Print Quality versus Distribution
One of the issues I'm going to be dealing with in future titles is print quality of POD books versus ease of distribution. Currently, all of my titles are printed via LightningSource, Inc., which allows direct distribution through Ingrams and Amazon (and B&N, though I don't have as good an idea as to how many go through that channel). It is incredibly simple for a customer to just go to Amazon, buy the book, and receive it from LSI (drop-shipped) within a week, usually.
However, LSI's print quality is not good for black-white images (yet), and they don't allow the insertion of color pages into an otherwise black-white text (which would reduce print costs). I've been viewing samples of black-white text and graphics from a local printer who does low-run POD books. Frankly, the difference is astounding. You really can't distinguish the quality black-white photographs from traditional offset printing.
The problem, though, is that if I use a local printer, I won't be able to use Amazon, etc., as easily. I would either have to sell via Amazon Advantage, and lose 55% of retail (most of which Amazon would probably discount anyway), which would require raising the initional retail price, or deal with Amazon Marketplace, where I'd have to do direct sales. I'm really not eager to go into direct online sales, again, but that may be something to consider for the future.
The other option is to just focus the local printing on texts that don't really sell online. My titles include those that are primarily online sales, and those that are wholesaled to alternative outlets (seminar sales for one author's title, specialty catalog for another's). I am looking at expanding my direct-to-retailer/cataloger sales; just sold, for example, a small group of books to Adventures Unlimited's Arizona store. (They should arrive there sometime next week.) Sold a few sample copies to a natural history catalog sales business last week, we'll see if they're interested in stocking any.
However, LSI's print quality is not good for black-white images (yet), and they don't allow the insertion of color pages into an otherwise black-white text (which would reduce print costs). I've been viewing samples of black-white text and graphics from a local printer who does low-run POD books. Frankly, the difference is astounding. You really can't distinguish the quality black-white photographs from traditional offset printing.
The problem, though, is that if I use a local printer, I won't be able to use Amazon, etc., as easily. I would either have to sell via Amazon Advantage, and lose 55% of retail (most of which Amazon would probably discount anyway), which would require raising the initional retail price, or deal with Amazon Marketplace, where I'd have to do direct sales. I'm really not eager to go into direct online sales, again, but that may be something to consider for the future.
The other option is to just focus the local printing on texts that don't really sell online. My titles include those that are primarily online sales, and those that are wholesaled to alternative outlets (seminar sales for one author's title, specialty catalog for another's). I am looking at expanding my direct-to-retailer/cataloger sales; just sold, for example, a small group of books to Adventures Unlimited's Arizona store. (They should arrive there sometime next week.) Sold a few sample copies to a natural history catalog sales business last week, we'll see if they're interested in stocking any.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home