does approach you and offers you a bit of a lump sum to give over all your rights, some of them for a very long term for very low percentages. These are not good deals in the main and, it's worth, okay, you get the book, you get the audiobook made, you get maybe a good narrator, a narrator that you're happy with and so on, but maybe not. My point is don't undervalue your audio rights. They are very valuable.
[00:52:59] Matty: I will put in a plug for the ALLi Watchdog desk. Is that open only to members to ping that group.
[00:53:08] Orna: And we have an outreach aspect to the Watchdog desk where we do a ratings list. So you can look up a publisher or a distributor or any service and see what the ALLi rating is for that service, so that's available to everybody. In terms of actually looking at your contract and saying, this contract's a bad one, your advance is too small, percentages or there's no reversion clause, that kind of stuff, and that's for members only.
[00:53:38] Matty: Great. Well, thank you once again for talking through distribution. What number were we up to there? The fourth in our series of the seven processes of publishing. So three more to go stay tuned for that. And please let everyone know where they can find out all about you and the Alliance of Independent Authors online.
[00:53:55] Orna: So the Alliance of Independent Authors, which is a nonprofit association for self-publishing writers, is at www.AllianceIndependentAuthors.org, and I'm Orna Ross and I'm at OrnaRoss.com.
[00:54:11] Matty: Thank you, Orna.
[00:54:13] Orna: Thanks Matty. Bye now.
[00:04:06] And you can use these together. It isn't a matter of having to choose between them. So you can use, you can choose to use Draft2Digital, go to the various stores that they distributed to, use PublishDrive for the ones that they don't use StreetLib for the ones that they don't or have one aggregator and just use them for everything. Some people want the simplicity of just uploading their book once until they've used one, I gave her an even use us aggregator to distribute indirectly to Amazon.
[00:04:37] So the choice is yours, but our recommendation is if you want to maximize your revenue from your ebooks is to be out there as widely as possible. And as the outlier, you might call them, territories and platforms begin to rise, you're there. Your books are there.
[00:04:57] Now that just distributing a book isn't enough. Generally speaking, sometimes it is sometimes a book just takes off and I'll be reading those high something has happened, but you've don't know what it is. But generally speaking, you're going to need to do marketing. We'll be talking about that next time. But just distributing your book isn't enough. If you're not there, then you can't be accessed. If you're not in, you can't win as they say.
[00:05:19] So it's very little extra work, a bit like we were talking about having the different formats last time, for very little extra expense and very little extra time, you can really increase the possibility of your distribution. And so why not?
[00:05:37] Matty: You had talked in an earlier episode about the fact that when you're first starting out, sometimes it's better to get started simple and work your way up. And since I think a lot of people in the US and UK, and I'm sure other countries who are indy authors, their first sights are on Amazon, they may go to Amazon KDP, upload their ebook. And if they know that they're not going to have the mental bandwidth to go to other platforms for a period of time, they just want to get it up on Amazon, but they have long-term goals of being wide, are there pros and cons to turning on the exclusive button on KDP for a period of time, let's say for the 90-day period, or should you retain your wide ability right from the start, even if you're not capitalizing on it right away?
[00:06:27] Orna: There is a danger if you go KDP Select and then you pull your books, particularly if you're writing in series. And so if all the books are standalone, it doesn't apply so much, but it does a bit because from the reader's point of view, they're on a subscription model and they've just got to know you. They've just got to like you. They want more of your books and whoopsy-do, they're not available to them on subscription. They have to buy them, and they may not like that. So that's the danger if you kind of go in and pull out.
[00:06:59] It takes time to establish yourself on KDP, on the Amazon platform, or the wide platforms, no matter where you go, it's not as easy anymore if indeed it ever was. If there ever was this mythical golden age where you just put a book up and it sold in its gazillions, I'm not sure that ever really existed for any, for us all, but it certainly does not exist now, when books are just being put out by the new time, day in, day out. So it's going to take you time to build up whatever it is you're going to do.
[00:07:33] So I would say work out your strategy from day one, and then don't waste time building an audience in a place that isn't part of your ongoing strategy. Let each step build on the last step slowly but surely taking you where you want to go. Of course, if it doesn't make sense or something happens and then comes in, changes your mind, learn from your experiences, experiment, explore, all of that. Absolutely. I'm not saying you shouldn't do that, but I am saying that I've seen authors who have just about built a good following on KU suddenly decide, oh, I really should be wide. And then they pull out and then they get extremely frustrated because they didn't really recce that they had to start all over again.
[00:08:23] And you do. It's a different platform. It's a different outlet. The regions are different. You can't really transfer your readership across. So it's worth putting some thought into your process at the beginning. And then I would say, just confine yourself to that in the interest of simplicity.
