Matt: Welcome back to another episode of Publish & Prosper. I believe this is number 56. Is that correct? 

Lauren: Sounds about right. 

Matt: 56. So today, this is a fun one. It's definitely something new. We haven't really touched on this at all and we don't, we don't touch on it very often, but we did receive an email from a listener and it was a question around switching retail platforms, or adding another retail platform into your portfolio of sales channels. 

Specifically, this person asked, how do I move my titles from Amazon over to Lulu. And can I do that? And how would I do that? So today we're gonna talk about moving your titles, your books from one channel to another, or just simply folding another channel into your portfolio, adding another retailer or direct sales channel to what you're already doing. Some people like to call this going wide... 

Lauren: Yeah, you have the option of: I want to just move my books off of Amazon and I want to start selling direct, let's say, or I want to go into like, global distribution instead of just selling on Amazon, or something like that. That might not necessarily be considered going wide, but it's more along the lines of I'm tired of the results that I'm seeing on Amazon, or I have some other practical or ethical reasons for not wanting to be on Amazon anymore, and I would like to move my books to a different ecommerce solution instead. 

That I don't know if I would really quantify that as going wide, but going wide specifically is more the idea of maximizing your reach and discoverability by having your book available in as many different marketplaces as possible. So having your book on Amazon and on Lulu and available through global distribution to retailers and libraries and on Kobo and on ebook exclusive platforms or audiobook exclusive platforms and selling it direct from your own website. Any and all of those combination of different possible marketplaces would be going wide. 

Matt: Yeah, I think that's really accurate. And I think the most important thing to note here, especially with that term, is that there's flexibility around it, right? 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Like, some people use it a certain way, some people use it another. But in essence today, what we're really going to focus on is if you wanted to take your titles from one platform to another, either to stop using the previous platform or just to add another platform and you just want to simply migrate your files, how would you go about doing that? What are the do's and don'ts? What can you get away with? Do you need new ISBNs? All of those things. 

And so again, big shout out and thank you… is it Lore? Did I pronounce it right? 

Lauren: I believe so. 

Matt: Lore, L-O-R-E, Lore? 

Lauren: That's how I would pronounce it. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: Which is also what my mom calls me. 

Matt: Calls you Laur? 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Oh, for Laur-en?

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: I’m surprised she doesn't call you Ren instead of Laur. 

Lauren: Yeah, that's fair actually, but no, Laur. 

Matt: God, I can make so many jokes right now about what she calls you, but I won't. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: What do your bracelets say?

Lauren: Oh, I actually, this is a long time coming. I fixed a bracelet that I referenced a while back that I said was a two part bracelet. I separated it. I restrung it and made them two separate bracelets. 

Matt: Look at you. 

Lauren: Now I have two that say I Cry A Lot, But I Am So Productive. And then I just had to go with It’s Fine to tie it off there. 

Matt: So you've abandoned the random bracelet draw? 

Lauren: No - oh, not really. So I reached in today and one of the ones that I pulled out was the, I Cry A Lot But one and I was like, well, I can't have one and not the other. 

Matt: Gotcha. 

Lauren: And then at that point I was like, well, I'm already in here picking and choosing, so I might as well pick the third one too. 

Matt: Okay. So you deviated today, but you'll go back to the randomness tomorrow. 

Lauren: Yeah, because I like the randomness because it brings up ones -

Matt: I thought it was cool, yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah, it brings up ones that I don't wear very often. 

Matt: Do you find that your bracelets, especially when we talk about it and it's in the forefront, do you find that it kind of dictates your day, like your mood or your outlook on the day? 

Lauren: Sometimes it does. And also sometimes because so many of them are song lyrics and song references - 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: They wind up getting that song stuck in my head. And then like, depending on the vibe of that song, that's what I'm listening to. That's what kind of playlist or like Spotify Radio I'm listening to that day. And that kind of winds up dictating the vibe… it's like a more upbeat song versus like a super emo song or something. 

Matt: Super emo song. 

Lauren: Super, super emo. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: So yeah, yeah, it actually kind of does a little bit. 

Matt: Alright. 

Lauren: And I do also, when I was picking them authentically, I was also picking them based on vibes and outfits. 

Matt: You've now used the word vibes too many times for my comfortability. 

Lauren: I’m so sorry. 

Matt: So let's just go ahead and move on. 

Lauren: So we'll go back to the… 

Matt: I'm too old to use the word vibes that many times in one conversation. 

Lauren: Okay. All right. I understand. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: That's fine. Let's go back to the different paths. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Selling your book on one platform 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Versus going wide. If you want to learn more about that - cause like we did say, we were going to focus mostly on just moving your books from one platform to either another or multiple. But there are some really, really great communities and resources out on the internet for people that are interested in the fine details and the how-to's of going wide in a variety of different ways.

I would highly recommend Erin Wright's Wide for the Wind Community. It's on both Facebook and Circle. I think Circle is the one they're primarily pushing right now, but there is a Facebook group as well if you're not interested in the Circle community. But it's a really great resource and a really great community, very active, lots of interesting conversations going on in there. So I will link that in the show notes and highly recommend it. 

Matt: Yeah, I'd insert a caveat here, as with any community, especially I've found in the world of writing, fiction, authors, however you want to couch this, but there's a lot of opinions floating around. And many of those opinions are based on personal experiences, sometimes they're not. Everybody's skill levels are different. Everybody's comprehension of certain concepts is different. So communities are great, if for no other reason, you're establishing connections with other potentially like-minded individuals who essentially kind of do the same thing you do or whatever that might be. But again, remember: with anything such as potentially going wide or switching platforms or adding a platform or trying out direct sales, these are all things that can affect your revenue and many other things in your life. 

