Questions and Answers

Q. How do I get my book listed on online retailers?

A. For e-books, you upload your files directly to the online retailer’s site. However, there are a lot of them! The biggest one is Amazon, which you distribute through Kindle Desktop Publishing (KDP). For all other online retailers except for Kobo, I used Draft2Digital, an amalgamator. D2D does take a small cut of the profits, but it’s worth it for the time you’ll save not dealing with numerous e-book platforms. The reason I distributed separately to Kobo is because they distribute to Overdrive for library sales; I felt strongly Unnatural Creatures would be a good fit for libraries.

For print books, as long as you’re in the Ingram catalog, your books are automatically listed on all online and brick-and-mortar retailers including Barnes & Noble. So, if you use IngramSpark for printing your books, you’re good to go! (Yes, Ingram and IngramSpark are kind of a monopoly.) However, Amazon also offers POD printing through Kindle Desktop Publishing (KDP) for their site.

What I did: I used both IngramSpark and KDP. However, KDP books can’t be set up for preorders, which is frustrating. To circumvent this, I had Ingram distribute my softcover books on Amazon for preorders until publication; upon publication, I swapped out to KDP.

Related note: you might be wondering if you can’t do preorders with KDP, why not stay with IngramSpark all the way? Bottom line: you make a far higher royalty rate per book—details on this next!

Q. You mentioned royalties. How do those work?

A. With POD, you’re paid a royalty (ie, percentage) of every book you sell, and you set this percentage. Sounds good, right? However, you need to take into consideration:

1. What price the market will bear. (Yes, the higher the book price, the more you’ll make. But if you charge too much, people aren’t going to buy. Conversely, if you charge too little, you won’t make a profit. Worse, you could end up owing money.)
2. Book manufacturing costs. (POD costs more per book than offset, full color printing more than black and white and so on.)
3. Wholesale discounts. (To distribute to retailers, you need to set a wholesale discount so they can make a profit. Generally speaking, the discount is 55%. To figure out pricing for your book, check out IngramSpark’s pricing calculator, which is fun to play with.)
4. Book return policies. (To distribute wholesale to brick and mortar bookstores, you have to accept returns, ie. books they’re unable to sell. Without a return policy, bookstores won’t stock your book. However, returns means you have to refund what they’ve paid. This can really eat into your profit—to be safe, estimate that as much as 30% of your books will end up as returns.)

What I did: as mentioned above, I use IngramSpark for all retailers save Amazon, where I use KDP for paperback. Again, this is because I was able to make a higher profit on KDP. However, I set up the hardcover of Unnatural Creatures on IngramSpark as a hardcover library edition with a no return policy and 40% wholesale discount. Generally speaking, libraries don’t do returns because they’re not a retail middleman selling to a consumer. They’ll also tolerate a lower discount .

Q. What’s the process for print copies?

A. Except for KDP, I used IngramSpark for everything including my advance reader copies (ARCs), which I sent out for trade reviews. You’ll need to have your book files designed and ready to print. (More about book design software below.)

Early ARCs.

You can also print using Lulu, another POD service. However, they charge more per book though they don’t charge for uploading files. I frankly didn’t think the print quality was as good. For example, there were issues centering type on the spine that I didn’t have with IngramSpark. I also didn’t like the heavier stock Lulu uses for interior pages because it looks markedly different from what most publishers use for trade paperbacks. Bottom line: I really wanted Unnatural Creatures to appear no different from what a Big Five would produce.

That written, I used Lulu for early ARCs because their platform is definitely easier to navigate than IngramSpark. When I had my book arts gallery, I used Lulu for full color printing and thought they did a nice job.

You can also print advance book copies via KDP, but they’ll arrive with an ugly printed stripe on the cover to prevent reselling, if your book hasn’t been released yet.

Related note: I used POD for Unnatural Creatures, though I did price an offset print run for comparison’s sake. Offset is far cheaper per copy, but you have to pay upfront to print these higher quantities. Distribution is more complicated too—I never got that far into investigating those costs. However, sometimes offset makes sense for self-publishers. One example: a bulk book sale to a price club, such as Costco.