[00:08:42] Matty: Well, one other episode of the podcast, then we're going to point people to is Episode 63, which was Mark Lefebvre, talking about WIDE FOR THE WIN. And Mark is usually such like a calm and friendly person, but he got quite exercised about it. So, that's a good one to watch as a companion to distribution to understand some of the ins and outs from someone who clearly appreciates the value of going wide.
[00:09:05] Other recommendations for ebooks beyond Amazon?
[00:09:09] Orna: Yes, absolutely. So, all of the aggregators that we were talking about there, PublishDrive, Draft2Digital and StreetLib, they're publishing to distributors that are worldwide, in different countries, from Mexico to the Philippines. So there will be all sorts of distributors that you may not have heard of. And particularly for our US friends, we're very Amazon-minded, but if you go somewhere like Germany, Tolino sells far more ebooks than Amazon, as an example. That's just one off the top of my head. So the idea here is, as I said, just getting them out there as widely as you possibly can. So use Amazon for the Amazon ecosystem and then use at least one other aggregator, ideally the three, to reach everybody else. And that will see your books distributed widely.
[00:10:10] There are a couple of other people though, that we feel it's worth going directly to. And each time you upload direct, it's a bit of a drag, you know, do recognize that the platforms work slightly differently, and you have to familiarize yourself with a number of them. Apple is one. Apple Books is a really good outlet for ebooks for all sorts of reasons, not least because people who purchase Apple devices very often stay on the Apple ecosystem. If you go directly to Apple again, you will have advantages that you won't have if you go to them through aggregators.
[00:10:53] Some of the aggregators also have arrangements with Apple, but just generally speaking, that is true. And also, it's a very good platform from the point of view, it's not as price sensitive at all as Amazon. So you could charge more for your ebooks. Its reach is fantastic and they're in far more countries than Amazon is in. And yeah, it really is well worth going direct to Apple if you have the bandwidth.
[00:11:25] Kobo, also another fantastic platform, coming out of Canada, but they have lots of partnerships with various distributors around the world and they've partnered in a really clever way that allowed them to grow and expand and get a real global reach very fast. So and if you can go directly to Kobo again, they run promotions that if you are a direct with them, it really makes a difference in terms all move in your books on the platform.
[00:12:00] Barnes and Noble in the US is still, I mean, this has all sorts of problems. Nook, its ebook distributor, had terrible problems. They've now relaunched as not going all that well, but nonetheless, they have a massive mailing list, people who are very into books. And if you are somebody who has done well on that platform, it can be well-worth file uploading directly.
[00:12:26] If you do upload direct to some of these platforms that I'm talking about, do reach out to them. They would like to hear from you and know what you're doing. And there are humans, there are algorithms as well, of course, but they're less algorithm driven than Amazon. And so lots of the books, for example, on Apple are human curated. And so promoting them and selling them and getting them out there is quite a different sort of setup to trying to do well on Amazon. It's different.
[00:12:56] There are some others I could mention, but I think that's enough for now. The only other one I would definitely mention is your own website. We are big in favor and seeing authors doing really well now with selling direct. So five years ago, even, direct selling from your own website was something that most readers didn't purchase ebooks direct. They wanted to buy from Amazon or wherever they normally bought their books. They didn't want to set up a different account. In short, they weren't as used to buying online as they are now. And the pandemic and lockdown and all of that has accelerated this development very much.
[00:13:36] Now readers love buying directly from authors. They love to feel that you've done better, they love to feel that kind of direct connection, and when you sell a book to a reader online yourself, you get their email address and so they become part of your asset base, which you don't get that information from the other distributors,
[00:13:56] So not by any means saying that you should go direct and not use the other distributors. Again, it isn't either or, it's both. But we're seeing people do better and better with direct. It's growing and growing as a proportion of successful indy authors' income. So really would urge you to think about it.
[00:14:17] Matty: Since a lot of people I think won't have the technical wherewithal to really understand how to set up a mechanism to feed digital data to customers, for example, I use PayHip. So it's not on my website, I have links to it from my website. Is that the approach you're recommending or, is that okay? Or is there a benefit to actually having something on your website and if so, what mechanism do you use to do that?
[00:14:45] Orna: Yeah, so you can use PayHip or Selz. To distribute on your own website, you need two things. You need the transaction engine, if you like, where the reader is going to come and actually pay the money, and then you need somebody to deliver the file. So it's a combination of PayHip, you probably use BookFunnel or somebody to do the actual file delivery. You can download any digital file using PayHip as far as I know. PayHip is a partner member and highly recommend as a really fantastic, an ALLi partner member, and so is BookFunnel.