So you should do your own homework through verifiable sources and platforms and not just rely on opinions or experiences of others in a community. And so I just kind of wanted to put that out there. Because we've seen other people kind of go in, take somebody's experience and opinion on something, put it to work or try to put it to work and it doesn't work out for them. And then they're super bummed out, or even worse. And it's like, well, some of these things are really good as guidance and or just to have that type of information to know that, oh, this person tried it this way, it didn't work for them. And maybe that's your… not your North Star, obviously, but it is something that in the back of your mind, you can go, well, I'll try that one last then, because they tried it and it didn't work for them. And they're very similar to me and what I do. So maybe I'll try this other one first, but I wouldn't take anything as gospel necessarily, unless there's some really good data and things inside of that particular post or community to back it up.

Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. Use it as a little bit of guidance and maybe like, help for where you're gonna start, or giving you some ideas for where to get started. Great for crowdsourcing like simple questions and things that you're, you know, not a hundred percent on or just want some feedback from what other people's experiences have been like, or something like that. But absolutely take anything that you learn in a community space like that with a grain of salt with some understanding that despite the fact that these things should all be streamlined, everyone has different experiences.

I mean, I was reading a thread in one of these communities while I was preparing for this episode that was somebody talking about how Amazon had just… like they had, they had filed a report that somebody else was duplicating and copyright infringing their books and stuff. And they filed a report to get that account taken down and their account wound up getting taken down at the same time. 

Matt: It's actually pretty common. 

Lauren: And they were fighting Amazon to get all of their books back up. And like half of their books were approved and half of them. And it was like this whole… this whole thing that they were like asking all these questions about and trying to get. And like, you know, people were able to give feedback on it, but all the people that were giving feedback on it were giving answers that were like, you know, I had this experience and it went this way or I did this and it went in a completely different direction or like… we all we all tried the same thing and we all had very different solutions. 

So take that with a grain of salt for sure. And also for the record, that is an argument for why you should strongly consider going wide, or at the very least not exclusively selling your books on one platform. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: That is a third party platform that you do not control. Because you know what happens if they just decide, oh, you've violated some terms and conditions. 

Matt: It's no different than anything else we talk about.  

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: With owned versus rented land. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: But just to back up for a second, and we'll get to that in more in depth in a minute, but again on the topic of communities and specifically Wide for the Win, what I will say on the heels of what I said a minute ago is Erin Wright herself, the one who runs that community, she also publishes resources on the various different ways to go wide and all the channels and platforms that you can use. 

I will tell you that I've found she is one of the most, I'd say objective sources on this and will give you pretty much the straight factual underpinnings of each platform and the different ways to go about potentially doing it, the pros and cons of each. So we have found that, and this is why we recommend her group, that Erin Wright herself when she publishes this information, it is all very objective. She does not necessarily take the side of one brand or platform over the other and really just lays out the facts for you. And she, she really does her homework. So that is a little bit of a North Star you can use, is Erin’s actual content. And she also does classes and speaks at events. 

But the rest of it, again, treat it as what it is, it's conversation. And you know that anytime you get more than two people in one place on the internet, it goes from being a civilized and intelligent conversation, sometimes, to something completely different, so. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: It can be fun, but it can also be a dumpster fire, so. 

[10:27] 

Matt: All right, let's jump in. 

Lauren: Okay. Didn't we already?

Matt: We did, but I just want to make sure that we actually sort of make sure and address each one of Lore’s questions and our concerns, because I do think that they were all the ones that you should be asking if this is something you want to do. And I think you've laid it out nicely in the outline and kind of the way that she did ask these. So I would go there, and you were already heading into the direction of again, not putting your eggs in one basket. That is the name of the game, and why you would even consider a topic like this or why we would consider talking about it. 

And just like anything else, you know, we always say don't build on rented land. So if you've got 5,000 followers on Instagram, that's great, but they're not yours. You got to get them over to your email list or over to your store that you own to buy something, so you capture that contact info, that customer information. If the 5,000 followers on Instagram don't make their way into some other platform that you have control over. And you wake up tomorrow and Zuckerberg has made a few more bad decisions and your account’s all of a sudden gone. That's it. Those 5,000 followers are gone. Any content you posted is gone. It's not yours. And any DMs you might've had that could have been considered leads or things like that, all gone. So you've got to do your best to get that information to a database or somewhere that you control. 

The same as for your retail and sales channels. You know what I mean? Like, like you said, that instance where you contact Amazon and you report, you know, one of these AI accounts that's copying your content. Well, the first thing Amazon's gonna do is they're gonna take down both of you, because they don't know who the original owner is at this point and they're gonna do their due diligence. And when I say due diligence, they're gonna take their time. And so every day that your content is not up there is days you're not making money. And by the way, the AI copy cats, they're just gonna turn around and create more. So every time Amazon takes one down, 10 more pop up, like. That is the downside to what's going on with AI right now. 

So being on third party platforms where you're not necessarily protected, you don't have control over what's happening. And quite frankly, they don't really have any control over what's going on, nor are they incentivized, necessarily, to do something, you open yourself up to these things. And that is happening every single day. So yeah, there's a really good reason right there alone, why you would want to diversify and find other places to sell your content. And that's just one of probably a hundred reasons, right? 

Lauren: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Another one that you might not have considered before, and maybe especially because a lot of the conversation that I saw about going wide was focused very specifically on ebook distribution. Which I understand because it was talking to fiction authors that are primarily KDP Select and Kindle U or - Kindle. Yeah. Kindle Unlimited. 

Matt: Kindle Unlimited, yeah. 

