{"id":165,"date":"2017-11-09T18:28:03","date_gmt":"2017-11-09T07:28:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/?p=165"},"modified":"2017-11-09T18:28:03","modified_gmt":"2017-11-09T07:28:03","slug":"talkback-authors-and-booksellers-on-stocking-self-published-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/articles\/2017\/11\/09\/165\/talkback-authors-and-booksellers-on-stocking-self-published-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Talkback: Authors and booksellers on stocking self-published books"},"content":{"rendered":"

With a number of traditionally published authors moving into self-publishing, there\u2019s never been a greater demand for bricks-and-mortar bookstores to stock self-published titles. <\/em>Books+Publishing‘s editor-in-chief Andrea Hanke asked hybrid author Ellie Marney and booksellers Kym Bagley from Dymocks Melbourne and Angela Crocombe from Readings Kids how self-published titles are making their way into bookstores.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

When YA author Ellie Marney released her first self-published book No Limits<\/i> in August, she set about trying to get printed copies stocked in bricks-and-mortar bookstores.<\/p>\n

Marney says her preferred method was to supply the books through Ingram\u2019s POD printing service IngramSpark, a process she describes as \u2018fairly straightforward for booksellers\u2019. \u2018Every self-published author I know who offers POD copies through Ingram offers booksellers a wholesale discount and the ability to return stock, like a regular publisher. All a bookseller needs to know is the book\u2019s ISBN, and then they\u2019re ready to roll.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s a pretty smooth process, once a bookseller has an Ingram account,\u2019 says Marney, who consulted with other authors from the self-publishing community in her response to Books+Publishing<\/i>\u2019s questions. \u2018Retailers who haven\u2019t ordered with Ingram before usually have a direct debit process for the first order or two, until their line of credit is established, and then they can choose invoiced accounting. Freight costs are also \u2018highly competitive\u2019, says Marney.<\/p>\n

Despite this, Marney says the response from bookstores when it comes to POD orders has been \u2018variable\u2019. \u2018Some booksellers are concerned about quality, or find the POD process too different from their typical order process to invest in titles.\u2019<\/p>\n

The other option is to offer self-published books on consignment, but Marney has reservations about this model. \u2018Some self-published authors I know do large-scale offset print runs and all their sales are on consignment. But that means you\u2019re also working as a distributor, as well as an author and publisher, so you are following up on unpaid invoices, and driving books to stores, or arranging delivery and so on\u2014it\u2019s pretty hard work, for a single individual.\u2019<\/p>\n

Marney also notes that consignment sales often produce \u2018pretty minimal returns\u2019. \u2018Selling No Limits<\/i> on consignment, for instance, would earn me less than one dollar per book, when I could earn many times more than that selling online, and I would be doing significantly more work to move consignment books into stores. So for me, consignment sales aren\u2019t really worth it.\u2019<\/p>\n

Marney acknowledges that a bookseller\u2019s decision to stock a self-published title is a gamble, but argues that the gamble \u2018probably isn\u2019t that far removed from investing in titles from a regular publisher, if the author is professional and reputable and is providing high-quality books that readers want\u2019. \u2018A savvy retailer would look at the author\u2019s listed titles on online sites, and gauge how they\u2019re moving, being reviewed etc, and make their own decision,\u2019 she says.<\/p>\n

There are also things that self-publishers can do to increase their chances of being stocked: providing high-quality books in the first instance, and supplying booksellers with the necessary information to order in the titles. Marney says that when No Limits<\/i> was first released she created an info sheet with details about the book and how to order copies through Ingram, which she handed out to booksellers. \u2018It wasn\u2019t a glossy brochure, but it did make interacting with booksellers easier,\u2019 says Marney.<\/p>\n

The bookseller\u2019s perspective<\/strong><\/p>\n

For Kym Bagley, general fiction buyer and inventory manager at Dymocks Melbourne, the biggest barrier to stocking self-published books is lack of time. \u2018Bookselling is such a time-intensive occupation that sometimes even finding five minutes to reply to an email is impossible,\u2019 says Bagley.<\/p>\n

Bagley says she prefers to receive books directly from the author, usually on consignment, as the store hasn\u2019t had much experience with POD. She also recommends self-published authors provide a \u2018concise info sheet\u2019 with a short blurb, cover image, author information, cost and retail price, ISBN, delivery information and any other relevant marketing information that might help with sales. \u2018Having all that at our fingertips would make it a lot easier to decide if we should stock a book,\u2019 says Bagley.<\/p>\n

The look of a self-published book is also a big factor. \u2018We have had success with a great little novel called Redemption<\/i> by a Port Fairy author Tracie Griffith this year because the cover is great and the book looks professionally printed,\u2019 says Bagley. \u2018Because we have so many books on the shelves, sometimes self-published books with that high gloss perfect bound cover get overlooked.\u2019<\/p>\n

Authors who work hard to publicise their books also have an advantage, says Bagley. \u2018Ellie Marney has such a strong social media following that it makes it easy to sell the books. We also have success with authors who have strong academic credentials, or who are getting out there doing interviews in the local media and public radio. It\u2019s not all about Twitter! But Twitter really does help.\u2019<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a similar story at Readings Kids, where manager Angela Crocombe receives between two and five requests from self-published authors per week. \u2018It can be very time-consuming when we have so much else to do,\u2019 she says.<\/p>\n

Consignment rather than POD is also the store\u2019s preferred method of stocking self-published titles. \u2018We ask authors to send us a copy of their book for perusal to make sure that it is of a sufficient quality that we think we can sell it in store,\u2019 says Crocombe. \u2018Then we have a consignment form that we ask authors to fill out and send us the quantity of books we request. We only pay the authors if the books sell but we are very happy to have them in store and to put them on our website.\u2019<\/p>\n

Crocombe says Readings Kids only orders POD books if they anticipate a high demand, or if a customer has requested a copy. She observes: \u2018These books often don\u2019t have the same quality as a traditionally printed book (I feel) and they are also not returnable, which makes it difficult for a bookstore.\u2019 While many POD printing services do allow self-published authors the opportunity to offer booksellers returns, the choice to select this capability lies with each author.<\/p>\n

Crocombe believes that many self-published authors could do more to improve the quality of their books. \u2018Often I see picture books with far too much text for their audience, books that do not have the title and author on the spine (which is impossible for shelving spine out) and even books without an ISBN. These are all basic things that need to be done to ensure a book is presented well for booksellers and consumers,\u2019 she says.<\/p>\n

She also recommends self-published authors \u2018do a bit of promotion and let people know where their book is available in order to help with sales\u2019. \u2018A little local media can be a wonderful thing. If an author can use social media to promote their book and where it is available, this is very helpful,\u2019 says Crocombe.\u2019<\/p>\n

This article was originally published by<\/em> Books+Publishing<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With a number of traditionally published authors moving into self-publishing, there\u2019s never been a greater demand for bricks-and-mortar bookstores to stock self-published titles. Books+Publishing‘s editor-in-chief Andrea Hanke asked hybrid author Ellie Marney and booksellers Kym Bagley from Dymocks Melbourne and Angela Crocombe from Readings Kids how self-published titles are making their way into bookstores.\u00a0 When<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":167,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-newsletter-features"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}