[00:15:20] So, I think the best way to think about it is just do some research on this and we have an article on selling your books directly on the self-publishing advice site, which is SelfPublishingAdvice.org. If you just, or to Google "direct selling Alliance of Independent Authors," you'll get it.
[00:15:37] But essentially, what you need is, as I said, you need a transaction facility where you can take a credit card number or a PayPal or whatever, and then you need the delivery mechanism. And so you could use somebody like PayHip, which is a third party, and you pay them a percentage of the transaction payment on each file. I use personally and we use on the ALLi site WooCommerce, which is built into WordPress. If you have a WordPress site, you have access to a WooCommerce site. WooCommerce and BookFunnel then does the delivery.
[00:16:08] So essentially, you just have to think about how am I going to take the money? How am I going to handle the file? And it's a setup, it's something that most people can do for one book in a couple of hours. It's just a matter of working out what way you want to do it. Then you can sell that book for years and add to your bookstore on your website as time goes on.
[00:16:32] If you trade published, if you're published by a third party, it makes sense that your website is just kind of like a brochure. It really just tells the reader what you do and what your books are roughly about and gives them a sense of your author platform and you know who you are and what you do. But if you are an indy author, it makes total sense that your website is an actual distribution delivery mechanism. Because they land on your site somehow, read a blog or listen to your podcast, saw you at an event, whatever it might be, they go to your website. They're there, they're keen. They want to buy. And you're bringing them off somewhere else to buy. Why not have that sale yourself? It really does make sense. So, yeah, I would urge people to, if you're just starting out, think of your own website as the core of your activity and all the other distribution outlets as kind of a circle around that core.
[00:17:29] Orna: My book CREATIVE SELF-PUBLISHING talks about these processes and how they link together and how you set up so that you can kind of integrate and follow your readers where you want them to go. Because that's kind of what you're thinking about. I think when we start off, as authors, we do the first bit and then we do the next bit, we do the next bit, and it's kind of like a jigsaw puzzle. But if you're thinking, if you were a different sort of business, when you originally sit down with your business developer, they would be very sales-focused and they will be saying, what is your business, what is your website trying to do? How is it getting them over? How are you getting the email that you want, how are you getting... so, it can be very hard to unpick that and pull it all apart.
[00:18:16] The blog is a mechanism by which we try to integrate this. And I will talk about it a little bit more when we come to the marketing one and the whole idea of access marketing and the drawing them in through your own world, if you like, bringing them in to your funnel. But with a lot of people, I think it's trial and error and it all comes together in the end.
[00:18:41] You also can try different, I tried PayHip, and I tried Selz, and I actually ended up with WooCommerce. So I think there's a bit of experimentation here as well. The main thing is that you have your goal in mind. What is it you want them to do? Author sites fall into two. You either want to get the email as your number one, their email address, or you want to get the sale as your number one. And once you decide that, I think then you decide which bits you're putting together and what bits go out front.
[00:19:14] So, when we started off, we weren't clear where, we were all, you know, Dean Wesley Smith talks about writing in the dark. We were all publishing in the dark. We were doing our best. Now the tools tend to be better, so Aweber was designed as business minded tool. Now, there are tools that are just for authors, websites that are just for authors.
[00:19:37] But I do think that the key to it is what is your core goal? Because there can be three or four different things that you want to happen, but what's your number one? When the reader lands on your website or comes into your orbit, your social media or wherever that might be, what is it you want them to do? And setting up the signposting so that it's really clear and in a sense then letting go of all the other things that you kind of like them to do, but you have to forgo.
[00:20:05] Matty: Yep. Great advice.
[00:20:08] I did want to get back to something you had said about using some of the other platforms like PublishDrive and StreetLib. And even though those are based outside the US / UK sphere, I'm assuming you're recommending, even if you do not have translations, these are still worthwhile platforms to go to with English language books.
[00:20:27] Orna: Yes. They're not about translated books at all, they're all about books in English. They do have translation options as a different thing, but these are all just about distributing your English book. So PublishDrive and Streetlib can distribute your books to Amazon as well, as we said, though we recommend that you would go direct. Apple and all the other major distributors, as well as the minor ones. So they are for English books and English book distribution in countries around the world, because every single country has loads of people who read in English, either immigrants or people who know English. We are so lucky to be writing and publishing in the world language that is English, and so it takes advantage of that.
[00:21:11] Matty: Yeah. Anything else on the distribution of ebooks front?
[00:21:19] Orna: The only thing I would say is take it easy. Again, build step by step. So we spoke about not jumping into exclusivity, if we're going to jump back out of it, but you know, you don't have to publish on all these platforms at once, but you can leave that door open so that you can come back to them. And that's the way to proceed, I think, and get to know one platform and understand it. Then it's a bit easier next time out.