Lauren: Weird way to say it though. Authors. So ebook is the primary format. But if you are somebody that is interested in selling your book in multiple formats - which you should be, if you've listened to this podcast, we've talked about that repeatedly. Some publishers, some marketplaces limit their distribution options based on format types. 

So, like, for example, you cannot distribute spiral bound books through Amazon, but you can through Lulu or selling direct from your own website So if that's something that you want to do where you want to have your ebook on one platform and a spiral-bound version of your book on another platform that's going wide. That's an opportunity for you to add new revenue streams add new products to your store connect with your audience in a different way blah blah blah, whatever. There's also you know, same restrictions on geographical areas. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: If you're only distributing to the US you have no idea if you have readers outside of the US that would be interested in your content. 

Matt: Yeah, and - 

Lauren: So go wide with that.

Matt: That brings a whole separate set of things you need to look at and consider. You know what I mean? There's - outside of the United States, there's a lot of different EU regulations and things you have to know about, and even new ones that just recently came into play and again, understanding how those might affect you on a particular retail outlet are really important. And in fact, there are things coming down right now in the EU around ebooks and whether or not you can actually sell and distribute them outside of the US into the EU if you don't meet certain criteria or things like that. 

So yeah, I mean, there's a lot of reasons why you would want to pay attention to exactly which channels you're putting your content on, how you're selling, where you're directing buyers, all of those things. And again, it's never a good idea to have all your eggs in one basket for anything, let alone selling your content. 

Matt: So going wide, there's several approaches you can take. You've outlined two main approaches or two different ones that are probably the two most popular, and two most obvious, right? And so the first would be just uploading your books, your titles, to each of these particular channels separately. And then there's another option which is you use what we would call an aggregator right or something like Draft2Digital is a good example, and probably one of the better of the aggregators, to be honest, where you would upload it essentially once to them and there's… I don't know, five, six different channels that they would go ahead and sort of distribute your content for you, including Amazon and Ingram and a bunch of the others, if that's what you're looking for. 

Lauren: Yeah, there are pros and cons -  

Matt: So those are the two main options. 

Lauren: Yeah, yeah, those are probably what you're gonna do, one or the other of those. And there are pros and cons to both of them. Obviously, the option where you're like, manually uploading them to every single platform is more time consuming for you, because you have to -  not only do you have to like, do the process of uploading them on each platform, but then you also are responsible for like, care and maintenance of those individual platforms. 

So you have to regularly keep an eye on what your books are doing on there and stuff like that. Obviously you don't want to just leave it to languish and rot itself. So that is going to take some time. But while the other option of using an aggregate solution on that is less time consuming, they will take a cut of your profits. 

Matt: Well, and there's also more restrictions too, quite frankly. 

Lauren: That’s true. 

Matt: So because somebody like Draft2Digital or some of the other aggregators, they're trying to span as many distribution channels as they can for you, they have to adhere to all of the constrictions that each of those platforms will apply. And so each of those platforms will only accept a certain amount of formats, trim sizes, types of interior color versus black and white. And aggregators like Draft2Digital, they have to take the most common denominator amongst all of them, and that's what they use. And so you will find some more restrictions versus doing it yourself to each platform where you can really push the boundaries of what the restrictions are on each platform.

To note though, these two options that we're talking about right now, these are primarily if you're looking for actual distribution in its traditional form, right? So through Amazon, through Ingram and some of the others, we have not really touched on what that means for selling direct just yet.

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: Yeah. Now option one, like you said, is more time consuming, but it could potentially maximize the amount of money you make. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Right. Because you're cutting out the middleman distributor basically. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And you're going directly to, so you're cutting out… even if it's just 10% of your profits or whatever they skim off the top of it. It's not going to be a massive amount usually, but it might be depending on what your profits are. 

Matt: Well, and also depending on what your goals and focus are. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: So again, if distribution, traditional distribution through these third party retailers is not your primary sales channel… Again, maybe you are taking a direct sales approach with distribution being a secondary kind of just gap filler. Then it's not as big of a concern and it might be worth your time to just use an aggregator. Let them handle all of that. You can create a format that works for them. 

And then when you're selling direct, which is your primary source of sales and data gathering, you can create whatever version of your book you want because you control all of that and you're controlling the sales. So it's going to boil down to what are your goals? What are your primary versus secondary sales channels? That will also help you make the decision on whether or not to upload to each platform separately or to use an aggregator in conjunction with potentially selling direct.

Lauren: Yeah, I'm just going to remind everybody quickly, and this is actually going to lead us right into the first of Lore’s questions, that these are not either or options for you when it comes to like, I want to sell direct or I want to have my book distributed to major retailer platforms or I want to have my book on Amazon. Like it's not… you can do all of those things. The only thing that is exclusionary in any way is if you have your book enrolled in KDP select.

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: If you have your ebook enrolled in KDP Select, that is an exclusive contract for 90 days with Amazon. So your ebook is not allowed to be distributed anywhere else. Which does not mean that you cannot take print versions and audio versions of that same book and sell them elsewhere. But it means that specifically your ebook is exclusive to KU for the 90 day window that you have that contract with them. 

But other than that, if you say like, I want to have my… I still want to have my books available on Amazon, but I also want to sell them direct and I also want to have them available through Ingram Content Group. You can do that. There's not one or the other there. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

[19:14]

Lauren: So that being said, the first question that Lore asked was, should I unpublish my books from Amazon before bringing them to another site? And the short answer to that is that no, you do not have to. The longer answer is that if you want to, if you have a reason to do so, if you're looking to get off of Amazon, it is absolutely possible to do so and you certainly can. We did a whole episode about a year ago at this point called the Indie Author's Guide to Thriving Without Amazon. 

