September 24, 2024 • 30 mins
Olivia McCoy and Karen McNally Upson discussed the benefits of print on demand technology for authors, dispelling stigmas associated with self-publishing. Karen offers essential insights into the importance of aligning distribution strategies with reader behavior to maximize book sales.
Key Points
Key Points
- The benefits of print on demand for authors, highlighting how it reduces the need for authors to carry books and prevents excess inventory costs. Traditional publishing houses are increasingly adopting this approach.
- The impact of timing - production delays and distribution challenges in the book industry.
- The importance of publishers focusing on acquiring and producing great books while leaving distribution to specialized companies like Ingram. The efficiency and global reach of Ingram's print on demand service (Ingramspark) are highlighted.
- .How different genres have varying reader preferences for book formats, such as ebooks or physical copies, and importance of aligning distribution strategies with reader behavior to maximize book sales.
- A case study contrasting two publishing pathways: custom publishing under an author's imprint and hybrid publishing. The success stories of two authors with similar topics but different brand evolutions demonstrate the effectiveness of tailored distribution strategies.
- Setting authors up for success by aligning their distribution strategies with their brand development and readership. The discussion highlights the significance of choosing the right publishing pathway based on individual goals and brand maturity.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Smith Publicity All Things Book Marketing podcast,
offering tips, insights, and advice from the best in the
publishing industry.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hello and welcome to this episode of All Things Book Marketing.
I'm your host Olivia McCoy, and our special guest today
is Karen McNally Upson, the director of sales at Girl
Friday Productions. And Karen is here not only to talk
about hybrid publishing models, but specifically hybrid distribution models, which
is a super it's not even super niche, but it's
(00:34):
a fun little piece of publishing that a lot of
people don't even consider. But it's something that I get
really nerdy about, so I'm super excited to jump into it.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Hi, Karen, Hi, Olivia's so great to be with you.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Great to have you on. Why don't you start as
we always do, with what you do and how you help.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Authors great well? As you said, I'm the director of
sales at Girl Friday Productions, and all day long I
talked to authors who have a manuscript and who are
hoping to publish their book, and they're really seeking professional
services to make sure that the book that they produce
and put out into the world is high quality, represents
(01:12):
their brand or represents their dream in many ways of publishing.
So what we do at the heart is produced high
quality books for our clients. So we do have a
hybrid publishing program that is submission based, and what we
do there is I talk to authors and they give
me less of information about their book. They're often providing
(01:35):
us with the book proposal, their draft manuscript, and really
we dig in on their goals for publishing because what's
so important about this endeavor for authors is not just
the book itself, but what are they hoping to achieve.
And they know their audience best in many ways, and
they know what they are hoping their reader will experience
(01:58):
by the time they're done reading their boo boo, So
working backwards from that, it really helps us define what
their best opportunity is for bringing their book to their readers.
And so through that process, that's where we're defining what
their best path forward is. So we will then we
have an editorial board that reviews every submission for our
(02:21):
hybrid program, and in that process we're digging in on
can we really help this author achieve their goals? Do
they have what it takes in order to be a
partner in producing a great quality book. Do they have
what it takes in order to do the reader marketing
that every author must do to bring their reader to
(02:43):
the bookstore. It's really important that our authors be ready
to do that work, whether it's investing in professional marketing
support or in book publicity, as well as doing the
work themselves to get themselves out there and to build
their readership and take their message to a broader audience.
(03:04):
Because if that's what they're hoping to achieve, then they're
going to need to be able to get really comfortable
doing it. Some authors are ready to go and they're
excited to do that. They're already engaging. They just need
a little help casting the net a little wider. And
then some authors are like, I just want to write.
This is not my thing. We're like, okay, how can
(03:24):
we help you? If you're willing, we'll show you what
you need to do, We'll get you comfortable, we'll introduce
you to the right people that can help you with
some of that work that you're like, I don't know
how to cobble this together, and we'll get you started.
But we need authors who are really excited for that.
So that's what we do with our hybrid publishing program.
(03:44):
We also have custom publishing for authors who want to
produce a high quality book under their own imprint, and
that's another model which we're not talking about today about
hybrid publishing is a piece of what we do there.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, and so we do have another podcast episode that
we did in the past, a couple of them on
what hybrid publishing is and how it's different. But why
don't you give us a quick recap of the differences
between hybrid, traditional, and self publishing.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Absolutely so, there are three major pathways that you just described.
Traditional is what most people know about. It's the big
five publishing houses. It's a model that often requires an agent.
It requires a lot of time to get an agent
and have that agent accept your book and create that
partnership there, and then they're selling in to the publishing
(04:34):
houses that are out there. There are some smaller presses
that are out there that don't require agents. But you know,
when people talk about traditional publishing, that's really what they're
thinking about. It's a model that's an acquisition model. It's
a publishing agreement that has a term. It includes a
royalty split. In many cases, I would say the vast
(04:54):
majority of cases, authors are receiving this one of the
smaller pieces of the pie. In that royalty split model,
the traditional publisher is investing in the production of the book.
They're putting all of their skin in the game there
in hopes that that book will earn a profit for
them and be able to pay the salaries and keep
the lights on. It's a speculation model in a lot
(05:16):
of ways. So it's also a model that has the
fewest books being able to be produced because those traditional
publishing houses don't have an unlimited budget, so they can
only sign so many books a year. So that's the
traditional publishing models. And then at the other end of
the spectrum there is self publishing or custom publishing. In
(05:38):
a lot of ways, authors are doing everything themselves unless
they work with a firm who helps with producing the
book and getting the book launched. That's part of what
our custom publishing program does. It's not DIY at all.