[00:21:46] It seems impossible to believe when you're on your first book, but by the time you're on your third book, production and distribution is actually the thing you will think about least. Once you've decided on your processes, then it's very straightforward. And it’s just literally repeat, whereas writing and marketing are constantly challenging and evolving. Production and distribution are actually the most straightforward part of self-publishing, even though when people talk about publishing a book, very often, what they really mean is production and distribution. And it is only one part of publishing, and in fact it is the most straightforward part.
[00:22:28] So, it literally is just learning by doing. So whatever you do, do it, because until you do it, you won't know. You'll hear people telling you, you should do this, and you shouldn't do that, and this is the other way to do it, and blah, blah, blah. This is something really where you can only learn by doing.
[00:22:48] Matty: And I think it's worth repeating something that I believe you said in the last episode, which is make notes about all this stuff, because with production and distribution tasks, depending on what your release schedule is, you might do it every month, but you might only do it every couple of years. And so, your make your way through it, and then you go back two years later and it's like you've never seen it before. So it's worth capturing the links and making the notes and can you use HTML in this platform's book description, but not in this book platform's book description? So, just making it so you don't have to start from scratch every time. So we've got to do these repetitive tasks.
[00:23:22] Orna: Absolutely, in your own words can make a big difference when it comes to facing in second time, third time. And the other thing I would say is, all of the platforms, their customer service is really excellent and very helpful. Don't be shy about using them. They really want to hear from you. They do not want you struggling and having a problem and trying to reinvent the wheel, when you know, a few words of advice from them can make a difference. So don't be afraid to ask your questions. First port of call is always the platforms themselves. If you're not having success then, do feel free to get in touch with us at ALLi and we'll see what we can do for you.
[00:24:03] Matty: Great. Should we move on to a distribution of print books next?
[00:24:08] Orna: Yes.
[00:24:10] Matty: So once again, what are your and ALLi's recommendations on that front?
[00:24:15] Orna: Yeah. So we spoke a little bit about this already when we talked about production in the last program. So yeah, when it comes to print, it's KDP Print for the Amazon ecosystem and it's IngramSpark for the rest of the world. So you very often hear people talking about 8,000 outlets worldwide. That is essentially where the Ingram catalog is picked up by distribution and wholesalers around the world. That enables a library, bookstore, or another book institution or business to access your book. And that's what you want.
[00:24:57] Distribution is all about just being there, just getting them out there. So we recommend that you use both that when you upload your book to Amazon KDP, you do not take expanded distribution. If you do take expanded distribution, that means that Amazon would send your book over to Ingram. And there are all sorts of issues that arise around that. But not least is the fact that if you have any interest in your book being picked up by bookstores, they are not likely to pick up KDP Amazon published books. They are much more likely to pick up a book if it's distributed by somebody else and that's to do with just marketplace realities in terms of how bookstores feel about Amazon's presence in the bookselling arena. So that's one reason, and there are other reasons too, so you don't take expanded or extended distribution in Amazon, and then you upload your book to IngramSpark.
[00:25:57] So you just, as we said at the production program, your interior file will do for both, you just need a slightly different cover. Their systems are quite different, and you just get your head around that and you just upload to the two, but you've only got two. It's not like on ebook world where you've got 200,000. So, it is relatively simple, and we are very lucky. I know that there are problems with the platforms and the platforms are not perfect, but they are amazing tools. There was no way an author could publish, print, and distribute it around the world, just ten years ago. Ten years ago, that was an actual impossibility. The only way you could then self-publish a printed book was to go to a printer, run off thousands of copies, and then you were left with the distribution headache. How am I going to actually get these to people? How am I going to let people know they exist?
[00:26:49] The fact that we have these tools, they're not perfect, they're getting better. Ingram is having trouble at the moment with the integrity of its catalog, I know, and some people are getting caught in that process and it can be very frustrating if you've planned your launch, and you find you can't do it because you get caught in some problem within the platform. But these platforms are working hard on our behalf. They're taking indy authors into places that we couldn't go before. And yeah, they really are fantastic tools. So, take your time and get used to them. I really recommend you use them.
[00:27:58] Matty: I wanted to use that as an entree to talk about discounting and returns. And we talked a little bit earlier about how by discounting we don't mean putting something on sale, but rather a discount that you as the publisher provide to the retailers when they're purchasing your book to sell it in a bookstore, for example. Can you talk a little bit about how that works and what considerations indy authors should take into account when they're considering the discounting options?
