Latest / If I'm Being Honest: Straight Talk About Book Publishing & Promotion / Distribution Isn't What You Think. So What Is It?

Transcript

Distribution Isn't What You Think. So What Is It? · If I'm Being Honest: Straight Talk About Book Publishing & Promotion

0:11
Joel: Hi, everybody.
0:12
Joel: Welcome to If I'm Being Honest, Straight Talk about Book Publishing and Promotion.
0:18
Joel: My name is Joel Pitney.
0:19
Sayde: And I'm Sadie Walker.
0:21
Joel: Today we are going to be riffing on one of the more confusing topics in the whole publishing industry, which is distribution.
0:32
Joel: So if you've spent any time on the internet looking up things about publishing on Jane Friedman's website, Googling self-publishing options, going into the back end of Ingram's Spark, you've probably, or looking at a contract from a publishing company that's making you an offer, whether traditional or hybrid or somewhere in between, you've probably come across this word distribution.
0:58
Joel: And one thing that Sadie and I have noticed, going to conferences, talking to people on the phone, seeing online chatter, is that there is an insane amount of confusion about what that word means.
1:13
Joel: And for good reason.
1:14
Joel: Distribution, think about it.
1:16
Joel: Distribution is a very vague word.
1:18
Joel: It could mean a million things.
1:20
Sayde: Yeah, and and you know, there's confusion, and there's also misinterpretation of the word.
1:26
Sayde: And uh, and there's, you know, as we've gotten to know other companies, as we've gotten to talk to other authors, um, you know, we've we've just noticed that sort of clarifying what this term means and and even the different things that it can mean can be really helpful.
1:45
Sayde: And I will be honest because this is our if I'm being honest podcast.
1:49
Sayde: Distribution is tricky for me to wrap my mind around.
1:54
Sayde: And I don't always, uh, I don't always understand it in all of the different terms.
1:59
Sayde: And so we thought this would be a great opportunity for the two of us to get on here and talk about distribution.
2:06
Sayde: I'm gonna be somewhat vulnerable in in the things that I don't necessarily know or don't understand.
2:12
Sayde: Joel has had a lot more experience with this from all of the different uh as um, all the different avenues of publishing, traditional, hybrid, and then of course self-publishing.
2:22
Sayde: So, you know, he's he's really kind of got his arms around what distribution means and why it might be tricky for some authors to understand.
2:33
Sayde: And and, you know, I would just say that our goal with this podcast, of course, is to help authors make informed decisions.
2:42
Sayde: And so um, as you're thinking about publishing, one of the things that you're really gonna want to understand is what is your distribution strategy?
2:50
Sayde: So um, you know, maybe we can start with just defining this term.
2:56
Sayde: What is distribution?
2:59
Joel: Well, that's it's an amazing question.
3:01
Joel: Um, it has different answers depending on what segment of the industry you're in.
3:05
Joel: Uh, but first, I think it I think I want to say, uh, I kind of want to talk about what a lot of people think distribution means.
3:12
Joel: Let's go.
3:12
Joel: So I think a lot of people, when they hear the word distribute, including myself, when I hear that word distribution, um, whether and it'll often show up on a website for a publishing company, right?
3:23
Joel: Whether it's a hybrid or self-publishing company, and they'll say, we will get you global distribution to XM number of markets and hundreds of thousands of outlets.
3:32
Joel: And so what that sounds like in the eye of the author is, oh my goodness, my book, if I go with this company or if I go with this service or I go with this platform, will be actively distributed into all of these markets, right?
3:49
Joel: And whether you're conscious of it or not, there's this assumption that somehow someone will be pushing your book somewhere and that you will be generating an audience through that distribution process.
4:02
Sayde: And sales.
4:03
Joel: Yes.
4:04
Sayde: That distribution into these places means you will be selling books.
4:09
Joel: Right.
4:11
Joel: But but, but, but it doesn't always mean that.
4:15
Joel: Okay.
4:16
Joel: So we'll get into when it does and when it doesn't, but I think a cool way to do this is to talk about, let's talk about traditional distribution, then let's talk about self-publishing distribution, and then let's talk about hybrid distribution, which is uh at least in some instances a combination of both.
4:33
Joel: So traditional distribution, um, if you are going with the traditional publisher, uh, it means printing the book and then distributing it to retailers.