It's a very white glove, high quality endeavor there for
(05:58):
those types of authors who are very entrepreneurial and want
to be under their own imprint. In that model, the
author is one hundred percent control of their book. They
are also earning one hundred percent of their royalties. They
split their royalties with no one. They are their own publisher.
And then in the middle we have hybrid and it's
a lot of what it sounds like. It's a combination
(06:20):
of the two. In the hybrid model, it is an
acquisition model. The author is granting the rights to produce
and publish the book to the hybrid publisher. In exchange,
that hybrid publisher is going to produce and publish that book,
and the author is supporting the production of the book
by investing what can be a significant sum in producing
(06:44):
that book. But what's different about hybrid publishing in that
model is that they get a much larger share of
the royalties. For instance, our hybrid model is a seventy
percent royalty on net to the author, thirty percent to us,
the publisher. And what we're doing in that model to
earn that thirty percent is to represent their book underneath
(07:07):
our imprint. And this is what every hybrid publisher should
be doing. They are championing that book through the channels.
They're managing the care and keeping of their book. They're
providing all the royalty statements to the author and describing
what they mean they're really a partner with that author
(07:27):
for a long term situation. So that's hybrid publishing in
a nutshell, or those are the three pathways, I should
say in a nutshell.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, thank you for that. Let's go up on a
bit of a tangent and talk about distribution models, and
we're going to talk specifically hybrid distribution models. But can
you give us an intro on distribution as a whole,
because I think that's something that a lot of authors
just don't learn about. You kind of think, Okay, I
write the book, I edit the book, I design the book,
I publish the book, I market the book. Done, but
(07:58):
we don't think about how we get the book directly
into readers' hands, which is a full point, but it's
kind of a something that happens on the back end
that no one really sees or thinks of. So tell
us about that.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Yeah, So, book distribution has been a part of the
industry since books were being printed. How do books get
to readers? Right? So, all books that are published, regardless
of their publishing pathway, even for self published authors if
they are publishing on a platform like KADP or Ingram's Park,
(08:35):
all books are distributed, right, So we use this term
distribution to mean something at times that speaks to traditional
book distribution. So traditional book distribution is where a book
is being sold through a distributor out to retail channels.
(08:56):
There's a sales team involved that is selling out to
retail store accounts. Those retail store accounts can be online,
they can also be brick and mortar, and a combination
of the two. It often includes distribution into specialty channels
like stores where other things are sold more than just books.
(09:20):
For example, Urban Outfitter, Paper Source, Target, Walmart. All of
those places they sell a lot of things and they
sell books. So those are some specialty markets and then
you've got the academic market and the library market. So
book distribution is really at the hub of getting those
books out to those channels. And for traditional book distribution,
(09:43):
there's a team of sales reps and there is marketing
and selling to the trade. So that means the sales
reps at the distribution house. That also means the buyers
who are on the other side of that and all
those specialty channels and the bookstore channels that I talked about,
So that is what is traditional book distribution. Oftentimes there's
(10:05):
a warehouse involved, multiple warehouses with books on shelves that
are going out based on wholesale orders that are being placed.
So that's traditional book distribution. Then you've got online retail distribution,
and that can also happen through the hub of a
book distributor like Ingram, where they are distributing books out
(10:28):
to all the online retail stores that sell books. So
that can be Amazon, of course, they're the gorilla, the
eight hundred pound gorillas, we like to call them. And
then you've also got sites like books dot org, Indie Bound,
and then of course Target dot com, Walmart dot com,
Barnes Andnoble dot com. So that is a focus there.
(10:52):
That's digital book distribution. So those are the two main
ways of tributing a book, and you've got hybrid publishers
that are serving all of that, and they might have
imprints that are specific to those two different ways, and
that is and that is our hybrid program, and that's
(11:13):
the same as many others.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
And does print on demand versus printing quantities, ware housing
all of that. How does that work with these distribution models?
How is all of that happening?
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Yeah, that is a great question. So The print on
demand or POD has been around for a couple decades now.
It started out a little rough. Print on demand had
a reputation for poor quality, but it has come so far.
And what we're seeing now is we're seeing that a
(11:51):
lot of publishers and this includes the Big Five, they
are using a print run initially for the books that
they are publishing, and that might be a print run
that's happening, you know, at a traditional printer, so it
might be a digital print run or sometimes an offset
print run. These are some These are the terms that
I won't get into, but those are different types of printings.
(12:12):
But it's all happening at once in quantity. Quantities might
be two thousand and five, ten thousand, and those books
are printed and then they're shipped to the distribution warehouse
where they are managed and then sold and distributed out
when wholesale orders are placed. So that is also a
model that's been around for a long time. And what
(12:35):
we're seeing is that those print runs are shifting. They're
becoming a little less because of the advent of print
on demand and the improvements in technology. What we're seeing
is publishers across the board, traditional publishers, hybrid publishers are
shrinking their print runs and they're relying on print on
(12:58):
demand after a certain quantity is sold. And then there
are some books that are never printed with an offset
print run or a print run. They're relying solely on
print on demand to fulfill those orders. And print on
demand is so is such an incredible technology because the
quality has gotten so much better. But what is great
about print on demand is that it is available for
(13:23):
books that are purchased and are being fulfilled in those
quick ship models like Amazon Prime. You know those people
that have Amazon Prime and want there are things in
two days or less. POD is able to serve that model,
which is fascinating to me. So with that kind of
(13:43):
technology and that kind of rapid to market to reader
technology that's happening, what's great about print on demand is
that it is a lower environmental hit. You are not
shipping books in great quantity to a warehouse only to
then be shipped back and forth between a retailer and
(14:04):
a distribution house because you've got orders getting placed, books
go out, and then you've got returns that come back.