Matt: We did? 

Lauren: We sure did. 

Matt: Yeah, we did. I mean, yep. 

Lauren: And it's about letting go of Amazon and moving to selling direct. So it's more of a focus on selling direct than it is on going wide. 

Matt: Ah, yeah. 

Lauren: But I would still recommend listening to that episode if that's a topic that interests you. Even if you do wanna stay on Amazon, it's probably a good lesson to listen to you for how to like, break the chains a little bit. 

Matt: Definitely. 

Lauren: But you can still stay on Amazon. Another thing that you might want to consider doing if you do want to stay on Amazon, but you want to try this idea of selling direct or selling wide. If you have a reasonable backlist of titles, if you have more than like three or four titles, experiment with just taking some of your books and going wide with them. Doesn't have to be your entire… you don't have to remove your entire library at once. You can try taking like two or three titles and see how they do. See, you know… or maybe take different formats. Maybe you want to leave your ebooks up on Amazon, but you want to start selling your print and audio elsewhere. 

Matt: Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: I just want to make sure we point out here that, again, as we're talking about this concept or decision to either stay on Amazon or don't stay on Amazon or even somebody other than Amazon, and depending on your goals, it may not matter. But the thing you have to remember is when we talk about selling direct and the benefits there, really what we're talking about is: everybody has the same struggle when trying to sell and market their books, and that is building audience, right? That is the goal, but it's also the struggle. That's what everybody deals with that has written content, has published it and is trying to sell it. 

And so whatever your efforts look like, whatever your marketing plan is, however you're building audiences, regardless of how much time you're putting into it per day, per week, per month, per year, those are your efforts. And anybody you get to buy one of your books or come to your website or your social media channels or whatever, you should consider that a hard fought and well earned battle. And so just to turn around and send them to somewhere else to buy your book, to be quite frank, is a ludicrous concept. 

Now I understand that's just been the way forever, you know, until more recently, but you have different options now. And so what we're saying is by leaving it on Amazon, we're not sort of contradicting ourselves about selling direct. What we're saying is put it on Amazon if you want, and use Amazon for what it may be good for. In the years past, a long time ago, I would argue you could put a book up on Amazon and if it was a pretty well done book you'd get some sales. You might get a lot of sales, actually. These days you can throw something up on Amazon and you're more than likely not gonna get any sales unless you've already got an established customer base on Amazon, or you're very good at playing the Amazon game and buying Amazon ads. But nonetheless, there's always the option that somebody might come across your book on Amazon and buy it. Great. Use Amazon for what it's for, but don't send people to Amazon. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: Don't send people to BarnesandNoble.com. Don't send people to Walmart.com to buy your books. Never send them away from your home base. Keep that audience. And so in order to keep that audience, you have to be able to sell that product to them right then and there. And that's how you keep them. So when we say, sure, stay on Amazon, but also sell direct, we're not contradicting ourselves. Really what we mean is don't send any bit of traffic, any one individual person or buyer away from your website when you worked hard to get them. Eyeballs are really hard to catch these days. Attention is so short. There's so much white noise out there. Don't put in all that hard work or money or both, and then just send them somewhere else to buy it for cheaper and you'll make less money and you won't get that customer data. It's just ludicrous. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: You don't have to do it. 

Lauren: Yeah. And I say this as as a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, who uses it - 

Matt: Boo. 

Lauren: I know - uses it constantly. I literally was reading a book on KU last night. I understand the value of it for a fiction author. I understand the discoverability part of it. Absolutely. 

Matt: What's left. Yeah. 

Lauren: Well, yeah, what's left. Because also realistically, I mean, I've noticed very much that I get recommended the same twenty books over and over and over again, and I really want there to be a button somewhere on that - 

Matt: That’s cause they pay for you to get recommended. 

Lauren: Well yeah, I mean, yeah, absolutely. But I would love for there to be a button somewhere that I can be like, clearly - 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: I haven't shown any interest in these yet, despite you showing me these ads for three months straight. Do you think maybe you could give me some new options here? So even that discoverability isn't super great, but. I do. Absolutely. I have very specifically found authors on KU that I got their books for free, got into them, decided I liked them, and then moved on to buying their books from them. And that's the important part. And I would always rather buy books from the authors than I would buy them from Amazon. 

Matt: Me too. And we get asked that all the time. Like, if I start selling direct, why would people buy from me? Well, why are they buying your book to begin with? 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: You're just changing the location of where they buy it. And quite frankly, most people, like Lauren just said, would much rather feel good knowing they're supporting their favorite authors and creators directly. 

Lauren: Absolutely. 

Matt: So it's not that big of a stretch to be honest with you. 

Lauren: We live in a time where as much as capitalism reigns supreme, we have a lot of conscientious consumers. And I think that readers specifically are an audience group that in general are very supportive of indie authors and self-published authors and authors that are trying to be transparent and clear about the fact that like, I'm going this route for this reason or that reason. I don't like what traditional publishing options are, or I didn't like the gatekeeping of traditional publishing. And that's why I'm doing it this way. You're supporting my small business by helping me out with this. I know a lot of people that would rather support an indie author if they were transparent about like, hey, if you buy it from me, I get more of a profit from it or whatever. 

Matt: My last name's not Bezos and I'm not going to go buy another $400 million yacht, yeah.

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: No -

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: But above and beyond that, and I think that's a great point, because that's partially what motivates me not to buy things from places like that, is I'm that person. I don't want to give any more money to those people. But there's a whole ‘nother argument there, too. And so, again, outside of this whole like buy from corporate versus buy from the creator part, there's this element of trust that's now getting disrupted with the onset of AI and these other things that are happening. 