4:46
Joel: That's what that means.
4:47
Joel: So it's sort of printing fulfillment and to some degree active sales.
4:51
Joel: So what happens in traditional publishing, and this is a very rudimentary explanation, but um uh what happens is uh a publisher decides, okay, we're gonna print 10,000 copies of this book, okay?
5:07
Joel: And we because we think we can sell 10,000 copies of this book.
5:10
Joel: And then that publisher has sales agents, okay?
5:14
Joel: And those sales agents are gonna go to uh book fairs, right?
5:20
Joel: They're gonna go to the London Book Fair, the Frankfurt Book Fair.
5:23
Joel: Uh, there used to be the Book Expo of America, which was in New York every year.
5:26
Joel: They don't do that anymore.
5:28
Joel: Um, or they're gonna be going directly to different bookseller representatives.
5:32
Joel: They're gonna go to the Barnes and Noble people, they're gonna go to the Amazon people, they're gonna go to the Ingram people because Ingram is a big middleman in the book industry.
5:40
Joel: They're gonna go to Books A Million.
5:41
Joel: I used to have lunch with the Books a Million rep in New York once a year when she would come for this big conference, right?
5:47
Joel: Books A Million, for those of you who don't know, is a big bookstore chain in the South.
5:51
Joel: And what you're trying to do is that publisher is saying, look, we've got this off, we've got these authors, we've got these books.
5:59
Joel: We think that these would be great for you.
6:01
Joel: This would be a really great book for your market.
6:04
Joel: And so if it's a brick and mortar bookseller like Barnes and Noble, what you're hoping is that Barnes and Noble will order 2,000 of your 10,000 print run and distribute it to their stores across the globe, right?
6:17
Joel: For Amazon, you're trying to convince them hey, we're gonna run this big online promotion when the book is coming out.
6:24
Joel: We want to make sure that you, Amazon, have enough books in your facilities to be able to fulfill that demand when it comes out, right?
6:33
Joel: And so you have a sales agent within your publisher.
6:37
Joel: And so what ends up happening in traditional publishing is that not only did you need to sell your book to the publisher to get a publishing deal, you then need to give your, you need to then sell your book within your publisher's universe because publishers, especially the big ones, are working with hundreds of books, right?
6:56
Joel: Many authors are competing for their sales agents' attention, and those sales agents are working on commission.
7:02
Joel: They're only gonna try and push the books that they think that they can sell in large volume.
7:06
Joel: So they're gonna need lots of evidence from you, the author, to make sure that they can convince booksellers to carry your book, right?
7:16
Joel: And it's not, you know, in some cases, it's you know, it's the it's the book itself, right?
7:22
Joel: You can look at the cover, you can you can give a synopsis, you can say, oh yeah, that's gonna sell.
7:26
Joel: Barnes and Noble will say, Yep, if we put that front and center on one of our tables, that's gonna sell.
7:32
Joel: But in a lot of cases, you need to show evidence that the book is already selling, or that you already have a really concrete PR and marketing plan that they can be confident will generate a lot of demand for your book.
7:45
Joel: So um, when you're going with a traditional distributor, it means multiple things.
7:50
Joel: So it means the printing of that book in large batches, then it means the fulfillment of those orders.
7:57
Joel: So as the orders come in, you're gonna distribute those books.
8:01
Joel: And then and then the last thing with traditional publishers is that it means that they have a sales team that, if pitched well by you, the author, might help try to get your book into certain bookstores and other places.
8:21
Joel: So that's what traditional distribution means.
8:23
Joel: It's complex, it means a lot of things, right?
8:25
Sayde: Right, absolutely.
8:26
Sayde: And it definitely doesn't mean that just because you got a traditional publishing deal, that your book is gonna show up in a lot of different places.
8:33
Joel: I have I've gone to many of these conferences before working with authors.
8:37
Joel: I've never done this for my own book because I'm a ghostwriter.
8:39
Joel: So I've done this and I've advised in this process.
8:41
Joel: And and it's challenging for authors because they think, oh, you know, I I got a six-figure advance from this publisher for my book.
8:49
Joel: Doesn't that mean that they're internally going to want to uh push my book out?
8:53
Joel: No, not necessarily.
8:54
Joel: They may have given a huge advance and they might, you still have to work hard to convince them to actively push your book.