So that is a lot as huge carbon footprint right there.
With print on demand. The reader is requesting the book
and they get the book, so there's less on the bookshelves,
and it is less there are fewer returns, and it
(14:27):
is it's just a it's a better environmental way to
go in so many ways. So we've got traditional publishers,
we're seeing them use print on demand a lot. So
when authors are considering their publishing pathways, they need to
know that printing is not going to be It could
be a print run and it could be print on demand.
(14:47):
So knowing that that's possible is something they need to
have their expectations clearly set.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Or And so many of the stigmas of self publishing
come from those early print on demand technologies, like you
were saying, When you think of the very stereotypical self publishing,
you might think, oh, low quality, bad paper, fuzzy cover,
like bad print, whatever it may be. And nowadays we have,
(15:19):
like you said, all of these put on demand books
from traditional publishers, those big name authors doing put on demand.
You've got the best selling authors doing put on demand.
You can't tell the difference between a self published book
and a traditional book anymore because they're using the exact
same technology. And models and producing the same quality. So
that's stigma out the door for self publishing and independent
(15:41):
publishing and hyper publishing. And then also, like you said,
it gives you more opportunity, and it not only is
saving the environment, but it's also saving your wallet because
you're not having to pay those warehousing fees for all
of those books that now you feel the pressure to
get out the door. And with all of these new
digital ways of reading to ebook, audiobook, it's harder to predict, okay,
(16:04):
with this audience of this big how many of them
are going to want something in hand, on how many
of them are going to want their Kendle or their
paperback reader or their audio listener. It's really kind of
taking the control out of the author's hands and putting
it in their readers, which is fabulous but also a
(16:25):
little older racking. So it's nice to be able to
as the reader was ordering it, that order is being
printed directly for them. And so I think that's another thing.
You know, we're saying print on demand, and they're like,
on who's demand? On what? It's Yeah, it's we have
the files and we have the printer at the Amazon
place or at the publisher or whatever it is wherever
(16:47):
the printer is, and so when someone places an order,
it is being printed specifically for that order, as opposed
to having it printed in advance and then having to
store it and deal with it. Which doesn't mean that
you can't order big quality quantities.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Though like absolutely, yeah, I could.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Still order a bunch of books print on demand for
an event, for assigning for something they're doing to those Yes.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Yes, and we do that all the time for our authors.
They will say, Hey, I've got a speaking engagement and
I need to have one hundred books shipped to this hotel,
this conference center. And with two three weeks, notice, we
get those orders out the door and they are drop
shipped to that location. So the author's not lugging books
on a plane. I mean, that's a nightmare. So we
(17:33):
and and when those orders are happening on demand versus
sitting in a warehouse somewhere, it is again this is
a It really does do a service to the environment
when we're not printing. And then when they after a year,
I will tell I mean, this is something that a
lot of authors don't learn until they're in it. A
(17:54):
year after a book has been published, if there are
a height quantity units on the shelves at a distribution house,
that distribution house is going to be saying you need
to start paying for inventory management, or you need to
decide what you want to do with the excess inventory.
Do you want to pulpit which means destroy it, or
(18:15):
do you want to get those books shipped to you?
And then they're sitting in a garage, which can be
costly for a lot of reasons. So print on demand
is such a great fix for all of that, and
that's why we're seeing traditional publishing houses use it a lot.
And you don't know the difference. I will guarantee you
walk into any bookstore, whether it's Barnes and Noble or
(18:35):
whether it is your local store, there is a large
majority Russian submarity. There is a large number of books
they're sitting on those shelves, hardcover and paperback, that have
been printed print on demand.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
And another thing we didn't even mention yet is the timing.
Yes with COVID especially, I don't know if it's I mean,
I'm sure it's a combination of it being a reaction
to the COVID pandemic and also just a coincidence of timing,
But we had all of those production delays because there
(19:12):
was the paper shortage, and then there were all of
these shipping problems where we couldn't get books to us,
especially if they were being printed overseas, and so then
you saw books that were taking three years to publish
because it took months and months just to print one
shipment of books. And then what happens when you sell
(19:33):
out and it does really really well, You wait another
three months and then it's like you're republishing again every
three It was exhausting, which is why we had a
huge resurgence in POD and that came from and I'm
going to start mentioning some names that publishing professionals will know,
but authors may need some explanation. Ingram the biggest book
(19:55):
distributor company in the US in the world, yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Just distributors in the world. Yeah, there used to.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Be two big ones. There used to be Baker and
Taylor who moved on too doing mostly libraries now, and
then Ingram kind of took over into the whole book
selling space. That is where booksellers are buying their books from.
For the most part, sometimes they'll go directly through the publisher,
which is great, and the publishers love that. I'm sure
you could tell us that that's actually true.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
It is true, and what's happening there is the publisher
gets to then send that quantity directly. So I think
the numbers in terms of the publisher and what is
being spent there, I think it's a little more favorable
for the publisher. But you know, publishers really want to
(20:44):
stay in their lane and do what they do well.
We're seeing a lot of consolidation there in terms of
their staffing and how they want to spend their money.
They want to spend their money on acquiring and producing
great books that readers are going to love. So having
distributors like Ingram be the specialists makes a lot of sense, right,
(21:08):
So why do you want to try to do all
the things when you've got a great company out there
that can handle it, and they've got a worldwide operation.
So Ingram also has a print on demand element of their.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Ingram spirt, That's where I was going with it. They
started m POD two, yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
And it's called Lightning Sources, the name of their printing
entity there. So it is interesting the number of books
that are printed be a lightning source. You can go
into any any book and kind of look in the
back and said lightning source, and then I'd be like, ah,
that's po D. So those are things that are real
eye openers and and they've really created such a wonderful
(21:45):
opportunity for authors to be able to compete across the board.