And, you know, I think more and more now there's an element of distrust that's creeping in. So if I see something on a third party retail site and I'm not quite sure, you know, about the trustworthiness of the transaction that's gonna happen or other things, the reviews, I don't even bother looking at anymore. I don't care what they look like. To me, there's no way you're gonna convince me that more than 50% of those reviews are real anyways. So there's an element of trust that comes into the transaction where if you're buying directly from the person who created this content or product, naturally that trust has not been eroded yet, right? You're already interested in what they do or what they're offering. You don't have some third party that's there in the mix that, by the way, has no issues with unscrupulous players being on their platform and doing things to sort of disrupt that chain of trust. Which is why it's important to sell direct and keep that customer journey intact from start, when they meet you or hear about your products or your books or your services through whatever medium, all the way through to the point where they actually purchase it directly from you, that chain of trust stays intact. Your brand is represented throughout that entire journey and therefore you don't really have those issues you're dealing with. And yes, you're not putting another dollar into some mega yacht purchase. Yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Great point though. 

Lauren: I feel like at this point we should probably all own a little piece of those mega yachts. Like they should be, they should be communal yachts, right? 

Man, I don't know how I feel about it because I do love water. I love being on the water. I think boats are cool, but at the same time it's like...

Lauren: Not a yacht guy? 

Matt: Man, what a freaking waste. 

I know.

Matt: I don't know. Yeah, I don't even wanna talk about that. 

Lauren: I like a personal size boat, and I like a cruise ship, and the in-between is not for me. 

Matt: I don't know how you do it. I always forget that you love cruises. 

Lauren: I love cruises. 

Matt: I have somehow made it to 50 and never been on one. 

Lauren: That’s not surprising to me. You do not strike me as a person that would like any part of a cruise. Look, there are some people in my life that I really would love to convince to go on a cruise with me, and there are some people in my life that I recognize that they would have a terrible time and you absolutely fall into the latter category. 

Matt: The obvious outlier here is that I will go on a Disney cruise soon, for sure.

Lauren: Well, we gotta go - 

Matt: I just can't avoid it anymore. 

Lauren: The Disney Treasure that has the Haunted Mansion parlor on it. 

Matt: Exactly. 

Lauren: Obviously.

Matt: I just can't avoid it anymore. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: And if that just happens to be the one where I go down or I catch some crazy hand foot mouth disease or something, whatever happens on these crazy cruises, then so be it. At least it's Disney inspired, but. 

Lauren: What a way to go. 

Matt: Yeah, exactly. Outside of that, no, I'm good.

Lauren: Lay my ashes to rest in the Haunted Mansion parlor if I go down with the ship. 

Matt: That's right. Sprinkle them over Madame Leota's crystal ball - 

Lauren: Perfect. 

Matt: - and I'm a happy camper.

Lauren: Sounds great. 

Matt: Yeah. 

[28:26] 

Lauren: Anyway, after that wonderful tangent into selling direct - which also, I guess we maybe should have made this point at the top, but an important part about this conversation, whether or not you're choosing to sell direct, or you're just going to go wide by using different, different distribution platforms. If you don't already have your own author website, if you've been relying exclusively on your Amazon profile as an author website, now is the time to make one. Yesterday is the time to start creating your author website. 

You will want somewhere, even if you're, again, not selling direct at this time, you wanna set yourself up for the possibility of it later. And it's also a good place for you to kind of create a hub for all your different sales channels. You can have information about your books on your website and then link out to all of the different retailer platforms that you'll have it available on. 

Matt: And even if you're not ready to do that yet, at least go somewhere and buy the domain that fits your name. Like at least own that. And it's usually really cheap. You can go to godaddy.com or one of those places, type in your name and if it's not taken, great, buy it. Even if you're not going to do anything with it right now or ever… Own that, so when the time comes that you're going to set up a Shopify store or you're going to use one of these other services that are popping up now where they build an author website for you and connect everything, which is great. Now you'll have that domain that they can plug right in. Or if your name is taken, LaurenVassallo.com is taken, maybe you can secure Books by Lauren or LaurenWritesRomance.com 

Find something that you would want to use as your home base URL and just buy that you'll have that and so when the time comes and you're ready to to build a site or have somebody build you a site or set up your Shopify store, you've got that domain and you're off to the races. I know that sometimes if you don't have a site you don't want to think about that right now, at least go own some domains and that will get you set up for success in the long run. It will also stop people from buying domains with your name in them, which is really important as we move into an age where AI is quickly cloning anything and everything it can get its hands on.

Lauren: Yeah, yeah. Protect that right at the very least. We did also do a whole episode on seven steps to building an online bookstore. 

Matt: We did? 

Lauren: The first - we did. 

Matt: Wow, look at that. 

Lauren: That was your idea. The first half of it was mostly website focused. So if that is something that you're interested in doing, like I also recommend that episode. You don't have to listen to the whole thing, just listen to the part that's relevant to you and skip the part about inserting an ecommerce solution into it.

Matt: You should listen to the whole thing. 

Lauren: You should listen to the whole thing and you should also - 

Matt: Like and subscribe. 

Lauren: - consider selling direct. And you should like and subscribe. But, yeah. 

Matt: Alright let’s - let's move on. 

[31:04]

Lauren: Yes. Let's get back to Lore’s questions. Her next question was, should I buy new ISBNs for my book? Which is a very good question. Again, one of these days, I will threaten to do a full episode on ISBNs because I think they're so interesting. And I recognize I'm the only person on planet Earth that thinks they're interesting. So don't - no, no, no. We're just going to - 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: No. 

