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In this blog I want to talk about how am I going to distribute my novels? Notice how I say distribute, I am not going to talk about the selling or marketing my books - that is the subject of a whole different blog. However, before I share my approach I think it's best to try and explain the three main options available to you as a self-published author.

Direct Sales
"Writing is easy, all you do is stare at a blank piece of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead." Gene Fowler
One way to distribute your books is via your own website (assuming you have one). You will simply need to find a company to print your books for you. You can use an 'offset printer' such as Book Printing UK but you will have to pay up front for their services. I was quoted approximately £1150 for 100 hardback books with future orders at "9.75 per 100 books) . So assuming I sell my hardback for £15.95 each (ex. delivery) I would make £4.45 per book. Payment would be immediate.
In this scenario all the risk is on you. Various reports state that 90% of self-published books sell less than 100 copies so you need to think carefully before investing this kind of money into your project. If we think of writing as a business then the Return on your investment (ROI) is likely to be extremely lowunless you have a large fan base and are confident that you can easily ship these kind of book volumes.
Print On Demand (POD)
"When someone is mean to me, I just make them a victim in my next book." Mary Higgins Clark
Rather than directly selling your books and dealing with the postageand packing, you can set up an account with a publisher such as Amazon KDP. You load the book onto their site and you send your customers to their site. Each order is printed out one at a time. This is a very common approach, this also has the benefit of potentially being found on the Amazon website itself i.e. without you having to send your customers to it from your website. The other advantage is that you have access to other book formats, e-books and paperbacks (again you will need to do the uploads and formatting).
Depending on which figures you accept Amazon is currently responsible for anything between 75-85% of online book sales. There are other companies such as Ingram Spark, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Publishing, Lulu and others who provide similar services. Collectively this would account for between 90-95% of online book sales (again dependent on which figures you accept). It would however require you to have an account with each and to upload/format your book to each of these sites in addition to Amazon KDP.
Each of these companies have slightly different charging models but suffice it to say that it is more expensive to print one book at a time, clearly the economies of scale would be lost. However for the sake of simplicity lets stick with a projected hardback sale on Amazon. For a retail price of £15.95, depending on exchange rates, I can expect to make £2.75 after print costs and commission payments to Amazon. I will get paid this after 60 days.
Each of these publishers also offer the chance for you to purchase author copies at a reduced fee. This is a good way to establish that the book is going to be presented to your customers exactly as you want it to be. My top tip is to purchase more, at that lower rate, than you need in order to then offer them at indie book fairs allowing you to have some of the benefits of direct sales without having to buy large volumes of books - or even directly from your own website. 
The main downside of using these POD suppliers is that people who buy your books are not your customers they are Amazon's customers. They will retain that information so you are unable to buy your own customer lists.
Aggregator Book Publishers
"Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself." Terry Pratchett
There are a growing number of companies who will distribute your books for you to as wide a global spread as possible (each company has a slightly different reach). You simply upload your book to them and 'hey presto' your book will reach the masses automatically. Books are again printed on demand.
As you would expect these services are not free, but then again what is? So companies like Bookbaby and Publishdrive will charge you upfront for this service. I mention these two because they have different charging models. Bookbaby charge a fee per book whilst Publishdrive run a monthly subscription model. With both of these options you will keep all profits minus the charges made by the outlet that sold your book. For example if Amazon sold your hardback you would receive the £2.75 mentioned before. However their reach is beyond Amazon, it will include all the other companies (and others) such as Ingram Spark, Kobo etc. They can also make your books available to libraries as well.
For Bookbaby the cost depends heavily on the format for distribution but let's assume you want them to distribute e-book, paperback as well as hardback to every site they can get it too, you will need to pay upfront anything between $300-$500.
Publishdrive use a monthly subscription. For one book its normally $14.19, for 6 its $20.99, 18 is $41.99 with their top 'Pro' level of up to 48 books per month costing £83.99. Things to note one book is not a title it is the format i.e. if you want to publish/distribute an e-book, paperback and hardback this would be classed as 3 books. They do run regular promotions and discount schemes so always worth checking that out if you are interested.
The main advantages to using these paid services is marketing and promotion support through access to social media campaigns, email marketing etc. Also buyers are your customers. 
There are other aggregator publishers that run on a commission basis and basically take a % of any royalty payments you might receive. Draft2Digital (D2D), Lulu and Ingram Spark are examples of companies who do this. The commission these companies take depends on the format of the book sold but expect to pay approximately 10-15% for e-books and 15-20% for physical books with Ingram Spark being particularly interesting as bricks and mortar book shops use them to order their stock i.e. it's a way of getting your book into a physical store. Major downside of using D2D is the lack of advertising support.
Conclusion
"There are three rules for writing a successful novel, unfortunately no one knows what they are." W Somerset Maugham
Let's get real for a moment, I am a first and foremost a writer, end of story (forgive the pun). I have spent over 30 hours researching the pro's and con's for each and every approach to getting my next book out there. It has given me a level of comfort regarding my plan of attack but it doesn't mean it's right for everyone.
My basic premise is to try and get my story out to as wide an audience as possible, however that has to be managed practically. I am extremely busy and do not need to create/administer an account with every tom, dick or harry that is out there. I just want to write, it's bad enough that I have to all the other things associated with writing such as editing/book cover design/proofreading etc. - and don't get me started on marketing the damn thing!
Anyway, rant over! I have come to the conclusion that such a panacea is not currently available. For me there will have to be a compromise solution. Before going on to outline my approach it is worth mentioning that Amazon and other companies do offer an expanded distribution scheme on top of their normal services but once again the commission rates reduce significantly impacting your profitability.
Talking of impacting profitability I have decided to use Amazon for hardbacks, paperbacks and ebooks. Additionally to widen the field as much as possible, and to cater for those people who do not want to use Amazon, I am going to use the commission based aggregator Draft2Digital (D2D) to further distribute my paperbacks and e-books. Yes this will further reduce any payments I might make from any sales but it does allow me to have only the two accounts rather than setting up accounts with everyone else. Currently D2D don't offer their service for hardbacks so I plan to use a company called Bookvault here in the UK. There is normally an upfront charge of £19.95 per title with a further commission payment taken per sale - I did however find a discount code for a free trial so well worth having a look yourself should you want to go down this route.
On top of this I will be offering signed copies via my website and indie book fairs
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As ever I am always happy to hear from any bookworms, so if you have any questions/comments/opinions please drop me a note, I would love to hear from you - my only request is to be civil - oh and to be a real human!
Til next time - please take care and stay safe!