October 2024 Newsletter
Once again, first thing’s first: Book 1 in paperback is out!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DHZZQPFG
So, this has been another turbulent month. We got a few illustrations done with more in the works. Formatting and last minute revisions consumed a lot of time and angst this month, but I can tell you, the unwrapping of the first proof copy on Thursday, September 12th.
(Proof copies are for the author to check the formatting of the text, positioning of the figures, etc., make sure nothing is cut off…. or if you happen to notice a few… grammar errors committed by oneself…). SO. Note that there is a nice ‘not for resale’ banner over the copy. That’s how Kindle Direct Publishing rolls with proof copies. Ingram Spark lets you sell your proof copies (or at least they don’t have the ‘not for resale’ banner on them (I’m told)).
But, more on Ingram Spark later. Let’s talk about the fun stuff first.
This is Ys. One of the goblins that survives the epilogue of book 1 and attains a name for herself (without giving away too much).
Ys is supposed to be the youngest and gentlest of that clan, which we’re trying to show with her face.This is a sculpture done by my Mother, Sandra Spring, as she works towards understanding the anatomy of the goblin skull for an illustration of a feast in book 2. It comes a long way from the first drawing that I did of any of the goblins that survived the epilogue, as you can see below with Spara (whom I think I drew sometime in the March/April 2023-ish timeframe).
My own illustration this month finished off the clergy of the Western Church of Orneth. A scholastic clergyman on the left and a Dame Reverend of one of the Orders Militant on the right. Both would be ethnic Berk humans. (I think the guy on the right came out better, but I drew him from a reference photo; the dame reverend was drawn from a combination of references and adjusting some of them for the female anatomy (namely the breadth of shoulders)).
And the last bit of art development comes from Luke Bauer with the completed map of Adyrnaarn. Unlike the other top-down maps, Adyrnaarn is a cross-sectional map because the city is entirely underground, as most dwarven cities are. Adyrnaarn is featured prominently in the prologue of book 2.
So… happy October. Now we talk business. What’s on the horizon for this month? Marketing. I’ve got 200 copies on the way that I will be sending out to reviewers, booktokers, youtubers, etc. I AM TALKING TO YOU RIGHT NOW: if you know of a youtuber, booktoker/tiktoker, other media socialite, PLEASE send me a note. Either through the contact for or one of the social links at the bottom here. I’ll post pictures when they arrive on facebook, linkedin, and twitter (yes, I still call it that).
Like last month, I want to continue to show you a bit behind the curtain. This is similar to what I showed you this last month, but it’s the paperback pricing on Kindle Direct Publishing.
The plan was to market it initially through Amazon/KDP and then get it moving through Ingram Spark. What’s the difference? KDP is a publisher and distributor (sort of), owned by Amazon. We all know Amazon, but their role in this context is as a book seller/retailer. Then there’s Ingram Spark (owned by Ingram Content Group, I think). They are a book distributor that offers printing services - not a retailer/seller. They offer wholesale prices to retailers.
When I was doing my market research, I landed on 16.99 as right in the middle of what I thought was the range of debut paperback fantasy novels in this day and age. Not to high, not too low. I ran into this problem when I started setting it up in Ingram Spark.
The default wholesale discount is 55%. So for every time that a retailer buys a copy of my book, the wholesale discount and the printing price consume the royalty and I would owe a difference of a buck fifteen.
So, before folks start bemoaning the woes of capitalism, in any system of governance and economics, it costs some kind of capital or resource to print and distribute books. People don’t do it for free (I would like to not be writing for free, for example). Inflation is what it is, without getting into any arguments about what costs what and why. It is what it is.
So, I might’ve priced myself into this corner. You’ll notice also I’ve got ‘no’ toggled for returns. There are three options for returns:
1) Yes, deliver. This means that if a retailer decides to return the book, they ship it to Ingram’s warehouse and they ship it to me. I get charged the retail price and $3 of shipping in the continental U.S.
2) Yes, destroy. The retailer ships it to Ingram and Ingram destroys it. I get charged the wholesale cost, but not the $3 of shipping.
3) No. Retailers cannot return the book.
Naturally, to make your book the most marketable from a distribution standpoint, you should give it one of the ‘yes’ return options and select the 55% wholesale markdown. I’ve priced myself out of this. So, what’s a boy to do?
So, with a reduced wholesale discount (40% off), I make a whopping $1.39 per copy sold. Naturally, that’s not enough of a royalty margin to tolerate any significant amount of returns, so I would have to mark ‘no’ or sustain a risk of having to pay a deficit for when - not if - a retailer decides to return ten copies and I have to pay $101.94 (10 copies x $16.99 retail price x 0.6 (for the 40% wholesale markdown). Plus $30 in shipping, if I select ‘deliver’. That would bring it to $131.94 for the cost of ten returns. I would have to sell 95 copies with no returns to make up for the loss of 10 returns.
So (this is my crutch word), what are my options?
Course of Action (COA) 1: Distribute through Ingram at 40% markdown and no returns
COA 2: Raise the price (requires more market research).
COA 3: Distribute through KDP expanded distribution. What this means is that Amazon will distribute kinda like Ingram. It’ll have a chance to get into brick and mortar book stores, libraries, stuff like that (this result is the dream, by the way). But… you may ask, what’s the catch? or why aren’t you doing this?
These two questions may seem the same, but they actually have two different answers.
What’s the catch? Royalty rates drop from 60% to 40% to cover the cost of distribution and I have no idea what they do about returns. Effectively, I go from making $2.89 per sale to $1.92… but it gets into bookstores.
What am I not already doing this? Selecting expanded publication precludes me from using Ingram (and I really hope that just by starting a setup in Ingram that I have not closed off this option). But the real concern is that, going back to how Amazon is a book seller and distributor and Ingram is just a distributor. Brick and mortar bookstores are competing with Amazon and largely reliant on Ingram. If a two similar books are doing well, one being available through Ingram and one being available through KDP, they’re more likely to avoid giving money to their competitor and select the option from Ingram.
So…. I dunno which one I’m going to choose… BUT, right now, it’s $16.99 on Amazon, so get it before (if) the price changes. I will say for sure, the price will have to come up a bit for books 2 and beyond to mitigate this situation in the future.
Right, then. Songs of the month:
Siberian, by El Tigre (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oBZ-c9jnZ4&list=RD3oBZ-c9jnZ4&start_radio=1)
Pretty Cvnt, by Sewer Slvt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beoNy4MMHTc)
Broken Halo, by Goondock Saints (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvOlCyEXIrA&list=RDLQH91B-YAyY&index=5)
and a cover of Shout, by Scandroid (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQH91B-YAyY&list=RDLQH91B-YAyY&start_radio=1), original by Tears and Fears (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye7FKc1JQe4).
And here we are. This might seem random… but deal.
The man in the picture is my Father, Peter Glace. My Dad passed this month in 2021. I was writing chapter 17 at the time. So, if you see any similarities, you have some insight as to why. This drawing was made by my Mother, Sandra Spring, in 1977. My Dad was 26 years old at the time. I’ve got a way’s to go with the beard.
Take care, folks. See you next month. I’ll have the verdict on the book price by then. Oh, and one last thing. To date, we’ve sold 9 copies of the ebook and 3 paperbacks.
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