Matt: Alright. 

Lauren: We're just going to go right into this. This is - this is another one that is kind of a dealer's choice question, because the answer is that, yes, you will need a new ISBN for each format of each of your books that you are moving out of the Amazon space. So the free ISBNs that KDP provides are proprietary. Amazon does own those. You cannot take them to other platforms. So you will need new ISBNs and you do, it is important to recognize that - 

Matt: You might need new ISBNs. 

Lauren: Well, yes, okay. I will let you get back to that in a second. But - 

Matt: No, I'll let you cover that, but I just wanna make sure we inserted that there. Because you were being very absolute. 

Lauren: No, no, no, you're right. 

Matt: That you will absolutely need new ISBNs. 

Lauren: You are right. 

Matt: Let's be a little more clear. You just can't use your Amazon ones - 

Lauren: You cannot - 

Matt: - anywhere other than Amazon. 

Lauren: Yes, that is a better way of saying it. 

Matt: There you go. 

Lauren: But I do also just wanna be clear that as we're talking about ISBNs, if you are on a platform that needs ISBNs, you have a different ISBN for every edition of every book that you've published. 

Matt: That's right. 

Lauren: So if you have five titles and each of those titles has a print copy, an ebook copy, and an audiobook copy, you need fifteen ISBNs to cover all of those books. 

Matt: Look at that math on you. Holy cow. All right. 

Lauren: And if you have a paperback and hardcover edition, those are two different ISBNs. 

Matt: That's right.

Lauren: So just keep that in mind as you're planning out your move, that every edition of every book - 

Matt: Every format. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Now, do you actually need a new ISBN for each revised edition of a title? 

Lauren: It depends on, I think it was something like… I think it's something like if it's more than 10% change. 

Matt: That makes sense. 

Lauren: To the book. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: You know, if it's something like, you're just going through and editing a couple of typos that you didn't catch the first time around, you don't need a new edition, or a new ISBN. 

Matt: Or I would imagine also if a significant amount of time has passed. So I know like our friend Joe Pulizzi, he put out a book called Epic Content Marketing years ago, great book. And then they did a revised new edition like five or six years later that obviously included a bunch of the things that have happened since. I would imagine that scenario new ISBNs will be issued for the new revised version of Epic Content Marketing. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: If it's enough of a revision, if you're putting a new cover on it, if you're adding new content to it, anything like that, it will need a new ISBN.

Matt: Well, should probably get a new one. 

Lauren: It should probably get a new ISBN - if it already had an ISBN, and if you're continuing ISBNs. 

Matt: Why don't you tell them why I keep contradicting you? 

Lauren: Yes, okay. So -

Matt: Besides the fact that I just like to contradict you. 

Lauren: Well, there is that. But yes, if you are - if you're only selling your books direct, you do not need an ISBN. 

Matt: Correct. 

Lauren: If you're selling them from your own website, you do not need an ISBN. There are also some retail options where you might not need an ISBN. For example, if you are only selling your book on the Lulu bookstore.

Matt: Oh, yeah. 

Lauren: We do not require ISBNs on the bookstore. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: If you are selling it on the bookstore and through global distribution, then you will require an ISBN. But if you're just - so you might, depending on where you are choosing to sell your book from, you may not need a new ISBN or an ISBN at all. 

Matt: That's right. 

Lauren: This is why, we're going to probably say this several times throughout this episode, you need to make sure you do your research on your platforms that you're choosing before you start making moves. 

Matt: Yeah, and to be clear, the reason why we're telling you these options is because ISBNs aren't necessarily cheap to purchase. For some of us, it might not seem like a big amount, but if you buy a single ISBN from Bowker, I believe it's like around $120, $140. 

Lauren: For one? 

Matt: Yeah, I'm almost positive. Let me put my Bowker account so I don't misquote them. But you can also buy them in batches where the price gets significantly cheaper. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: So you can buy them in batches of ten, and I think it gets a lot cheaper. But the point is, other sites, you can also get free ISBNs like Lulu and some of the others, if you're going to go into distribution or not. But if you're only going to sell direct and you don't need an ISBN, it might not be in your interest to go and pay that money to have ISBNs. 

Lauren: You can always decide at a later point in time that you want to get one. If you are going to sell direct, if you're now, your options now are, okay, I'm going to keep my books on Amazon and I'm also going to start selling direct. Like that's the going wide option that I'm choosing here. you might not need to get ISBNs now, because you can keep the ones you have on Amazon, not use them on your own store. 

And then if later down the road, you decide, you know what, I do actually want to like, add a few more marketplaces in here, and I do want to have like, that global distribution option, so I do need ISBNs, you can always add them on later. That's not a decision that you have to make right now necessarily. 

Matt: Yeah, and again - 

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: I'm sorry. Currently at the time of this recording, to buy one ISBN from Belkert's $125. If you want to buy ten, a batch of ten, it's only $295, which is great, right? That significantly decreases the price. So if you have multiple titles in multiple formats, like Lauren said, you're going to need multiple ISBNs. If you can use those ten ISBNs or eight of them now and you know you've got another book and you come in soon, go ahead and get the ten pack. You're going to save a lot of money. And again, the more you buy, the more you save. You can buy 100 ISBN, like a bulk purchase of 100, for $575. But to just buy one or two, right? You're talking $125 a piece. So if you don't need them, sometimes it's an expense that'd be nice not to have. 

Lauren: This is also, for the record, Bowker is US based. So if the US is not your primary market, you're a UK author, there's a different… I think Nielsen, I think, is the UK ISBN source. 

Matt: Well, Canada has their own version which you buy directly from their government. 