And this goes back to those publishing pathways that we
were talking about. So traditional publishing used to have everything
you know locked up there. Now hybrid publisher because of POD,
because we also do print runs. What we're able to
focus on with authors is to look at how their
(22:08):
readers are likely to purchase their book. And this can
be a genre by genre question. Right, So we know
romance and iraka heavy ebook right, we are not going
to see those books on the shelves and it will
see them some on the shelves and bookstores, but that's
not where the readers are buying those books. These it's
(22:28):
a voracious readership. Same with mystery thriller. Oh my gosh,
it's all through the kindle. My mother, I swear she is.
As soon as she discovered a kindle, she was just like,
oh my gosh, I can just read book after book
after book, especially when you've got an author writing a series, right,
it's get me the next, get me the next. Then
(22:50):
you've got genres like you know, business leadership, and you
know the readers for those where are they reading those books? Right?
Sometimes the folks are traveling so they're listening or they're
reading on their kindle. So thinking about how your reader
is discovering and going to be reading that book, that's
where your book needs to show up, and that's where
(23:11):
you need to focus on your marketing. That's where book
publicity is going to be driving. The reader is the audience.
So we love to really think of it from the
reader backwards and look at the trends, look at the
data around that. So let's not let the tailwi like
the dog here. Let's look at who the readership is,
(23:34):
where they're buying books, what their format is, and then
let's make sure that the books are being distributed in
a way and represented in a way that's really going
to appeal to that readership.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Do you have a specific example you can give us
any kind of author you've worked with their case study
where you can talk about what the distribution looked like
all the way through for that book.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Yes, yeah, I've got a great example. And nice about
this example is it also offers an interesting contrast in
two of those publishing pathways we've talked about today. So
we've got the custom path pathway where the author is
publishing under their own imprint, uh, and then we've got
the hybrid publishing. So we had two authors who were
(24:19):
and they weren't at the same time, but there was
a little bit of a lineup in terms of their
and in terms of their timing working with us. We
had one author who had created this incredible brand around
wellness and diet and really changing the way you saw
you know your body and how it metabolizes food and nutrition,
(24:42):
and and she had this established following, really great brand,
and she wanted to get a book out and extend
her reach. She wanted to really make sure that she
had the opportunity to get her book into brick and
mortar bookstores. She knew that getting into the online retail
(25:03):
stores was going to be great. She even knew that
a lot of her readers were going to buy it
that way because she engages with them online. But she
wanted that added opportunity of people seeing her book and
brick and mortar bookstores and seeing how that could drive
them back to her and her platform, her subscription model.
(25:24):
So she was willing to take that bet, and so
she became part of our Flashpoint imprint and she was
getting that distribution and she was getting into books brick
and mortar bookstores. And the reason why she was getting
briga and ware bookstores is because our sales team on
the distribution side was really able to make a case
for her with booksellers saying, hey, here's her name, here's
(25:45):
her recognition, here's her following, here's what she's doing to
drive interest in her book. And booksellers were like, yeah,
I'll take a chance on that. So she really achieved
her goal. Even though the majority of her unit sales
are online, she was willing to get that extra exposure
(26:06):
and really invest in that kind of distribution because it
helped her. In contrast, we had another author similar topic.
It was all about taking care of your body, good nutrition.
She was just developing her brand. She had a small following,
but she didn't have the traction that the other author
had in terms of the following the readership established, but
(26:30):
she wanted a book that would give her that added legitimacy,
so for her, custom publishing under her own imprint was
the right way to go. Same thing in terms of
the readership buying online, But what she was able to
do was work with us to create a really great book.
She won several awards and got all the recognition she wanted.
(26:52):
She had great online retail sales bringing people to her model.
So now her business and her brand is growing as
there was alt to it, so she wasn't where the
other author was in terms of being able to get
traction with the trade as we call it, to get
into brick and mortar. But her book is available for
brick and mortar sales. So her readership if they're if
(27:14):
they're interested in her book and they want to go
into their neighborhood bookstore and say, hey, can you bring
in this book by this author, They'll be able to
go into their Ingram account or at wholesale, they could
even get a few copies if they wanted to sell more,
and they'll bring it in for that reader. So it's
it's really a case study in success of both models
(27:35):
with very similar books, but with different evolutions of their
individual brand and where they were and what was going
to make sense for them in terms of their investment
in how they were going to distribute their book.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Wow, that's really cool that they were so similar and
they went the same They did a lot of the
same things, but were also really different and where they started,
what their boles were too. That's that's exciting.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Yeah. Yeah, And it's so great to be able to
set authors up for success when you think backwards about
where their readership is, where their brand is, and what
they're hoping to do. The author that was under flashmant Flashpoint.
She had an incredibly established brand. She didn't need any
help there and she just needed that book to extend
(28:24):
her reach. And the other author really was building and
that book helped her build her brand, so it was
the right pathway for her.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Wonderful. Well, thanks for joining us. I'd love for you
to let us know how our listeners and our watchers
can get in touch to line more.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Yeah. So our website is the best place to go first.