9:03
Joel: Otherwise, distribution with that traditional publisher will be passive, which by which I mean printing and then fulfilling orders that are coming in.
9:12
Sayde: But not generating sales.
9:14
Joel: Exactly.
9:14
Joel: The only way you're gonna generate sales through distribution with the traditional publisher is if you are able to convince their sales agents to go out and get orders from booksellers that wouldn't have uh ordered your book otherwise.
9:28
Sayde: Wow.
9:30
Joel: Yeah.
9:31
Sayde: Complex for sure.
9:32
Joel: So that yeah.
9:34
Sayde: So what then does distribution mean in self-publishing?
9:38
Joel: So in self-publishing, it's passive.
9:40
Joel: It's purely passive.
9:42
Joel: And the problem in self-publishing and hybrid publishing, honestly, which we'll get to in a second, is that uh when you see it in a contract, like we have a proposal that we'll talk, we that says when you sign up with us, you'll get cover design and interior design and distribution setup, right?
9:56
Joel: So it sounds like what you're getting is active distribution.
10:01
Joel: But all we're doing in tradition in self-publishing is setting your book up so that it can be printed and fulfilled.
10:08
Joel: And in self-publishing, the vast majority of those sales are gonna be happening through print-on-demand publishing, right?
10:14
Joel: So that means that um, whether you're doing it yourself or uh you're or you're working with uh a company, you're gonna design the files used to print the book, the cover in the interior.
10:26
Joel: And then it gets set up with what's called a print-on-demand platform.
10:30
Joel: Um, Ingram Spark and then Amazon KDP are the two primary in the industry.
10:35
Joel: There are some other ones.
10:36
Joel: And when you create an account with those companies and then upload your files and your book description and metadata and all that good stuff, uh, your book will be distributed to all the online booksellers, uh, the main ones around, right?
10:53
Joel: So, but it's not being distributed anywhere physically.
10:58
Joel: All it means is that your book will show up on BarnesandNoble.com.
11:02
Sayde: It'll show up in a database, is kind of how I have started explaining that to authors, right?
11:07
Sayde: Is like it means that your book is in the database.
11:10
Sayde: It's searchable almost anywhere books are sold online.
11:13
Sayde: Does that mean it's getting preferential treatment, that it's showing up at on page one of Barnes Noble?
11:19
Sayde: No, it doesn't mean any of those things.
11:21
Sayde: It means that it's searchable in their database.
11:23
Sayde: And then whether it's Ingram Spark or Amazon KDP, when an order is placed, they print and ship that book.
11:31
Sayde: So in the self-publishing world, if I'm understanding you right, distribution is really just fulfillment.
11:36
Joel: Exactly.
11:36
Joel: And print on demand means that uh your book is available on these platforms, someone goes and buys it, and a single copy of that book is printed and shipped by the print-on-demand technology.
11:46
Joel: So it's really just making the book available for sale in a database, like you said, and then fulfilling that order once it comes in.
11:54
Joel: That's what it means.
11:55
Joel: Now, it'll sound like it, you know, Ingram Spark, you go to their website, it sounds like, you know, a global database of this and that and the other thing.
12:03
Joel: But all that means is that your book, your book will not be actively exposed to people.
12:09
Joel: It'll just be in a database where lots of people go to order books.
12:13
Joel: Does that make sense?
12:14
Sayde: Absolutely.
12:15
Sayde: And the thing that's that I love about print on demand is the accessibility that it brings when it comes to publishing a book, because you don't have to pay to create an account on Ingram Spark or Amazon KDP.
12:26
Sayde: There's no fees, there's no, you know, annual fees or or upload fees or anything like that.
12:32
Sayde: It's all free to list your book in those, in those uh mechanisms.
12:37
Sayde: And then once a book is is purchased and printed, you, the author, pay the printing costs, but that comes out of the retail price.
12:45
Sayde: And so there's no upfront cost for you to have your books listed in these databases.
12:51
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
12:52
Sayde: Which is pretty cool versus like an offset print, which you know is certainly an option for self-publishing as well to be your own fulfillment and distribution and and you know, get get a large volume of books printed, but you're paying for that up front.
13:05
Sayde: And then you have to have some way to to warehouse and ship those books, which could get pretty, pretty expensive.
13:10
Sayde: So exactly.