[00:28:24] Orna: Yes. So, the first thing to say, I think the most important thing to say, is we talk about using IngramSpark because it opens the potential for bookstores to access our books, and wholesalers and distributors to access our books. And Ingram is more satisfactory in some territories than in others. So in the US it's very straightforward. Outside of the US, depending on the country, it's less so. And even here in the UK, where it is the most developed outside of the US, Ingram would not be the first distributor of choice for most bookstores. So it's worth bearing in mind. What uploading your book to IngramSpark does is it gives you the opportunity to have your book chosen by a bookstore or a retailer.
[00:29:14] Now, bookselling of print books through bookstores is a crazy business and it's a miracle that anybody makes any money at all. First of all, it's done on sale or return basis. So, they take the books. If they sell them, you get paid. If they don't sell them, they send them back to you or destroy them. Hundreds of thousands, countless numbers of books are pulped each year because publishers don't want them back. As I said, it’s a crazy business.
[00:29:45] Say the book costs $10, then the wholesaler or distributor will take a percentage from that. By the time it gets to the bookstore, they want to discount 55% to sell your book, to put your book on a bookstore shelf. Very often indy authors, when they do the math, it just doesn't add up. They cannot make a profit, but they may decide to go ahead and do it anyway because it opens up a distribution outlet and they may develop that relationship, and then perhaps use a different form of print. Or lots and lots we've seen all sorts of different things happen, and there are different programs on the platform as well that can help you.
[00:30:30] You won't just get your book into bookstores, generally speaking, there's going to have to be some sort of marketing going at the receiver end. And what it does allow is that if there is an event that you're at, a literary festival or something like that, if you're running an event in a bookstore, and then sometimes just for some reason, a store does start to sell your books.
[00:30:59] So it's all about the ability to have it there, but it's not by any means guaranteeing that now my book is up on IngramSpark, now all the bookstores are going to start carrying my book. No. The main publishers have sales reps who are going in and persuading people at head office level in the chains and all the way down the chain to actually take their books this season. And bookselling is based very much on a front list and a back list kind of mentality, because they only have so much space on the shelf. This is why the launch is so important in traditional publishing. Your book only has a number of weeks to make it. If it doesn't start to really sell, then you're into the returns thing.
[00:31:44] So this is a very long-winded way of saying, unless you actually have a plan for bookstore distribution of your book, then you may want to forget about putting the higher level of discount that the bookstores demand, the 55% plus discount in Ingram. You may want to offer a lower discount and you may not want to take returns because all of that is set up with a bookstore in mind. But if you don't have an actual plan for bookstore sales, they are unlikely to suddenly take off by themselves, and then you're setting lower discounts for the books that do sell.
[00:32:25] Matty: At all. My books are non-returnable. I give the maximum discount I can and still make a profit, which in some cases is like 7 cents. But, as much discount as I can up to 55%, which I think is the standard retail discount. but turn off returns because I did get burned big time once at a bookstore event where they ordered way more books than they should. And then they all went back except a couple. And I think that event costs me like $150.
[00:32:54] And in my business plan, bookstores I'm kind of doing it as community outreach. I'm making it available as community outreach because it's not a significant part of my business, but of course I don't want to deter someone who is interested, but I'm not, it's not a market I'm going after.
[00:33:09] Orna: Very wise. And that's the way to do it. And the returns thing just doesn't work because when you get the books back, they're not even salable. Very often they're damaged. And it's actually a real environmental problem as well, undermining that whole business model. So, whether it will change or not in times to come, a lot of intelligent people have tried to improve this system, failed so far.
[00:33:34] But yeah, so that's really why, Matty, I would kind of urge listeners to do is to work out the plan. We all involve the idea of our books being at the front of a bookstore, but the truth is without the backing of a major publisher who has paid for that placement as part of their marketing on the authors' behalf, it's highly unlikely. And even those authors who have been trade published have got into bookstores that way, very often the book is there in the back, invisible to people, doesn't move, and just ends up being sent back. So for most indy authors, keep the focus on online selling from your own website, ebook selling, audiobook all much, much easier. Nothing is harder than print book through bookstore.
[00:34:28] Matty: One organization that I think is doing a good job of stepping into a needed spaces is Bookshop. So a bookshop.org being a group that people can order books through but print copies of books and a portion of the proceeds goes to indy bookstores. And if you're an affiliate, which I am, you can set up a shop, I've set up shop with my own books. And so if somebody buys one of my books through Bookshop, I'm getting a royalty, but I'm also getting a little bit of money as an affiliate. Is bookshop.org, an organization that ALLi recommends?
[00:35:01] Orna: Yes, we love them. They're great. And love the creative thinking behind the organization and the wish to shake up this world that does need a shaking up. So, yeah, they're a great organization.