Q. How do you distribute to libraries and bookstores?

A. I used Ingram to distribute to bookstores and libraries. This was really straightforward since I printed with IngramSpark, who handled payment, printing, and shipping of my books. Profits from book are deposited directly into my business bank account after Ingram deducts their cut. (BTW all book profits from all retailers are direct deposit into bank accounts—no checks in the mail to deal with!)

Print arcs I sent to reviewers.

However, marketing books to bookstores and libraries is an entirely different matter. (By marketing, I mean how you persuade bookstores and libraries to stock your book in the first place.) For bookstores, I relied on trade reviews to spread the word—more about trade reviews below. For libraries, I relied on both trade reviews and direct outreach.

What I did: As a traditionally published author, I had a huge advantage with libraries in that I could search WorldCat to see which ones had my books already on their shelves. From there, I sent them mailers about Unnatural Creatures. I also reached out to librarians who’d featured The Lost History of Dreams. Finally, I also for an IBPA promotion at ALA conference. However, I’m uncertain if I’d do this again; I had a hard time quantifying how effective it was.

As for bookstores, I didn’t do outreach beyond trade reviews except for sending an ARC to Barnes & Noble—I only had so many time and resources. In terms of profitability, it made more sense to focus on libraries, where I made nearly three times as much per book sale. I also thought Unnatural Creatures would be a great fit for library reading groups. Plus no returns to worry about!

Q. You got a few trade reviews for Unnatural Creatures. I want to know how you managed that.

A. Ah, trade reviews, the bane of authors everywhere! They can really make or break a book. To be honest, I think I had an easier time getting trade reviews because I’m traditionally published. I also understood that Unnatural Creatures was a more literary book—ie, would need strong trade reviews to gain eyeballs and sales.

To get trade reviews, I did the following:

1. I sent out professionally designed ARCs to review outlets about six months prior to publication.
2. I set up a NetGalley account to distribute e-ARCs. (I paid for a full account so I could create an open widget for this purpose.)
3. These ARCs included endorsements from established authors, whom I reached out to as soon as I knew I was self-publishing Unnatural Creatures. (Again, it helped that I’d been traditionally published and had many wonderful author friends willing to support my book.)

What I did: I pulled together a press list, which included outlets that had reviewed my earlier books. (Poets & Writers has a great book review outlets list.) If I had previous contact with the reviewer, I emailed to ask if they were interested in reading a print or digital ARC. Surprisingly, some reviewers preferred NetGalley e-ARCs over print ARCs, which saved money on my end.

Q. What about paid review services, such as those offered by Midwest Book Review? 

A. I decided not to pay for reviews. Not only do these reviews add up financially, but booksellers and librarians know they’ve been paid for by the author-publisher; I think this undermines their effectiveness unless you get a starred rave from, say, Kirkus or Publisher’s Weekly. (Yes, Kirkus and PW have pay-to-play reviews.)

Q. How do you best market your books on a budget? Everything costs money: cover designs, author tables at festivals, consignment fees at indie bookstores, entry fees for book awards…

A. Indeed, everything costs money—it can be really daunting! I think authors need to create a budget and a hierarchy list in regards to potential profitability. For example, if your budget is limited, it makes more sense to spend money on a great book cover design than to buy tons of ads, which won’t be effective if your book cover isn’t professional. (To my mind, the book cover is the single most important factor influencing sales outside book content itself.) However, much of my marketing help was free. For example, a close friend volunteered to send out marketing and publicity emails, which helped obtain press notice; another friend offered business advice on best practices.

In terms of the profitability hierarchy, I haven’t come across consignment fees for stocking books in indie bookstores, though I’m sure they exist. On my end, I decided not to focus directly on getting my books into indie bookstores since the potential for profit wasn’t high enough to warrant my limited resources, though of course I hoped Unnatural Creatures might appear on their shelves after a bookseller came across it in a trade review.

I also didn’t pay to enter contests or apply for awards since I’m uncertain how helpful they are for book sales, though it’s certainly affirming to win awards! (FYI: the audiobook of Unnatural Creatures won an AudioFile Earphones Award, which didn’t cost me a cent.) My bottom line: would a Big Five enter a book into this contest? If the answer was “nope”, I skipped it. I also looked at their previous years’ winners to see what the books looked like and whether their sales and reviews got a bump. (Again, profitability hierarchy.)