13:11
Joel: And that just reminded me, Sadie, that that is in going back to traditional publishing, one interesting aspect, and this is what one of the reasons traditional publishing is still quite good, even though a lot of people are talking about it being over, you know, or ending or crashing or whatever, is that uh that initial print run, the publisher's paying for that.
13:31
Joel: Right.
13:31
Joel: You know, that's three to seven dollars a book, right?
13:34
Joel: They're publish, they're paying.
13:35
Joel: Whereas in self-publishing, and also hybrid, but in self-publishing, you are um you are paying for every book that's being printed.
13:45
Sayde: Right.
13:45
Sayde: You're just you're just not paying in advance.
13:48
Joel: Yep.
13:48
Sayde: It's just when that sale comes in.
13:50
Sayde: Okay, so you mentioned hybrid publishing.
13:52
Joel: So again, so in traditional publishing, we have the we have the we have the printing, the fulfillment, and then sometimes the active sale of that book.
14:04
Joel: In self-publishing, we just have the printing and fulfillment, right?
14:07
Joel: And one thing I just want to say really quickly about being in the self-publishing databases that a lot of people get confused about is uh with Ingram Spark in particular, if your book is set up on that print-on-demand platform, um Ingram Spark itself and then other and then uh publishing companies who are using Ingram Spark will say, your book will appear in all these library and bookstore databases, right?
14:33
Joel: Or they don't even they use an even more misleading word.
14:36
Joel: They'll make it sound like your book is gonna be in this catalog that's being shipped old-fashioned, you know, to the bookstore and they're gonna go, oh, here's sound, this sounds like a wonderful book.
14:46
Joel: I'm gonna order that one, right?
14:48
Joel: No, that's not what that means.
14:50
Joel: All it means is your book is now searchable in a database from which buyer institutional buyers like libraries and bookstores can make orders, but they will never hear about your book through those databases.
15:04
Joel: It just means that if you're ever able to sell your own book to a library store or library or bookstore, that they will be able to then fulfill that order through their database.
15:15
Sayde: Right.
15:16
Joel: And that's a critical uh misunderstanding about distribution.
15:20
Sayde: Yeah, for sure.
15:21
Sayde: It's an important distinction.
15:22
Sayde: So that brings us to hybrid publishing, which is this weird blend of traditional and self-publishing.
15:29
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
15:30
Sayde: And I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, where a lot of the confusion about distribution tends to happen in this space of hybrid publishing and the and the way that they market their distribution to new authors.
15:46
Sayde: So what does it mean in the world of hybrid publishing?
15:50
Joel: Awesome.
15:51
Joel: And part of the reason, yes, you're right.
15:53
Joel: And distribution is the thing that is most confusing about hybrid publishing.
15:56
Joel: In fact, hybrid publishers often sell themselves as being better than self-publishing for several reasons, but primary among them is that they a lot of them say they're gonna give you traditional distribution, right?
16:09
Joel: Um, they also say that your book will get a brand bump from having their name on it, et cetera.
16:15
Joel: And they also love to take a royalty percentage, even though you paid for everything.
16:18
Joel: Um but uh there, but let's talk about distribution.
16:22
Joel: By the way, if you want to go a deep dive into hybrid publishing, a couple weeks ago we published a really cool podcast interview with Brooke Warner, who um is the founder of one of the preeminent hybrid publishers, uh, SheWrites Press, and she's been around in hybrid publishing since the very beginning of that model.
16:38
Joel: So check that out.
16:39
Joel: But um, the way hybrid publishing distribution uh can work, right, is uh there are some hybrid publishers like SheWrites, um, also like Greenleaf Press.
16:53
Joel: They're another one.
16:53
Joel: There's a great interview with the CEO of Greenleaf on J uh with Jane on Jane Friedman's website, you should check out.
17:00
Joel: Um there are a handful of these hybrid publishers that offer some version of traditional distribution, which we'll get into here in a second.
17:09
Joel: But um, they are called a hybrid publisher because you're still paying them to do the work.
17:15
Joel: So just like in self-publishing, you have to pay for everything.
17:18
Joel: You pay for the design, you pay for the editing, you pay for everything up front, unlike traditional publishing, where the true the publisher takes that on.
17:26
Joel: Also, any printing that you do in hybrid publishing, you're paying for, right?