[00:35:16] Matty: The other thing I've really liked about Bookshop is that I really wanted to get out of the business of packaging up and sending out books. Very occasionally people would purchase books. The one selling I actually do on my website is I do have it set up so that people can purchase signed copies, but it was a lot of trouble, and it didn't happen enough. Like I wasn't going to disappoint that many people. So what I ended up doing is pointing people to Bookshop, and then if they drop me a note, I'll send them a signed bookplate, because that's much easier to handle. And in the end, they have a book that's inscribed specifically to them. But yeah, just another, as you were saying, hold it up to your business plan, and I did not want to spend my time packaging up books and driving to the post authors. So a Bookshop was a nice alternative there.
[00:36:03] Orna: That's great. And then there are other people for whom packing up books and sending them to their beloved readers is their idea of heaven. They actually love it. And if that's you then by all means, and if you are determined to get your book into bookstores, we have seen indy authors do great things in bookstores. I'm not saying it's not possible, but I am saying too many indies think just putting their book up on IngramSpark is going to do it. It's not.
[00:36:30] Matty: Yeah. And for all these things, I always say, weigh the time you're going to spend with the benefit that you expect to get and then align your actions to match up to your goals.
[00:36:40] Orna: Absolutely.
[00:36:41] Matty: Would you consider pricing part of distribution, the determining the price for your books?
[00:36:47] Orna: Yeah, again, it's one of these crossover ones, isn't it? A crossover is between promotion and distribution. But yeah, the way I tend to think about it is that setting your base price is distribution and then setting your promotional pricing is promotion. So yes, I think deciding or experimenting to find out your ideal price point is part of becoming a good book distributor. And that is very often for people, a bit of trial and error.
[00:37:20] So this is the question that comes up in ALLi a lot. People hear from other people, I didn't buy your book because it was only 2 99, I just assumed it wasn't any good. And then people who think pricing is all about being cheaper go, that's crazy, nobody does that. But they actually do. And so people have very different relationships with money. And you need to get clear about your genre and where your typical readers fall around that. There are genres that are price sensitive and the big genres that are read by the whale readers tend to be more price sensitive. So the romance and fantasy and so on. There are other genres that are not price sensitive at all and there are genres where they really want quality books, something like say poetry, some really beautiful books that don't have very many words in them, but a huge amount of production has gone in and the pricing reflects that accordingly. So yeah. The main thing for you to know, first of all, is your readers typically, are they price sensitive?
[00:38:27] The other thing to be aware of. And I think I did mention this already, but just to say it again, because it's important, Amazon is the most price sensitive of the platforms. It's whole raison d'etre is you won't buy it cheaper anywhere else. So they will price match if your book is cheaper somewhere else. So just holding that awareness that your book doesn't have to be the same price on every platform, and it doesn't have to be the same price on your own website. You can't undercut Amazon on your own websites. They will just price match or lower. So you don't want to try to do that, but the opposite very often, if the reader who's on your website, it's not going to be running around comparing prices and seeing if the book feels like a reasonable buy to them, that would be quite happy to buy it directly from you for a bit more.
[00:39:14] So the main thing to do is play with your pricing as well. Don't feel it's set. And it's well worth seeing what your sweet spot is, and that can take a bit of trial and error. You want the place where the price doesn't put off volume, so that you're getting that sweet spot between the number of copies sold and the amount that you're charging for the book that delivers the most revenue for you. And as I said, we have had many times on I myself can attest to having put my prices up and having sold more copies when they were more expensive than when they were cheaper. So it definitely does happen.
[00:39:54] Matty: I'll point people to another Mark Lefebvre episode of The Indy Author Podcast, which was way back in 20 WORKING WITH LIBRARIES AND BOOKSTORES. So Mark had some great information to share about that. And then, I just spoke with J K Ellem about TAKING THE LONG VIEW FOR PUBLISHING SUCCESS, and he was encouraging me to put up the price of my novels. I don't know why this is such a mental block for me, but they're now 4 99 and I'm on the fence about going over $5.
[00:40:21] But I think my biggest pricing challenge is international pricing. So there are all these platforms that are now enabling reach into more and more countries. And oftentimes on platforms like Google Play is the craziest, because you can set your book price in all sorts of countries, and it could be a full-time job just to research what are reasonable prices. And normally they'll suggest the price. So you put in 4 99 for the US and then it'll suggest the price that you could charge in other countries in other currencies. But I have never been able to tell if they're strictly doing a dollar conversion into that currency, or if they're somehow factoring in that country's price tolerance. Do you have any insight into that?
[00:41:08] Orna: Yeah, unfortunately it's just a straight currency thing. So that leaves your book too expensive, generally speaking, in India or other countries such as you say that the price thing tolerance isn't high enough. Again, I would say not to get too hung up on this, and certainly not at the beginning. If you have a relationship in a particular country, if you find the difference are selling a lot in a particular country, then it's worth going in there and working at your pricing there just as you would in your home territory. But if they're selling little or nothing at all in those countries, then don't worry too much about it. It's unlikely that just changing the price is going to be the thing that will actually start or stop them selling. You would want to be going in and fixing up the price and fixing up some marketing as well, to have a plan in other words to make it worth your while to go to the bother of working out of what you feel that should be there.