I haven’t paid for author tables at festivals since they’re a lot of work and time. That said, some authors do great hand-selling their books and love meeting potential readers—I think you need to decide where it falls on your personal profitability hierarchy.

What I did: I pushed for pre-publication consumer reviews via NetGalley, which was really helpful in getting word out. I ran a Goodreads giveaway; while it plumped up my “To Read” numbers, I’m uncertain whether it directly influenced sales. Post publication, I ran Facebook ads, which did seem to help boost sales. That said, Facebook ads require research and patience: you have to test various ads and gradually scale up, checking for profitability as you go. I also paid for a Bookstagram tour, which was really great in getting the word out!

Q. What software did you use to design your books?

A. I used Vellum for print and ebook. If you’re on a Mac, I highly recommend it! The covers were designed in Photoshop. However, I’m currently planning a more complicated design for The Goddess Tarot 25th Anniversary Edition, which will be printed in color. I plan to use Adobe InDesign for that.

Q. I’m curious whether you hired an editor.

A. I didn’t. By the time I decided to self-publish Unnatural Creatures, it had been through numerous rounds of developmental and copyediting between my agent, her assistant, and beta readers, including one who’s a professional editor. However, in retrospect, I should have paid for a proofreader on the last round of edits. No matter how hard we tried, small typos slipped through, such as inverted quotation marks—it was frankly crazy-making.

Q. Did you do your promotional campaign yourself, as far as designing the materials and promo items, or did you have outside help?

A. All design was by me . . . but bear in mind I have decades of professional experience as a book designer. I even worked at a Big Five imprint for seven years. Though Photoshop is my “go to” program, I also used Canva to design promotional videos and many of the graphics. I recommend the paid version because it offers such a wealth of resources: photographs, videos, premium typefaces. It works out far cheaper than licensing individual photos and such.

As far as the promotion campaign itself, I set up a task schedule. I also had outside feedback in figuring out What To Do. For the most part, I hewed close to schedule.

Q. I would love to find out how traditional publishing has been different than indie for you, and in hindsight any lessons you’ve learned from your diverse breadth of publishing experience.

A. Well, the main difference is that I have all the control as an indie publisher, which I like very much. I’ve always wanted to have a small press of my own just as William Morris did. However, this also means I end up with all the responsibility, though I’ve lots of support and help. (I’m so grateful to everyone who’s helped me!) I always say that this isn’t self-publishing as much as it’s self-directed publishing: you’re the one making decisions and telling people what to do. The financial chain is also different. With a traditionally published book, I’d get paid an advance in three to four parts leading up to publication. With an indie-published book, the money comes monthly after it’s published. It’s a marathon as opposed to a sprint.

Another surprise: in many ways I’m working as many hours on book promotion as I did when I was traditionally published. These days, unless you’re very, very lucky to have won a “golden ticket” as an author, I’ve found most publishers expect us to take on the lion’s share of promotion anyway. Also, readers truly don’t care who publishes a book as long as it’s a compelling read and professionally produced.

Q. Self-publishing seems to work very well for romance authors, but what about historical fiction? Are there certain time periods/events that authors should focus on to attract readers?

A. That’s hard to say, though it does seem as though WWII books are as popular as ever! No one ever knows what the Next Big Thing is until it happens, alas. FWIW I’ve been told that people who read historical fiction prefer print, but romance readers prefer ebooks. If it’s a help, Unnatural Creatures’ print sales are nearly the same as ebook sales at this early stage of post-publication.

Q. What non-writing skills are most important (ie Photoshop, video editing for book trailers, etc.)?

A. The ability to multitask yet stay on task—I’ve never worked so hard on a book! But then again, Unnatural Creatures is the first book I’ve published from my little imprint that could. Next time, I’ll be more efficient.

In terms of creating promotional graphics, Canva is an amazing tool for non-designers and is far more reasonably priced than Photoshop, which has quite the learning curve. It’s also really easy to create book videos and social media reels on Canva.