17:30
Joel: So uh traditional publisher is gonna pay for that initial print run of your book, the thousand, two thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand books.
17:38
Joel: In hybrid publishing, you're gonna pay for all that printing yourself.
17:42
Joel: Um now, hybrid publishing is layered.
17:45
Joel: So um how how the traditional distribution works in hybrid publishing is uh you your book will be some some hybrid publishers will do a traditional offset run for you.
17:58
unknown: Right?
17:59
Joel: So that means you pay for it.
18:01
Joel: You will pay for it.
18:01
Joel: So, you know, different companies work differently, but they'll do a minimum, you know.
18:05
Joel: So they might do a 500 book order.
18:08
Joel: They'll say, okay, uh, we're gonna print 500 copies of your book or a thousand copies of your book.
18:14
Joel: Um, traditionally, we're gonna use, and a lot of them they're using the same printing technology that Simon and Schuster uses.
18:20
Joel: Simon and Schuster has a whole uh hybrid publishing arm where there's all these hybrid publishers that use their technology.
18:27
Joel: And they'll print out a large batch of those books.
18:30
Joel: And then they'll also warehouse them and then fulfill them when the orders come in.
18:34
Joel: But you pay for those print, that printing run.
18:36
Joel: That's very important, right?
18:37
Joel: You're gonna get a high, you're gonna get traditional publishing in terms of the technology, the actual printing technology, but you're gonna be paying for that.
18:46
Joel: Now, some hybrid publishers will then warehouse your books for a period of time.
18:51
Joel: Um, and then as orders come in from different booksellers, they'll fulfill those orders, right?
18:57
Joel: So that's not always gonna be the case with hybrids.
19:00
Joel: In fact, a lot of hybrids don't do traditional offset printing at all.
19:03
Joel: They'll just do print on demand.
19:05
Joel: Um, that's why it's important to figure that out, right?
19:08
Joel: So that is an element of uh traditional publishing that you'll get with some hybrids.
19:15
Joel: But remember, you're paying for that print run.
19:17
Joel: They're not paying for it for you.
19:18
Sayde: And that sounds like that's still just the printing and the fulfillment.
19:22
Joel: It's printing and fulfillment, exactly.
19:24
Joel: So of the three layers of distribution, they'll cover the printing and fulfillment.
19:29
Joel: Then there are some hybrid publishers, and not all, but some hybrid publishers that will also give some of their authors that third layer of distribution, which is the active sales, right?
19:41
Joel: So um they will, and and these these are the hybrids that are selective because they only want to work with authors that they might be able to get behind.
19:50
Joel: And even then, they're only gonna get behind a small percentage of the titles that that um people pay them to publish each year.
19:57
Joel: Okay.
19:58
Joel: So uh they'll they'll do a print run, they'll do the fulfillment, and then they have a sales team that will go to the same booksellers that traditional publishers, salespeople go to.
20:11
Joel: In fact, sometimes it's the same salespeople that are working for traditional publishers and hybrid publishers, and you're pitching your book to those salespeople, right?
20:21
Joel: Alongside all these other authors, whether they're traditional or hybrid, saying, Hey, we think that you could make some money off this.
20:28
Joel: We think that this is a great, this is a great title for you to be pitching.
20:32
Joel: Now, what is gonna convince those sales agents to then want to go and market the book?
20:38
Joel: Demand, right?
20:40
Joel: Very few of those sales agents are gonna look at the book and say, this is an awesome book and a really cool story.
20:46
Joel: I can sell this.
20:48
Joel: Usually there needs to be a tremendous amount of sales figures, pre-orders that have been built up, you know, uh 300,000 Facebook followers, hiring a big New York PR firm.
20:59
Joel: They need to be convinced, just like with traditional publishing, that it is worth them getting behind this book to then go and pitch your book institutional buyers.
21:10
Sayde: That there's already an audience for that book.
21:12
Sayde: Yeah.
21:13
Joel: Exactly.
21:14
Joel: So, and you know, I've talked to many tr many hybrid publishers and even the best in the business, they'll admit that they're only pushing actively, which means offering that third layer of distribution a small percentage of their titles.
21:28
SPEAKER_02: Right.
21:28
Joel: And they're doing the ones that have already done legwork to show that they have real demand and real marketing muscle behind their books.