[00:42:04] Matty: Yeah. Other thoughts about distribution of print books?
[00:42:10] Orna: I think that's it. It is the trickiest one to distribute yourself. It's much easier for you to distribute on your website. I'm talking about not a direct distribution, which is your few to distribute books and audio than it is print. Print is harder and you may not want to do that. And you can develop print partnerships, I think is something that we're seeing indy authors do more. So small indy publishers that are already working in print and have a print distribution outlet, some have worked out a good print strategy. It can be a good thing to team up with them and let them take that weight because print is different and it's harder. So unless you really want to go into print in a big way, I would say keep it simple, just KDP and IngramSpark it and it's available and then you can go from there.
[00:43:07] Matty: Okay, great. So now we're going to turn to distribution of audiobooks, and we covered this a little bit in the last episode about what platforms are available. Do you just want to do a quick recap of the distribution angle on that information?
[00:43:22] Orna: Yeah, so audio again, it's kind of Amazon and the rest. So in terms of distributing your books on Amazon and getting them available on Amazon, which also means Audible, and Audible is the biggest seller of audiobooks in the US by some margin estimates in some verticals, they say up to 90%, so that's a lot. So yeah, you go through ACX in terms of distributor, your book through, Amazon. I, I mentioned in the last program that there are issues around that, but nonetheless, we do recommend indy authors not to turn their back on, on that enormous platform. but not to go exclusive with ACX. So in other words, to keep your options open.
[00:44:11] There are lots of new options emerging in audio. Audiobooks are in growth almost everywhere in the world and there are lots of different platforms that are emerging to take advantage of that. So in addition to ACX, you may want to Findaway or Authors Republic or Soundwise or one of the other end distributors of audiobooks.
[00:44:38] It's not so much with eBooks the different aggregators, you can match them up, there are ones that some aggregators go to and others don't. There is overlap, but there are lots of different ones. With an audiobook distribution, ACX and one other, will suffice, will get you into the vast majority of the audiobook distribution outlets around the world.
[00:45:05] And don't neglect audiobook. It is as easy to download an audiobook as it is to download an ebook. And that's kind of hard for some people who are not used to audio to wrap their heads around, but basically, it's just a digital file. So once the device can take it and your mechanism, again, I do a shout out for BookFunnel here. They do a great job in terms of distributing audio directly for authors. And so don't shy away from audio because you're not an audio listener yourself, for example, or because you think it is hugely complex. From a distribution point of view, it is as easy to distribute an audiobook as it is an ebook.
[00:45:46] So do you remember, I was saying this a transaction method and then there's the download method. So BookFunnel provides the download mechanism, but you need to set up your payment facility and then you just give the BookFunnel link. And you don't have to do that. You can just provide your EPUB yourself and that should be downloaded, but for a not very significant annual sum, they look after all the "my ebook hasn't downloaded" emails that you don't want to be getting. And their system is just so well set up. They can also collect email addresses for you. So you can see exactly who did download or didn't, sometimes we make sales, and the person doesn't read the book, it happens, all of these kinds of things.
[00:46:34] So there's loads of things that BookFunnel can do for you that you can't do for yourself. It's a service that's well worth paying for, but it isn't essential. So all it is handling that download. There are many ways for you to take the transaction payment, which would be Selz or PayHip's the one that you use. There are lots of them and that will also deliver the download as part of the sale. I use WooCommerce and ALLi uses WooCommerce together with BookFunnel to ensure just ease of download.
[00:47:09] Matty: Any of those things where somebody might call you up and say, my download didn't complete or something like that. Like we were talking earlier about the fact that one of the things I wanted to get rid of was packaging up books. And you pointed out quite rightly that there's some people who would find that very gratifying. But I don't know that anybody really finds it gratifying to answer questions about why a file didn't download. And so any of those things, I think that the options for asking some other expert person and organization to help you do that, they're so affordable that from a business point of view, it would be hard to justify, no, I'm going to slog through that myself because I want to save the cost of having somebody else take care of it for me. Just pay the money and then spend that time writing more stuff.
[00:47:51] Orna: I totally agree with that. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:47:55] Matty: We had talked a little bit before, also about the difficulty of coordinating launches across media. I guess now we're sort of spilling into the next episodes, which are going to be about marketing and promotion, but we had said that it is very difficult, but it's very hard to anticipate when an audiobook is going to be available. So with eBooks, you can go on there and say, my launch date is December 1st or whatever it is. And you have control of that, but I don't know of any platform for audio that you don't just put it up there and then sit back and then pretty soon they say, your audiobooks up.
