Until now

I’ve had this post on my mind for ages now. Literally, months and months. It has been swirling through my brain, but for some reason, I keep failing to show up and put it all together.

Thank goodness I have minor bouts of insomnia, otherwise I think it’d have perished in my drafts folder for another year or two or ten.

When I originally went about publishing – and subsequently printing – my debut novel, I was hyper-focused on every single detail. I wanted to keep every aspect of what went into my novel (aside from the actual writing of it, which only I could do) tied to local artists and small businesses. I mean, how could I hold up a story that has small businesses that come together to form a community at its center and not support as many of them in the actual making of the novel as I could?

Early on, I knew I was going to find an offset printer to print the physical copies of the book, instead of going the route of print-on-demand services. In my mind, at the time, it just made sense.

Unfortunately, after a year of trying and trying and trying to find local, indie bookstores to carry my printed novel, I started to realize how high a mountain I had created for myself to climb. Many smaller bookshops (and bigger ones, too!) prefer to order through Ingram’s wholesale site in order to keep their accounting as streamlined as possible, instead of ordering directly from authors or individual publishers. That’d be a lot to keep track of and, as a small business myself, I totally get. It’s just not something I’d thought of at the start of this whole process.

I also realized that I’d unwittingly created a barrier for anyone located outside of the U.S. to purchase a physical copy of my novel. The cost of shipping was simply too high.

So, after a year of going back and forth with things, I finally decided to list my book via IngramSpark, a print-on-demand service. . .even though I still have several printed copies of my novel literally lining my bookshelves at home.

What I didn’t know is that by listing on IngramSpark, my work was automatically listed on Amazon without much choice from me *sigh* If anything, this is what I had been trying to avoid the entire time. And I’m still not 100% sure about this decision. I have my reservations about Ingram as well. For one, it feels as if they aren’t entirely transparent. I listed my book at a standard 40% discount to retailers only to find out that when you list it as 40% on the IngramSpark side, your book is only offered at a 20% discount to retailers on the retail side (and I only know this because I also own my own online bookshop and was able to see through their wholesale channels that my book was listed at the lower 20%).

When asked about this, I got back a response from Ingram:

This is all fine and good (though I wonder who else is in their supply that require an additional 15-20% cut of the book price??), but I wish it were more well known to indie authors. I doubt I am the only one to assume that listing at 40% would entail a 40% discount to retailers. Or am I just super dumb and missed exactly this somewhere else on their site?

Now, the reason I was against listing my book specifically on Amazon was well. . . they are kind of the antithesis to the small, local bookshop. And I really wasn’t interested in my helping them make any additional money.

This isn’t to say that I am sitting over here in judgement against anyone who shops on Amazon (I still purchase things through them! Books even! Especially ones by indie authors I can’t find elsewhere) or authors who have published on via Amazon’s own Print-on-demand services. I know that as indie authors, our options are limited, and Amazon has really paved the way for so many otherwise unknown authors to go out there and make a name for themselves in an industry where they may not have been able to otherwise.

I just personally didn’t want to have my products listed there.

But here I am, writing this post about how my book is now available via Amazon, despite my best intentions, and so, I am choosing to look at the brighter side of things.

For one, I was able to bypass having Amazon actually print my books. Instead, they simply have A Daisy in Lily’s Valley listed and will only be paid a small portion of the sale instead of the sale plus a cut for the printing, too. I’ve also decided to not list a copy of my eBook via Ingram or Amazon just yet. I still feel weirded out by letting either company have all the data inside my actual book. Instead, I am sticking to having my eBook available via my bookshop, Untitled Thoughts (the format IS compatible with Kindle, Apple Books, and Kobo. Basically anywhere you might want to read my eBook, you can!), and Kobo, which is a brand I truly admire.

Listing my book with Ingram also means that my book is now open internationally, via Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other major retailers, yes, but also to international indie bookstores! So, if you have a bookstore in your neighborhood that you LOVE and want to see my book there, let them know! Put in a special request for A Daisy In Lily’s Valley and let them know it’s available via Ingrams wholesale site. And if they stock it in your store, send me a pic! I’d love to see how far this story might travel