It's Girl Friday Productions dot com. We talk about all
the different pathways on our website and we've got a
lot of examples of our books. We've got our catalog
up there so you can see examples of our books
and if you write in if you submit, chances are
you'll talk to me if you if you sub man
(29:01):
I've got another colleague who also helps me with talking
to authors, and so I hope to hear from some
of the authors that are out there. And you know,
our goal is to really produce the best quality book
and set authors on the right path. There are a
lot of folks that I talk to where Girl Friday
is not the right fit for them, but I'm really
(29:22):
rooting for them and I always give them great reference
or great resources to find their publishing pathway. So I
love talking to authors.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Well, thank you so much for joining us and for
all of this great information.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Yeah, it is so great to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
And listeners watchers. If you like this episode, don't forget
to rate, review, subscribe, and share it with anyone else
that might be interested. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Smith
Publicity All Things Book Marketing Podcast. To reach us and
learn about our many services, visit Smith Publicity dot com
or send us an email to info at Smith Publicity
dot com.
Welcome to the Smith Publicity All Things Book Marketing podcast,
offering tips, insights, and advice from the best in the
publishing industry.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hello and welcome to this episode of All Things Book Marketing.
I'm your host Olivia McCoy, and our special guest today
is Karen McNally Upson, the director of sales at Girl
Friday Productions. And Karen is here not only to talk
about hybrid publishing models, but specifically hybrid distribution models, which
is a super it's not even super niche, but it's
(00:34):
a fun little piece of publishing that a lot of
people don't even consider. But it's something that I get
really nerdy about, so I'm super excited to jump into it.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Hi, Karen, Hi, Olivia's so great to be with you.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Great to have you on. Why don't you start as
we always do, with what you do and how you help.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Authors great well? As you said, I'm the director of
sales at Girl Friday Productions, and all day long I
talked to authors who have a manuscript and who are
hoping to publish their book, and they're really seeking professional
services to make sure that the book that they produce
and put out into the world is high quality, represents
(01:12):
their brand or represents their dream in many ways of publishing.
So what we do at the heart is produced high
quality books for our clients. So we do have a
hybrid publishing program that is submission based, and what we
do there is I talk to authors and they give
me less of information about their book. They're often providing
(01:35):
us with the book proposal, their draft manuscript, and really
we dig in on their goals for publishing because what's
so important about this endeavor for authors is not just
the book itself, but what are they hoping to achieve.
And they know their audience best in many ways, and
they know what they are hoping their reader will experience
(01:58):
by the time they're done reading their boo boo, So
working backwards from that, it really helps us define what
their best opportunity is for bringing their book to their readers.
And so through that process, that's where we're defining what
their best path forward is. So we will then we
have an editorial board that reviews every submission for our
(02:21):
hybrid program, and in that process we're digging in on
can we really help this author achieve their goals? Do
they have what it takes in order to be a
partner in producing a great quality book. Do they have
what it takes in order to do the reader marketing
that every author must do to bring their reader to
(02:43):
the bookstore. It's really important that our authors be ready
to do that work, whether it's investing in professional marketing
support or in book publicity, as well as doing the
work themselves to get themselves out there and to build
their readership and take their message to a broader audience.
(03:04):
Because if that's what they're hoping to achieve, then they're
going to need to be able to get really comfortable
doing it. Some authors are ready to go and they're
excited to do that. They're already engaging. They just need
a little help casting the net a little wider. And
then some authors are like, I just want to write.
This is not my thing. We're like, okay, how can
(03:24):
we help you? If you're willing, we'll show you what
you need to do, We'll get you comfortable, we'll introduce
you to the right people that can help you with
some of that work that you're like, I don't know
how to cobble this together, and we'll get you started.
But we need authors who are really excited for that.
So that's what we do with our hybrid publishing program.
(03:44):
We also have custom publishing for authors who want to
produce a high quality book under their own imprint, and
that's another model which we're not talking about today about
hybrid publishing is a piece of what we do there.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, and so we do have another podcast episode that
we did in the past, a couple of them on
what hybrid publishing is and how it's different. But why
don't you give us a quick recap of the differences
between hybrid, traditional, and self publishing.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Absolutely so, there are three major pathways that you just described.
Traditional is what most people know about. It's the big
five publishing houses. It's a model that often requires an agent.
It requires a lot of time to get an agent
and have that agent accept your book and create that
partnership there, and then they're selling in to the publishing
(04:34):
houses that are out there. There are some smaller presses
that are out there that don't require agents. But you know,
when people talk about traditional publishing, that's really what they're
thinking about. It's a model that's an acquisition model. It's
a publishing agreement that has a term. It includes a
royalty split. In many cases, I would say the vast
(04:54):
majority of cases, authors are receiving this one of the
smaller pieces of the pie. In that royalty split model,
the traditional publisher is investing in the production of the book.
They're putting all of their skin in the game there
in hopes that that book will earn a profit for
them and be able to pay the salaries and keep
the lights on. It's a speculation model in a lot
(05:16):
of ways. So it's also a model that has the
fewest books being able to be produced because those traditional
publishing houses don't have an unlimited budget, so they can
only sign so many books a year. So that's the
traditional publishing models. And then at the other end of
the spectrum there is self publishing or custom publishing. In
(05:38):
a lot of ways, authors are doing everything themselves unless
they work with a firm who helps with producing the
book and getting the book launched. That's part of what
our custom publishing program does. It's not DIY at all.
It's a very white glove, high quality endeavor there for
(05:58):
those types of authors who are very entrepreneurial and want
to be under their own imprint. In that model, the
author is one hundred percent control of their book. They
are also earning one hundred percent of their royalties. They
split their royalties with no one. They are their own publisher.