[00:48:28] And I think you could almost make a benefit of that by just making it like a separate launch. Because I think if you launch it all at once, there are certainly benefits to be had there. But, if you have to spread it out, then you can make a virtue of it by saying the audiobook isn't going to get lost in the availability of the ebook and the print book. I can kind of rev up the excitement for that again.
[00:48:49] Orna: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, traditionally again, and we can learn a lot from traditional publishing and how they do things. It was always the hardback launch and then the soft back launch, and they were seen as two different publicity opportunities. And it's the same for us. You can have your ebook launch, then do your print, then do your audio. There's nothing to stop you doing that. And all the while you're collecting reviews, hopefully, and blurb quotes and things that can be used in the next launch. And then very often if you've had two prior launches and then have your audio launch, at that point, you can begin to reach out to media and stuff because you've got some demonstrable feedback and reviews and things. So yeah, you could definitely make a virtue of a staggered launch.
[00:49:37] As you say, there's also something to be said for they all go up at the same time. They're all in favor of it. At the same time, you're not getting the emails saying why does he have your book out? All of that kind of thing. But the staggered launch if you're just looking at it from a marketing perspective, it makes sense to actually stagger your launches.
[00:49:56] Matty: Do you have any thoughts about audio to libraries?
[00:50:01] Orna: Yes. It's becoming much more popular, digital audio. So libraries always liked audio. They've had CD ROM and CD and tapes and things going way back when and digital audio is now really popular. So in terms of reaching that library market, Overdrive has traditionally been the distributor for ebook, and they are also active in audio. There are lots of people coming into that market to provide that bridge. Kobo is involved as well.
[00:50:37] So yeah, again, it's just a matter of making sure that you have widely distributed. If you've used the various services that we're talking about, then you will find yourself in the right place. If you haven't, then you're just not there so it won't happen for you. Being there doesn't guarantee that it will happen, but it makes it possible.
[00:50:59] Matty: Yeah. We did talk about audio quite a bit in the previous episode, but are there any other aspects of audio distribution that you want to highlight?
[00:51:10] Orna: No, except I probably want to just say again, what I said at the beginning is not to neglect audio as a format that is easily distributed on your own website. And I suppose the other thing is not to neglect audio overall because I do hear indy authors saying, oh, I don't listen to audiobooks, who listens to audiobooks. To recognize this really is a growth market. The other thing that I hear a lot when it comes to audiobook distribution is authors are selling their audio rights to audiobook "publishers" who are really distributors, who are taking them I'm out there and paying very little for the privilege.
[00:51:52] So when you speak to an author about that very often than say, oh, for me, audiobooks are just the jam. So I concentrated on my eBooks and anything that happens with audiobooks is. But I would say that every format, audiobooks really have the potential to do extremely well for indy authors. And I think we're not taking advantage of that enough. So I would say, think again if one of the audiobook distributors does approach you and offers you a bit of a lump sum to give over all your rights, some of them for a very long term for very low percentages. These are not good deals in the main and, it's worth, okay, you get the book, you get the audiobook made, you get maybe a good narrator, a narrator that you're happy with and so on, but maybe not. My point is don't undervalue your audio rights. They are very valuable.
[00:52:59] Matty: I will put in a plug for the ALLi Watchdog desk. Is that open only to members to ping that group.
[00:53:08] Orna: And we have an outreach aspect to the Watchdog desk where we do a ratings list. So you can look up a publisher or a distributor or any service and see what the ALLi rating is for that service, so that's available to everybody. In terms of actually looking at your contract and saying, this contract's a bad one, your advance is too small, percentages or there's no reversion clause, that kind of stuff, and that's for members only.
[00:53:38] Matty: Great. Well, thank you once again for talking through distribution. What number were we up to there? The fourth in our series of the seven processes of publishing. So three more to go stay tuned for that. And please let everyone know where they can find out all about you and the Alliance of Independent Authors online.
[00:53:55] Orna: So the Alliance of Independent Authors, which is a nonprofit association for self-publishing writers, is at www.AllianceIndependentAuthors.org, and I'm Orna Ross and I'm at OrnaRoss.com.
[00:54:11] Matty: Thank you, Orna.
[00:54:13] Orna: Thanks Matty. Bye now.
Links
From personal update:
For links to Matty's upcoming and recent events, click here.
From interview:
150 Self-Publishing Questions Answered: ALLi’s Writing, Publishing, & Book Marketing Tips for Authors and Poets (Publishing Guides for Indie Authors 5) (affiliate link)
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