Lauren: They're free in Canada. I learned that - 

Matt: I'm sorry. But it comes directly from their government. 

Lauren: But yes.

Matt: Yes, and in the UK and in various areas in Europe there are different bodies, governing bodies or organizations - 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: - where you would buy them from, yes. 

Lauren: Yeah, so that's just something to keep in mind. But yeah, you know, to the point of buying them in batches, or buying them bulk, keep in mind that again if you during different Formats of your book I could realistically see you using five ISBNs for one single title. Paperback, hardcover, special edition, ebook, audiobook. 

Matt: Special edition? 

Lauren: Yeah, if you wanted to do a special edition. 

Matt: Yeah, I guess that's - Yeah.

Lauren: Or large print or, you know, like there's realistically three to five ISBNs per title. So ten could go pretty quickly, honestly. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: To the question of whether or not you require new ISBNs, yes, with an asterisk. To the question of whether or not you should buy your own ISBNs, that is really a personal choice up to you. I probably would if it was me, if I was the one making the choice, I probably would buy my own.

One of the things that's nice about owning your own ISBNs is that you are the person responsible for like, when it says who published, like who the publisher is, who the imprint is for the book. If you use a Lulu ISBN, if you use one of our free ISBNs, it will say in your metadata that the publisher and the imprint is Lulu. 

Matt: Yes, but to be clear, that does not mean we own any rights to it. 

Lauren: No. 

Matt: Because we purchased those ISBNs at the time that we purchased them, we have to give them a publisher name. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: So it's Lulu. It's the same with Amazon, though.

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Or anybody else that you get a free ISBN from. When they acquired the ISBN from Bowker or the governing body, they had to give a publisher name. So naturally it's just the business name. It by no means assigns rights to that content. 

Lauren: No, of course not. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: You retain your rights to your book. If you are doing any kind of self-publishing where you do not retain the rights to your book, ask some very serious questions before you move forward with that, for sure. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: I don't know. I hope that answers the question. I think it did. Dealer's choice, basically. But hopefully that information gives you the information that you need to answer that question for yourself. 

[39:01] 

Lauren: Some other things that we wanted to talk about to just kind of cover what else you'll need in terms of getting your books ready. If you're going to be moving them to different platforms, one of the most common roadblocks that we hear from authors all the time when it comes to moving their print books off of Amazon, or moving them from Amazon to other places, is format limitations.

There isn't really like, a universally common every single publisher has the exact same… There are a lot of overlap. Like, there are a lot of common standard print sizes that we use for print books that are available on all platforms, but there are a couple of sizes that you will find on Amazon that you won't find on some of the other publishers.

Matt: Well. More than likely the inverse is true, but yes. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Not every platform will offer the same trim sizes. By trim sizes, we mean actual size formats, 8.5 x 11, 5.5 x 8.5, 6 x 9, all those things. Again, not every platform is gonna offer the same. Many of those platforms, especially the larger retailers, they condense the amount they actually offer just to make it easier on their distribution network, yeah. 

Lauren: It is fixable. I mean, this is something you cannot just, like you cannot upload an incorrect file size to another publisher and expect it to work. It's not going to work. Even if it's really close, if it's 5.25 x 8.25 and you're trying to upload it as a 5.5 x 8.5, it's not going to work. But these files should be fixable. They should be editable. 

Matt: Yeah. And in some cases, actually, I'll just jump in - 

Lauren: Go ahead. 

Matt: - to save somebody a little bit of headache, maybe on the major distribution platform. So, you know, Ingram and Amazon specifically, what we do see is the variances between what we need for the files, the interior file and the cover file - so the trim and the bleed and the gutters and all those things - the variances are really small between our three platforms. There have been many occasions and more times than not, you can bring a file from Amazon or Ingram over to Lulu, upload it. And in many cases you won't have any issues. Something might be slightly different. 

Nonetheless, this is why we also encourage you to order a proof copy. So if it's print that we're talking about, not an ebook, obviously upload the files. And if the system on Lulu tells you like, no, you're pretty good here. No problem. I would still order a proof copy first and just make sure everything looks good, because you may have to make some minor tweaks. There won't be anything major if it's coming from Amazon or Ingram necessarily. If it's coming from anywhere else, there may be some major file tweaks that need to happen at the interior level or the cover level, but they're not bad. So Lauren's right. It's completely fixable. The variances are so small that what you might have to do is adjust your cover bleed by like one tenth of an inch or something like that. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Cover file might need some slight tweaking in terms of those as well, but it's not bad at all. 

Lauren: No, it really shouldn't be. And if it is something that you have, you've got 35 titles that you're trying to move and that's a crazy amount of work to do, there are absolutely freelance designers that you could hire on like Fiverr or something. If you have the interior and cover files that were originally created to design your books, it should be pretty straightforward for a freelancer to fix those up for you if you can't do it yourself. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And if you use your own software to do it, it should be, I mean - 

Matt: Well, there's only a few types of software you can use and most designers have access to that anyway. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: So yeah, I mean, I've heard stories where people have cobbled together covers using something like, you know, an old version of Microsoft Paint or something, but it's rare. Like either way, it's fixable, like you said. 

Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. But another thing that you could do if your file formats are not exactly, exactly what you need - which also I do want to say again, do your research, check and make sure the requirements before you pull everything down and start uploading to other platforms. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Like, test them out. You can always like Lulu, you can upload files without publishing them anywhere. You can just test it out on Lulu. You can order a proof copy that never gets published to the bookstore or something like that, or never gets put into global distribution. You can just have private access books on a Lulu account. So, don't make any major decisions without first checking what the requirements are on your different platforms of choice. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: For sure. 

