Good afterevenmorn!

Let’s talk self-publishing. Particularly, print on demand options.

In this particular climate, I know a number of book buyers and independent and self publishers looking to make an impact by being more mindful of where they spend their money and with whom they do business. It is, however, incredibly difficult to do any kind of individual action, given the absolute chokehold Amazon has in the book space. Those of us who are self-published know it well. Amazon is where most book buyers go when shopping online. And it’s where a large number of independent publishers go to have their books printed and shipped. Print on demand is a great technology, especially for those of us who do not have the funds to do an entire print run, and no space to store the books in any case.

It’s perfect, too, because no book is wasted. Only the exact number of books sold are printed. There is no pulping of piles of unsold books. Paper is not wasted. I really like print on demand for that reason alone.

There are, of course, many other print on demand options. Nowhere is it written that one must use Kindle Direct (the print on demand arm of Amazon). However, Amazon has been such a behemoth for so long, it does seem like that if one has any hope of making a living from their self-publishing efforts, you must be on Amazon. Plenty of self-published writers make a very decent living on there, thank you very much.

However, I, like many others (both buyers and publishers) do not like the way Amazon operates. We don’t like the way they treat their employees. We don’t like the way they treat their authors. We don’t like how they bully the little guy. Or what they do with the money we make for them. It has had me searching for alternatives for a long while now.

Draft2Digital is one. It operates the usual way; you upload the book and cover, decide which channels you wish to sell on, and Draft2Digital will print and ship off your books to all those markets. You can order author copies should you ever need a bunch for an event.They operate as both a printer and distributor, which is quite nice. They pay for this by taking a cut of the proceeds of each sale, in much the same way Amazon, and other options do.

Lulu and Ingram Sparks are a couple of others that are names with recognition. But there are a bunch of print on demand services. They all operate in more or less the same way. As a bonus, there aren’t any issues with the manner in which they treat their workers, near as I know. So they’re not a bad option if you’re looking for a print on demand option.

Recently, I’ve seen another player jump on the scene. This is a new print on demand option that operates a little differently. Books.by is a print on demand service and online shopfront that works on a subscription model. Essentially, the author/publisher pays a yearly fee, and they get print on demand services as well as a shopfront for their physical books.

If used as the author’s online store, it could help in reducing website costs, which can get quite costly. Books.by has printers on practically every continent, making printing and shipping very quick and very easy. The website also boasts marketing tools available to booksellers, though I haven’t yet explored those and so don’t know if there’s the value in them the site claims.

The store fronts look nice and clean. It’s very easy to set up; extremely user friendly on the backend. Added bonus for some of us, the company, like myself, is Australian.

There are some pretty significant drawbacks, however. The first and most immediate is upfront costs. Part of the attraction of Amazon, Draft2Digital, Lulu, Ingram Spark and others is that you don’t require any money upfront. You can just upload the files and start selling. Sure, they tend to take a hefty cut, but the barrier to entry is incredibly low. With books.by, you must have the money upfront, and pay it yearly. However, the amount does not change. It’s not a percentage of your sales. It’s a flat fee (plus printing costs). The author gets to keep 100% of the profits. That can be very attractive; especially for those writers who sell at volume. Still, it’s very rare for anyone to be able to sell those kinds of numbers, especially if one is just starting out.

This may be something a publisher is willing to factor into the cost of doing business, and in the hopes that they grow large enough on the platform to justify that fee.

It will have to be noted that, as of the writing of this, books.by does not offer digital downloads. Less expensive to purchase, digital books are a great way for new readers to discover a new favorite author. The cost isn’t high, comparatively, making it an attractive option for buyers. It would be a really nice feature if they would offer downloads in multiple formats for buyers for those publishers who wish to offer them.

Perhaps that’s a feature that’s in the works for later. The company is relatively new, after all.

Discoverability is also a problem. Each subscriber gets a dedicated shopfront (with a pretty clever URL, actually: books.by/[publisher name]). But there isn’t really a buyer-facing site at all. Which means that someone can’t come to books.by and do a search for a title, author or publisher they way they can with Amazon. People coming to shop at books.by must have the publishers URL, or they’re just out of luck. Alas.

It is my hope that books.by will add that kind of front-end search function in the future so they can better compete with sites like Amazon. As of now, however, this is a considerable failing in my opinion.

Do I have a books.by shop? I do! There is only one book on it at the moment, as I’m going through my back catalogue and updating the books before releasing them under my new-ish imprint. Of course, because I’m such an unknown outside of family and friends, I have sold all of one copy; nowhere near the volume required to justify the expense. I am one of those who is running at a loss, hoping that sales pick up enough eventually to justify the cost.

For all of my physical copies, I’ll be using books.by, as they’re a great alternative to Amazon, and I want to be more ethical about where I’m spending my money.

But I’m not one to put all of my eggs in one basket. I also use Draft2Digital for most of my distribution needs, and, yes, my books are still up on Amazon, available through KDP (one of the business practices I detest is the sneaky way Amazon tends to throttle sales that are distributed to them from another provider). Some people haven’t a choice and must use that market. I don’t want to deprive them of their options. I will, however, be directing people to buy from my ko-fi shop or my books.by shop when they can.

It’s not much. I’m just one writer/publisher. Amazon won’t miss my business, I’m sure. Particularly since I hardly sell at all. What I do won’t really matter. Still, it’s better than nothing, and I’m enjoying having options.

I would suggest for new self-publishers to (always) do their research and choose a platform that best suits your and your situation. It might not be the best idea to jump into books.by when you’re first starting out; not least of all because of those upfront costs and lack of discoverability. That might be something to consider more when thinking of opening your own online store… and even then, consider the lack of ebook options (which will hopefully change).

I do think books.by has potential, but they’re too young a company yet to put all one’s stock into.

Are there any new and excited self-publishing options out there that you’ve heard of? I’m sure folks at the start of their journey would love to hear about it. Sound off below!

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When S.M. Carrière isn’t brutally killing your favorite characters, she spends her time teaching martial arts, live streaming video games, and cuddling her cat. In other words, she spends her time teaching others to kill, streaming her digital kills, and a cuddling furry murderer. Her most recent titles include Daughters of Britain, Skylark and Human. Her serial The New Haven Incident is free and goes up every Friday on her blog.