21:37
Sayde: So once again, uh hybrid publisher that in their list of you know what they offer the author, they say, well, we have traditional distribution.
21:46
Sayde: Um, that does not mean book sales.
21:50
Sayde: That does not have direct link to sales.
21:53
Sayde: And I think that there's so much confusion there that that if that when you think about distribution.
22:00
Sayde: You think about, well, that's my book on bookshelves and in airports and on in cases.
22:04
Sayde: And that that that's the book actively being pushed into these spaces when that's just that's not the case.
22:10
Sayde: And that's rarely even the case with traditional publishing.
22:13
Joel: It's true.
22:14
Joel: It's true.
22:15
Joel: And I I've I've had my experience in all segments in the industry and I've seen it happen over and over again.
22:20
Joel: Only the only the books that are already selling and that have a lot of momentum already are the ones that successfully score uh uh big buys from bookstores and other places.
22:33
Joel: So if you and and also, you know, and then and then, you know, yeah, go ahead.
22:38
Joel: Sorry.
22:38
Sayde: Well, I was just thinking, like, if I, you know, if if if I'm an author and I'm listening to this discussion and I'm trying to wrap my head around distribution, and that maybe I'm thinking about going with a d uh with a hybrid publisher, or maybe I'm thinking about, you know, a company more like ours, which is you know, very author assist, what how can how can someone get to the bottom of what a specific company means when they say distribution?
23:04
Sayde: Like what are the questions that they should be asking uh when someone says that they offer distribution, global distribution, traditional distribution?
23:12
Sayde: Like, how do you how do you cess that out?
23:14
Joel: That's awesome.
23:15
Joel: I mean, the first thing to do is just ask the question, what do you mean by distribution?
23:19
Joel: Can I see specifics?
23:20
Joel: Right.
23:21
Joel: But then there are some specific follow-ups.
23:23
Joel: So one of them is uh, are you doing print on demand or are you gonna do an offset print run for me?
23:31
Joel: Right.
23:32
Joel: And if you are doing an offset print run, you know, through what means?
23:36
Joel: Are you using traditional publisher of true traditional publishers' printers, right?
23:39
Joel: So you want to know that because that's one of the layers, right?
23:42
Joel: Are you gonna get, are you gonna get that traditional technology to print your book?
23:47
Joel: Right.
23:47
Joel: Again, it's not sales.
23:48
Joel: But then the other thing you want you want to find out is, um, and this is the most important one, is will you be actively promoting my book to booksellers?
23:57
Joel: Just ask them.
24:00
Joel: And you're so you'll probably get slippery answers.
24:02
Joel: You know, I would I remember I sat on a call with an author who I met at a conference, and she was really interested, she had she had gotten a bite from a traditional publisher, and uh their contract made it sound really good.
24:14
Joel: And she asked me, Hey, would you sit in on the call with me to find out if this is real?
24:18
Joel: And we asked that question, and the traditional publisher, when we said, Will you be actively promoting our book, my book to booksellers?
24:26
Joel: He said, The vast majority of our authors have had their books appear in bookstores.
24:32
Sayde: Oh, that's such a non-answer.
24:34
Joel: I know, isn't it?
24:36
Sayde: Yeah.
24:37
Joel: Because it that could mean anything.
24:38
Sayde: Yeah.
24:39
Joel: They could know one bookstore that they get to what does that even mean?
24:44
Sayde: Which is why this is so, which is why we wanted to record this podcast, which is why, you know, we've been talking about this a lot.
24:49
Sayde: The language out there is deceptive because you are trying to uh lure people in who are who are excited but also vulnerable, right?
24:59
Sayde: And so if I can say, oh, well, the majority of our authors land in bookstores, that of course that's what the author wants to hear.
25:05
Sayde: Like that's what we all want to hear.
25:06
Sayde: We want to go, okay, great, that's awesome.
25:08
Sayde: My book is going to be in bookstores.
25:09
Sayde: I can be part of that majority.
25:11
Sayde: And really actually getting down to the nuts and bolts of who is who is doing what, who is responsible for what piece, and what do these words mean is important when you are choosing to pay someone a lot of money to produce your book and just for your own expectation setting so that you know going into this, what are you actually getting out of it?
25:34
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
25:34
Sayde: Because when you when you break it, you know, the way that you have so beautifully broken down distribution of these three sort of categories, you know, uh for me, I'm going like, okay, well, why wouldn't you just self-publish?