And then in the middle we have hybrid and it's
a lot of what it sounds like. It's a combination
(06:20):
of the two. In the hybrid model, it is an
acquisition model. The author is granting the rights to produce
and publish the book to the hybrid publisher. In exchange,
that hybrid publisher is going to produce and publish that book,
and the author is supporting the production of the book
by investing what can be a significant sum in producing
(06:44):
that book. But what's different about hybrid publishing in that
model is that they get a much larger share of
the royalties. For instance, our hybrid model is a seventy
percent royalty on net to the author, thirty percent to us,
the publisher. And what we're doing in that model to
earn that thirty percent is to represent their book underneath
(07:07):
our imprint. And this is what every hybrid publisher should
be doing. They are championing that book through the channels.
They're managing the care and keeping of their book. They're
providing all the royalty statements to the author and describing
what they mean they're really a partner with that author
(07:27):
for a long term situation. So that's hybrid publishing in
a nutshell, or those are the three pathways, I should
say in a nutshell.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, thank you for that. Let's go up on a
bit of a tangent and talk about distribution models, and
we're going to talk specifically hybrid distribution models. But can
you give us an intro on distribution as a whole,
because I think that's something that a lot of authors
just don't learn about. You kind of think, Okay, I
write the book, I edit the book, I design the book,
I publish the book, I market the book. Done, but
(07:58):
we don't think about how we get the book directly
into readers' hands, which is a full point, but it's
kind of a something that happens on the back end
that no one really sees or thinks of. So tell
us about that.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Yeah, So, book distribution has been a part of the
industry since books were being printed. How do books get
to readers? Right? So, all books that are published, regardless
of their publishing pathway, even for self published authors if
they are publishing on a platform like KADP or Ingram's Park,
(08:35):
all books are distributed, right, So we use this term
distribution to mean something at times that speaks to traditional
book distribution. So traditional book distribution is where a book
is being sold through a distributor out to retail channels.
(08:56):
There's a sales team involved that is selling out to
retail store accounts. Those retail store accounts can be online,
they can also be brick and mortar, and a combination
of the two. It often includes distribution into specialty channels
like stores where other things are sold more than just books.
(09:20):
For example, Urban Outfitter, Paper Source, Target, Walmart. All of
those places they sell a lot of things and they
sell books. So those are some specialty markets and then
you've got the academic market and the library market. So
book distribution is really at the hub of getting those
books out to those channels. And for traditional book distribution,
(09:43):
there's a team of sales reps and there is marketing
and selling to the trade. So that means the sales
reps at the distribution house. That also means the buyers
who are on the other side of that and all
those specialty channels and the bookstore channels that I talked about,
So that is what is traditional book distribution. Oftentimes there's
(10:05):
a warehouse involved, multiple warehouses with books on shelves that
are going out based on wholesale orders that are being placed.
So that's traditional book distribution. Then you've got online retail distribution,
and that can also happen through the hub of a
book distributor like Ingram, where they are distributing books out
(10:28):
to all the online retail stores that sell books. So
that can be Amazon, of course, they're the gorilla, the
eight hundred pound gorillas, we like to call them. And
then you've also got sites like books dot org, Indie Bound,
and then of course Target dot com, Walmart dot com,
Barnes Andnoble dot com. So that is a focus there.
(10:52):
That's digital book distribution. So those are the two main
ways of tributing a book, and you've got hybrid publishers
that are serving all of that, and they might have
imprints that are specific to those two different ways, and
that is and that is our hybrid program, and that's
(11:13):
the same as many others.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
And does print on demand versus printing quantities, ware housing
all of that. How does that work with these distribution models?
How is all of that happening?
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Yeah, that is a great question. So The print on
demand or POD has been around for a couple decades now.
It started out a little rough. Print on demand had
a reputation for poor quality, but it has come so far.
And what we're seeing now is we're seeing that a
(11:51):
lot of publishers and this includes the Big Five, they
are using a print run initially for the books that
they are publishing, and that might be a print run
that's happening, you know, at a traditional printer, so it
might be a digital print run or sometimes an offset
print run. These are some These are the terms that
I won't get into, but those are different types of printings.
(12:12):
But it's all happening at once in quantity. Quantities might
be two thousand and five, ten thousand, and those books
are printed and then they're shipped to the distribution warehouse
where they are managed and then sold and distributed out
when wholesale orders are placed. So that is also a
model that's been around for a long time. And what
(12:35):
we're seeing is that those print runs are shifting. They're
becoming a little less because of the advent of print
on demand and the improvements in technology. What we're seeing
is publishers across the board, traditional publishers, hybrid publishers are
shrinking their print runs and they're relying on print on
(12:58):
demand after a certain quantity is sold. And then there
are some books that are never printed with an offset
print run or a print run. They're relying solely on
print on demand to fulfill those orders. And print on
demand is so is such an incredible technology because the
quality has gotten so much better. But what is great
about print on demand is that it is available for
(13:23):
books that are purchased and are being fulfilled in those
quick ship models like Amazon Prime. You know those people
that have Amazon Prime and want there are things in
two days or less. POD is able to serve that model,
which is fascinating to me. So with that kind of
(13:43):
technology and that kind of rapid to market to reader
technology that's happening, what's great about print on demand is
that it is a lower environmental hit. You are not
shipping books in great quantity to a warehouse only to
then be shipped back and forth between a retailer and
(14:04):
a distribution house because you've got orders getting placed, books
go out, and then you've got returns that come back.
So that is a lot as huge carbon footprint right there.
With print on demand. The reader is requesting the book
and they get the book, so there's less on the bookshelves,
and it is less there are fewer returns, and it
(14:27):
is it's just a it's a better environmental way to
go in so many ways. So we've got traditional publishers,
we're seeing them use print on demand a lot. So
when authors are considering their publishing pathways, they need to
know that printing is not going to be It could
be a print run and it could be print on demand.
