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Math Lessons For Small Presses – Part 3
Lesson #3 – DISTRIBUTORS
Bookstores buy books from wholesalers and distributors. The major difference is that a wholesaler is publisher’s customer (wholesalers buy books from a publisher) and a distributor is a publisher’s employee (distributors sell their services to a publisher).
A distributor handles all of the après-production elements of getting a book onto a store’s shelves. Publishers agree to funnel all of their sales, warehousing, shipping, and billing through the distributor. They do this work for a percentage of the billing generated by the sale of the publisher’s books.
Like publishers, distributors sell a book to a wholesaler or bookstore at a discount of the retail price. That discount is usually between 45 and 55 percent.
So, if bookstores get about the same terms and about the same schedule, why do they go to a distributor instead of directly to the publisher? Some bookstores (especially bookstore chains) are not interested in setting up new, small, or regional publishers in their ordering and accounting systems for just a few books. They rightly weigh the benefits of a publisher’s book against the time and trouble necessary to order it, and if the balance does not come out in the book’s favor, they skip it. How do new and small publishers avoid this terrible fate? They sign exclusive agreements with a distributor.
A distributor’s cut varies from 25 to 35 percent of the net billing of each book. Just about every distributor has additional monthly fees, and most require an initial deposit for new clients.
Before you balk, keep in mind that it is very difficult, expensive, and time consuming to handle your own warehousing, purchase shipping materials, and learn how to ship exactly how each store wishes their shipments to arrive … and everyone is different. (It’s a little joke they like to play on publishers. I am convinced that bookstore owners get together every two years to devise slightly altered yet completely incomprehensible trafficking instructions.) Then comes the billing, monthly statements, handling claims for books damaged in transit, taking in returns, and reconciling the amount due with what the bookstore believes is due.
After that, consider the money and time it takes to tell the country’s thousands of buyers about your books. The sales reps working for distributors have long-standing relationships with the book buyers in your hometown, across the country, and in the major chains. You would not be able to start a fledgling relationship on your own with these buyers. What an experienced sales rep can often do with a phone call, you could rarely accomplish with six months and a great deal of research, e-mails, flyers, catalogs, paperwork, and free samples.
Back to the math!
A book priced at retail is $16.95
A distributor sells it to a wholesaler for $7.63 (55% discount)
The distributor will charge the publisher on average $2.15 to handle that order.
Shipping and other fees will cost about $1.30 cents a book (give or take)
The publisher gets $4.18 for the book from the distributor 6 months later when the payment comes in.
After the productions costs of $3.25 are taken into consideration, the end profit is about .93 cents a book.
(AND the distributor does most of the work)
So there you have it. Math by an English Major for Publishers. Let me know if you have any questions!
What Does an Author Website Need?
— By Amy the Meanie —
There are a few different ways that you can handle your website plan. If you are an author with a great deal of expertise, create a website that will last beyond just the publication of your book. Create a website that has your entire brand under it. In that website that handles everything, you can then have a series of pages and subpages for your books.
For example. Karen Kang has created a company called Branding Pays. http://brandingpays.com/
On the webpage is a sub page for the book: http://brandingpays.com/book/
On THAT page is another level of subpages with details and content to educate and entice the reader to buy her book:
- EARLY PRAISE
- CONTENTS
- AUTHOR
- EVENTS
- WEBINARS/COACHING
Here is another example of an author who has a great brand and consulting business and uses his website to draw attention to all he offers. The book page is important and easy to see, but only used as a part of what he is offering.
What I like about this site is that when he has a new book come out, he highlights it right away on the top of the main page. But when other projects take precedence, he highlights those instead. He has a terrific drop down menu for all of his books and each page is clear, persuasive and very visual.
http://eosworldwide.com/traction/eos-traction-book/
He also cross-sells his other seminar and consulting services on each page. Subtle, not pushy, but effective.
There are a number of good reasons to create a website that highlights the book only. I have a client in a very regulated industry who will not allow him to cross-sell any services. His industry constraints make it necessary to separate the book from his business completely. He has done a terrific job on his website:
http://dollarsanduncommonsense.com/index.html
This is a wonderful example of a simple site that hits all the basics:
- A page that lists the media hits and tells the media how to get in touch with him
- An author bio
- A button/page that allows media and buyers to download samples.
- A good contact page.
- His front page shows him on TV as an expert and gives the browser a good idea of what his book and message is about.
- Several locations where folks can “Buy the book”
This is an extremely simple website that has all the “must haves”.
But what are the other possible elements an author/book site should include? Here is a list.
- Home page with a brief, short, just-a –few-sentences about why someone should buy the book. Not a description of the book, but a promise of what reading the book will deliver.
- “Buy the book” buttons on every page that link to all the major places from where you want them to buy your book. (indie bound, Amazon, B&N.com Books-A-Million.com) Don’t just use Amazon, be fair to everyone.
- About the Author. Author bio, short form and long form. Author photo and a link to allow media to download a high res version of the author photo. For non-fiction authors, credentials, CV, list of awards…. Etc.
- An Event page with press releases, event photos, calendar of events, contact information for those wishing to host an event.
- It is nice to start and maintain a list of reviews and endorsements right from the beginning. What are people saying about your book? Put it on the webpage!
- Your blog (even if it is a duplication of another blog address)
- Your Table of Contents and a sample chapter
- If you have a media page (and you most likely should), make sure you make thing easy for the poor reporter. Headshot, bio, press releases, sample chapters, front cover, full cover spread, and contact information should be very easy to find. Make sure everything is high resolution.
- If you want to make a page that shows where you have been, put a few on the front page too to impress browsers. Use the logos from the stations you have been on and newspapers/blogs you have appeared in.
- Link to EVERYTHING you can on line (most TV and radio shows now have online links. Find your clip and link it). If you write an article for another blogger or for a news outlet. Link it!
- Links to other authors/books/sites you find helpful. Links help search engines find you
- Have at least three levels of pages. Main, Secondary and Tertiary. SEO works better with three levels of pages and make sure you link all three levels on each page. (Third level links to an article on the second level. Second level always links to the main page and a tertiary page as well.)
This is by no means a complete list, I am sure there are things other authors have done that are extremely cool, but this is the list of what has proven to be helpful and effective for many of my clients.
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