25:45
Joel: You know, it's well, yeah.
25:47
Joel: So on now after we've been critical of kind of the hybrid thing, because you know, it it requires a lot of criticism.
25:53
Joel: Um, I want to also say there are some great hybrid publishers out there, and the sol and they're and they have gotten great success for some of their authors.
26:04
Joel: The biggest hybrids out there uh have been able to sell large quantities of their author's books to bookstores for some of their authors, right?
26:15
Joel: So I I don't want and I don't want to pretend like it's just a giant shell game and it's all pretend.
26:20
Joel: It's it's not like the hybrid model does exist for a reason.
26:24
Joel: There is a there is a niche in the industry.
26:26
Joel: There's certain people who want to get a higher royalty percentage, but they still want to get and they may be able to generate a lot of their own demand.
26:33
Joel: I mean, no matter where you are, you're gonna have to generate a lot of your own demand for your book.
26:36
Joel: I'm sorry.
26:37
Joel: Right?
26:38
Joel: Full stop.
26:40
Joel: Yeah.
26:40
Joel: Traditional hybrid self, you have to generate demand for your book, but um there, but the hybrid model can st can be helpful in that because if they do really have relationships with sales agents and you have the data that to arm those sales agents to make a big sale to Barnes and Noble, for instance, and then be able to do a large traditional print run that you're paying for, but still hopefully the sales will pay you back, right?
27:07
Joel: There can be a reason to go with a hybrid company, right?
27:10
Joel: Um, so I don't mean to just make it sound like everybody should self-publish.
27:14
Joel: Um what I'm trying to do is just uh get really clear that the the the things you get from hybrid distribution probably aren't what you think they are for most people.
27:30
Sayde: Right.
27:30
Sayde: And you know, we you mentioned uh a couple weeks ago, we had Brooke Warner on uh with She Writes Press, and and she said this as well that like the word is very confusing.
27:40
Sayde: And no matter what avenue of publishing you pursue, you want to make sure that you understand what they are offering when it comes to distribution.
27:50
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
27:51
Sayde: Is it just fulfillment?
27:53
Sayde: You know, just get to the bottom of that so that you can, so that you know going into it what what you're paying for.
28:00
Joel: Right.
28:00
Joel: And just remember they all they are all going to make it sound probably better than it is.
28:08
Joel: It's almost impossible not to.
28:09
Joel: In our proposals, we even probably make it sound better than it is, even though we try to go out of our way to make sure we don't, because we want to make sure everybody knows exactly what they're getting.
28:18
Sayde: Right.
28:18
Sayde: And and we're, you know, having those conversations with people up front so that they really do understand.
28:23
Sayde: Because we hear it all the time.
28:24
Sayde: People come to it, they've been listening to podcasts, they're reading online, they're, you know, trying to figure this out.
28:30
Sayde: And like I said in the beginning, I mean, it this has been one of the clearest explanations of distribution, I think, that I've sat through because it still would start to confuse me a little bit about like, well, wait a second, if they're saying they offer traditional distribution, what does that mean?
28:45
Sayde: How is that different than what you get when you self-publish?
28:47
Sayde: And um, and I think you've done a great job of really laying that out, mapping that out for us, what those different layers are.
28:54
Sayde: So hopefully this has been, you know, helpful for authors as they're investigating their publishing routes and options.
29:02
Joel: Awesome.
29:03
Joel: So, and speaking of that, if you have enjoyed this episode, you feel it's interesting, please subscribe on whether whatever platform you listen or watch our podcast on, and share it, like it, review it, all the good things.
29:14
Joel: It helps us reach more people.
29:16
Joel: As you I think you can tell, Sadie and I are here to try and educate and empower people to make good decisions.
29:22
Joel: And so when you do those things, it helps us out reach more people.
29:25
Joel: Um, also, if you have any further questions about distribution, as I was listening to us talk, I know Sadie was saying, wow, it's really clear.
29:32
Joel: But I was just wondering if some of the stuff we're saying is still massively confusing to people out there.
29:38
Joel: And I it would be understandable if it is.
29:40
Joel: So if you have clarifying questions, you can always reach out to us.
29:44
Joel: Um, my email is Joel at launchmybook.com, and we've got Sadie at launchmybook.com as well.