Matt: Yeah, that's a great point. 

Lauren: Yeah. But something that you can do is, now is a great opportunity to make updates, revisions, repackage your book, put a new cover on it, add some bonus content in there, do something that's going to update the book a little bit, give your readers a reason, which we'll talk more about in a second, to buy these new copies from you from a new source. So if you're going to do all that work, you're going to have to reformat the files anyway, so… 

Matt: Yeah, I mean, it is a good opportunity to make some changes, updates or create that special edition. So to make a big deal about moving to a direct sales approach or just another platform or however, it is a good opportunity to create a special edition to mark the occasion and it's a great new stream of revenue. 

[44:00]

Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. So on that note, things that you might wanna share with your audience, how to prepare your audience that you're gonna be going wide, again, depends on what you're doing here. If you're leaving Amazon, probably worth sharing that with your audience. But I also think that it's reasonable to be transparent with your readers. You might lose some, you might. There might be some people - 

Matt: Doubtful.

Lauren: - that are reading your books on Kindle Unlimited and that's it, and they're not gonna follow you to a new platform. But were they really loyal readers at that point anyway? 

Matt: C'est la vie. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: I mean, you're only getting pennies per page from them anyways. 

Lauren: Right. Yeah, sure. 

Matt: JK, but not really.

Lauren: Well. But, you know, I think that if you are transparent with loyal readers, anyone that has committed to your mailing list, anyone that follows you on social media, anyone that has taken any kind of action to engage with you outside of just reading your books, is at the very least committed enough to see what you have to say about why you're moving, what you're gonna be doing. 

Alternatively, if you're not pulling your books from Amazon and you're gonna leave them up there and just also start selling somewhere else, your Amazon readers might not even notice. Your dedicated readers, same thing. Let them know that your books are now available here, especially if you're gonna do a repackaged edition, if you're gonna add some new bonus content or something like that, some reason to get your existing readers excited about the fact that you're selling direct, or that you're selling from a different platform, and this is a great reason why they should come buy the print copy from you here instead of the ebook on Amazon. 

Matt: Yeah, absolutely. 

Lauren: Good opportunities for you there, good ways to build your brand and connect with your readers there for sure. 

Matt: Yeah. Be prepared, you might see a slight dip in your revenue potentially depending on how much you were funneling through Amazon or Ingram or whatever channel it is we're talking about. So again, be prepared for that possibility. Although if you're doing this in parallel or tandem while leaving your titles up there, you can always have some overlaps that you minimize, if not negate completely, the dip in revenue, potentially. 

Because don't forget if you are switching to a direct sales approach or adding direct sales into your sales channel portfolio, your profit margins are much higher. So for every one book you sell direct, you're going to basically make the same amount of revenue as you would from four book sales, five book sales on Amazon. Again, if you run a tandem approach to this, you may not experience any dip, and in fact might experience a bit of a, an increase at times. So, but regardless, just be prepared for some of that and try to plan accordingly. 

Lauren: Yeah, personally, I think it's worth it. 

Matt: For sure. 

Lauren: If you can afford the dip, if your revenue from your book sales on Amazon is the only thing that’s paying your rent every month. 

Matt: That's scary to begin with. 

Lauren: Yeah, that makes me worried for you because that could all get ripped out from under your feet. I'm literally watching this happen in real time right now with TikTok, with TikTok creators that are saying like - 

Matt: Oh, yeah. For sure. 

Lauren: - this is where my, this is my primary source of income. And that's all going away. So don't let that happen to you. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: But also, yeah, you know, like just, this is something that you wanna do. This is not, and this is really probably our final point here. This is not an overnight decision. This is not something that you should decide after listening to this episode, yeah, you guys are right. I'm definitely going to do this. And tonight you're going to go home - 

Matt: What are you talking about? 

Lauren: - and pull all your books. 

Matt: We are right. They should do this. 

Lauren: We are. No, no, no. You should. The point is that you should not be like, I'm going to go home and do this tonight. Like that's not, this should not be an impulse overnight decision. This is something that takes time planning and research, because you want to make sure that you're doing it right, that you're crossing all your T's, you're dotting all your I's and that you're not doing extra work, or not the correct work. 

So definitely make sure you do your research, make sure you know what you want to do here. But personally, I think it's worth it. And I think that a lot of authors would agree with me. 

Matt: Yeah, I do too. And again, I think that these questions are fairly common. Outside of this podcast here at Lulu, these questions get asked regularly. You know, we have help resources available. We've talked about communities you can join, there's no shortage of answers to your questions, so just make sure you’re doing your homework and make the most informed decisions. 

Lauren: Yep, absolutely. And if you have any questions about what we talked about here, if we didn't explain something enough or you want us to go more into something, you can always email us podcast@lulu.com. Lore, I hope we answered all of your questions. And if we didn't, email us back. 

Matt: If we didn't, it's Lauren's fault. 

Lauren: That's completely fair. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: But thank you. Thank you for the email. Thank you for the question. It was a really good question and a really great suggestion for an episode topic. 

Matt: Yep. 

So thanks. Really appreciate it.

Matt: Yeah. And if anybody else has questions or things they think we should do an episode on, you can hit us up at podcast@lulu.com. 

Lauren: Yeah. Or leave a comment on Lulu socials on any of the podcast posts - 

Matt: That too. 

Lauren: - or on YouTube.

Matt: Yeah. We'd love to hear from you. Tell your friends about us. 

Lauren: Yeah. Like and subscribe. Tell your friends. 

Matt: Yep. That too. 

Lauren: Thanks for listening, everyone. We'll be back next week. Hopefully with no camera issues. 

Matt: Later.