(14:47):
So knowing that that's possible is something they need to
have their expectations clearly set.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Or And so many of the stigmas of self publishing
come from those early print on demand technologies, like you
were saying, When you think of the very stereotypical self publishing,
you might think, oh, low quality, bad paper, fuzzy cover,
like bad print, whatever it may be. And nowadays we have,
(15:19):
like you said, all of these put on demand books
from traditional publishers, those big name authors doing put on demand.
You've got the best selling authors doing put on demand.
You can't tell the difference between a self published book
and a traditional book anymore because they're using the exact
same technology. And models and producing the same quality. So
that's stigma out the door for self publishing and independent
(15:41):
publishing and hyper publishing. And then also, like you said,
it gives you more opportunity, and it not only is
saving the environment, but it's also saving your wallet because
you're not having to pay those warehousing fees for all
of those books that now you feel the pressure to
get out the door. And with all of these new
digital ways of reading to ebook, audiobook, it's harder to predict, okay,
(16:04):
with this audience of this big how many of them
are going to want something in hand, on how many
of them are going to want their Kendle or their
paperback reader or their audio listener. It's really kind of
taking the control out of the author's hands and putting
it in their readers, which is fabulous but also a
(16:25):
little older racking. So it's nice to be able to
as the reader was ordering it, that order is being
printed directly for them. And so I think that's another thing.
You know, we're saying print on demand, and they're like,
on who's demand? On what? It's Yeah, it's we have
the files and we have the printer at the Amazon
place or at the publisher or whatever it is wherever
(16:47):
the printer is, and so when someone places an order,
it is being printed specifically for that order, as opposed
to having it printed in advance and then having to
store it and deal with it. Which doesn't mean that
you can't order big quality quantities.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Though like absolutely, yeah, I could.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Still order a bunch of books print on demand for
an event, for assigning for something they're doing to those Yes.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Yes, and we do that all the time for our authors.
They will say, Hey, I've got a speaking engagement and
I need to have one hundred books shipped to this hotel,
this conference center. And with two three weeks, notice, we
get those orders out the door and they are drop
shipped to that location. So the author's not lugging books
on a plane. I mean, that's a nightmare. So we
(17:33):
and and when those orders are happening on demand versus
sitting in a warehouse somewhere, it is again this is
a It really does do a service to the environment
when we're not printing. And then when they after a year,
I will tell I mean, this is something that a
lot of authors don't learn until they're in it. A
(17:54):
year after a book has been published, if there are
a height quantity units on the shelves at a distribution house,
that distribution house is going to be saying you need
to start paying for inventory management, or you need to
decide what you want to do with the excess inventory.
Do you want to pulpit which means destroy it, or
(18:15):
do you want to get those books shipped to you?
And then they're sitting in a garage, which can be
costly for a lot of reasons. So print on demand
is such a great fix for all of that, and
that's why we're seeing traditional publishing houses use it a lot.
And you don't know the difference. I will guarantee you
walk into any bookstore, whether it's Barnes and Noble or
(18:35):
whether it is your local store, there is a large
majority Russian submarity. There is a large number of books
they're sitting on those shelves, hardcover and paperback, that have
been printed print on demand.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
And another thing we didn't even mention yet is the timing.
Yes with COVID especially, I don't know if it's I mean,
I'm sure it's a combination of it being a reaction
to the COVID pandemic and also just a coincidence of timing,
But we had all of those production delays because there
(19:12):
was the paper shortage, and then there were all of
these shipping problems where we couldn't get books to us,
especially if they were being printed overseas, and so then
you saw books that were taking three years to publish
because it took months and months just to print one
shipment of books. And then what happens when you sell
(19:33):
out and it does really really well, You wait another
three months and then it's like you're republishing again every
three It was exhausting, which is why we had a
huge resurgence in POD and that came from and I'm
going to start mentioning some names that publishing professionals will know,
but authors may need some explanation. Ingram the biggest book
(19:55):
distributor company in the US in the world, yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Just distributors in the world. Yeah, there used to.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Be two big ones. There used to be Baker and
Taylor who moved on too doing mostly libraries now, and
then Ingram kind of took over into the whole book
selling space. That is where booksellers are buying their books from.
For the most part, sometimes they'll go directly through the publisher,
which is great, and the publishers love that. I'm sure
you could tell us that that's actually true.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
It is true, and what's happening there is the publisher
gets to then send that quantity directly. So I think
the numbers in terms of the publisher and what is
being spent there, I think it's a little more favorable
for the publisher. But you know, publishers really want to
(20:44):
stay in their lane and do what they do well.
We're seeing a lot of consolidation there in terms of
their staffing and how they want to spend their money.
They want to spend their money on acquiring and producing
great books that readers are going to love. So having
distributors like Ingram be the specialists makes a lot of sense, right,
(21:08):
So why do you want to try to do all
the things when you've got a great company out there
that can handle it, and they've got a worldwide operation.
So Ingram also has a print on demand element of their.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Ingram spirt, That's where I was going with it. They
started m POD two, yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
And it's called Lightning Sources, the name of their printing
entity there. So it is interesting the number of books
that are printed be a lightning source. You can go
into any any book and kind of look in the
back and said lightning source, and then I'd be like, ah,
that's po D. So those are things that are real
eye openers and and they've really created such a wonderful
(21:45):
opportunity for authors to be able to compete across the board.
And this goes back to those publishing pathways that we
were talking about. So traditional publishing used to have everything
you know locked up there. Now hybrid publisher because of POD,
because we also do print runs. What we're able to
focus on with authors is to look at how their
(22:08):
readers are likely to purchase their book. And this can
be a genre by genre question. Right, So we know
romance and iraka heavy ebook right, we are not going
to see those books on the shelves and it will
see them some on the shelves and bookstores, but that's
not where the readers are buying those books. These it's
(22:28):
a voracious readership. Same with mystery thriller. Oh my gosh,
it's all through the kindle. My mother, I swear she is.
As soon as she discovered a kindle, she was just like,
oh my gosh, I can just read book after book
after book, especially when you've got an author writing a series, right,
it's get me the next, get me the next. Then
(22:50):
you've got genres like you know, business leadership, and you
know the readers for those where are they reading those books? Right?
Sometimes the folks are traveling so they're listening or they're
reading on their kindle. So thinking about how your reader
is discovering and going to be reading that book, that's
where your book needs to show up, and that's where
(23:11):
you need to focus on your marketing. That's where book
publicity is going to be driving. The reader is the audience.
So we love to really think of it from the
reader backwards and look at the trends, look at the
data around that. So let's not let the tailwi like
the dog here. Let's look at who the readership is,
(23:34):
where they're buying books, what their format is, and then
let's make sure that the books are being distributed in
a way and represented in a way that's really going
to appeal to that readership.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Do you have a specific example you can give us
any kind of author you've worked with their case study
where you can talk about what the distribution looked like
all the way through for that book.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Yes, yeah, I've got a great example. And nice about
this example is it also offers an interesting contrast in
two of those publishing pathways we've talked about today. So
we've got the custom path pathway where the author is
publishing under their own imprint, uh, and then we've got
the hybrid publishing. So we had two authors who were
(24:19):
and they weren't at the same time, but there was
a little bit of a lineup in terms of their
and in terms of their timing working with us. We
had one author who had created this incredible brand around
wellness and diet and really changing the way you saw
you know your body and how it metabolizes food and nutrition,
(24:42):
and and she had this established following, really great brand,
and she wanted to get a book out and extend
her reach. She wanted to really make sure that she
had the opportunity to get her book into brick and
mortar bookstores. She knew that getting into the online retail
(25:03):
stores was going to be great. She even knew that
a lot of her readers were going to buy it
that way because she engages with them online. But she
wanted that added opportunity of people seeing her book and
brick and mortar bookstores and seeing how that could drive
them back to her and her platform, her subscription model.
(25:24):
So she was willing to take that bet, and so
she became part of our Flashpoint imprint and she was
getting that distribution and she was getting into books brick
and mortar bookstores. And the reason why she was getting
briga and ware bookstores is because our sales team on
the distribution side was really able to make a case
for her with booksellers saying, hey, here's her name, here's
(25:45):
her recognition, here's her following, here's what she's doing to
drive interest in her book. And booksellers were like, yeah,
I'll take a chance on that. So she really achieved
her goal. Even though the majority of her unit sales
are online, she was willing to get that extra exposure
(26:06):
and really invest in that kind of distribution because it
helped her. In contrast, we had another author similar topic.
It was all about taking care of your body, good nutrition.
She was just developing her brand. She had a small following,
but she didn't have the traction that the other author
had in terms of the following the readership established, but
(26:30):
she wanted a book that would give her that added legitimacy,
so for her, custom publishing under her own imprint was
the right way to go. Same thing in terms of
the readership buying online, But what she was able to
do was work with us to create a really great book.
She won several awards and got all the recognition she wanted.
(26:52):
She had great online retail sales bringing people to her model.
So now her business and her brand is growing as
there was alt to it, so she wasn't where the
other author was in terms of being able to get
traction with the trade as we call it, to get
into brick and mortar. But her book is available for
brick and mortar sales. So her readership if they're if
(27:14):
they're interested in her book and they want to go
into their neighborhood bookstore and say, hey, can you bring
in this book by this author, They'll be able to
go into their Ingram account or at wholesale, they could
even get a few copies if they wanted to sell more,
and they'll bring it in for that reader. So it's
it's really a case study in success of both models
(27:35):
with very similar books, but with different evolutions of their
individual brand and where they were and what was going
to make sense for them in terms of their investment
in how they were going to distribute their book.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Wow, that's really cool that they were so similar and
they went the same They did a lot of the
same things, but were also really different and where they started,
what their boles were too. That's that's exciting.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Yeah. Yeah, And it's so great to be able to
set authors up for success when you think backwards about
where their readership is, where their brand is, and what
they're hoping to do. The author that was under flashmant Flashpoint.
She had an incredibly established brand. She didn't need any
help there and she just needed that book to extend
(28:24):
her reach. And the other author really was building and
that book helped her build her brand, so it was
the right pathway for her.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Wonderful. Well, thanks for joining us. I'd love for you
to let us know how our listeners and our watchers
can get in touch to line more.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Yeah. So our website is the best place to go first.
It's Girl Friday Productions dot com. We talk about all
the different pathways on our website and we've got a
lot of examples of our books. We've got our catalog
up there so you can see examples of our books
and if you write in if you submit, chances are
you'll talk to me if you if you sub man
(29:01):
I've got another colleague who also helps me with talking
to authors, and so I hope to hear from some
of the authors that are out there. And you know,
our goal is to really produce the best quality book
and set authors on the right path. There are a
lot of folks that I talk to where Girl Friday
is not the right fit for them, but I'm really
(29:22):
rooting for them and I always give them great reference
or great resources to find their publishing pathway. So I
love talking to authors.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Well, thank you so much for joining us and for
all of this great information.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Yeah, it is so great to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
And listeners watchers. If you like this episode, don't forget
to rate, review, subscribe, and share it with anyone else
that might be interested. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Smith
Publicity All Things Book Marketing Podcast. To reach us and
learn about our many services, visit Smith Publicity dot com
or send us an email to info at Smith Publicity
dot com.
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