Lauren: Hey, everyone, welcome back to Publish & Prosper. And welcome back to my co-host Matt, who has just returned from his traitorous trip to Universal Studios Orlando.

Matt: Yes.

Lauren: How was it? Was it worth the betrayal?

Matt: No. It wasn't. Which only made it feel worse. I'll preface it by saying there were some fun rides for sure. And it's worth, like... possibly a day trip on a Disney trip. And I think my kids had fun, which was the important thing. That was the whole reason we went, really –

Lauren: Right.

Matt: – was for their spring break. The way that Disney, I think, sort of stays on top of the theme park world is that there's no other place that feels like you're, you're in it. Like, if you're at Disney World, you are like in Disney. Like everything you do, everywhere you go –

Lauren: It's the bubble, yeah.

Matt: – everything – Yeah. You're just in that bubble.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Like it doesn't matter what, what resort you're at, which park you're at. You could be at Epcot, which is way off the the Disney grid, kind of – it doesn't matter. You're still in Disney. Like... there was no part of me that ever felt like I was in Universal. Like it just felt like these parks that were all separate from each other. Yeah. It was just it was weird, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't the same. And quite frankly there's just you know, I think they have a lot of work to do if they want to be a, a contender. But yeah. So I still feel like a traitor.

Lauren: Well I like that you kind of reaffirmed your prejudices against it though. you're like, yeah, you know, I had to go – I had to go dip a toe in these other waters and see what it was like. And now I know for sure that I'm a Disney loyalist true and true.

Matt: Yeah it's not fair to, to hold that stance against one thing if you've never actually tried it, so.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: I think there's potential there, but... Yeah, I don't know dude.

Lauren: I think that there is kind of a big distinction between like the Disney experience and... like Universal. Like, Universal, I think, I feel a lot of people have talked about how Universal is next-level ride experiences? Like it's some of the coolest rides you'll ever go on, some of the state of the art tech on rides and stuff like that. And I think that's fair. I think that's, that is a realistic comparison. But... Universal, you're only on a, you're only on a, on a ride itself for such a finite window of time.

Matt: Yup.

Lauren: Disney, I could spend a full week on Disney World property without riding a single ride and still feel – like, feel like I had the Disney experience.

Matt: Yeah, I agree.

Lauren: And I think that Universal doesn’t – can't compare to that.

Matt: And I think Disney's catching up though, on ride and ride technology. Yes. Because anybody's ever ridden Cosmic Rewind –

Lauren: Oh, incredible.

Matt: – can’t not say that that's one of the most funnest rides they’ve ever been on. And yes, there's a lot of great roller coasters at Universal Studios. Or, you know, their three parks combined. Or there's several, I should say. But An abnormally large amount of their rides are those simulator rides.

Lauren: Screen rides, yeah.

Matt: Yeah, a lot of stuff that we were in line for we didn't realize they were simulator rides. And some of them were okay, and others it was just kinda like eh, really? Like, this was really underwhelming. So.

Lauren: Well, yeah.

Matt: I don’t know. As an overall park experience, as somewhere where you spend multiple, you know, four or five days, I would never trade the Disney experience for any other one. Including Universal, at this point. It's just, there's no comparison.

Lauren: I agree.

Matt: There's really not. So I did it. I got it over with. I survived it, made it back.

Lauren: Well, welcome back.

Matt: Lesson learned.

Lauren: Glad you made it. It was worth going.

Matt: It was. Yeah. And you know, again, my kids had fun. We definitely had some fun. And we can say we did it.

Lauren: You sure can. And how mad are you knowing that I'm leaving for Disney in three days?

Matt: Mad enough to potentially fire you.

Lauren: That’s fair. It’s fine.

Matt: Which I would never do. If there's one excuse I'm always okay with leaving work for, it's Disney.

Lauren: It's true. It's true, and I appreciate that.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: It's important to have an understanding boss when it comes to hey, I just booked an emergency Disney trip. I'm going to be missing two days of work.

Matt: I will say I'm about to book an emergency Disney trip. Cause I feel like I need to cleanse myself.

Lauren: I understand. So. I understand.

Matt: We’ll see. Maybe our paths will cross down there.

Lauren: Sounds great. I'm going to be... I'm calling it a research trip. Because I'm going to be working on my passport. I'm not kidding. I literally –

Matt: Oh my god.

Lauren: – I have a park reservation all three days at Epcot. I'm starting all three days at Epcot, and then I'll hop. Like, I'm going to work on the passport and then hop over to somewhere else.

Matt: Okay.

Lauren: So. But –

Matt: I swear I'm going to do this just to spite you. I'm going to do one and get it done before you do.

Lauren: Okay.

Matt: You keep saying that. If you don't come back with this thing done...

Lauren: Okay.

Matt: Alright.

Lauren: Well we're gonna record – the next episode that we record is going to be the day after I come back. So we'll do a check in then and see.

Matt: Yes.

Lauren: Yep. I'll update everybody.

Matt: Okay.

Lauren: On the status.

[5:44] – Episode Intro

Lauren: In the meantime, we're going on a totally different journey today. That is not a vacation and not an immersive theme park experience.

Matt: Definitely not a vacation.

Lauren: But I think it's a journey that is really important for us to go on. So...

Matt: If we must.

Lauren: We must. As we've talked about in some recent episodes, We just came back from a laundry list of travels. One of which was traveling to London for London Book Fair.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: And in the last episode that just came out, I said that the number one question that we were asked by authors the whole time we were there was about marketing. and marketing services and how to do book marketing and who's responsible for doing book marketing. The number two question and the question that maybe, maybe even rivaled it for for number one, top status was about book distribution. And specifically, how do I get my book available to bookstores? Not how do I get my book into bookstores? Not how do I pitch my book to bookstores to have them carry it? But how do I make it available for them to stock? in stores?

Matt: Yeah, that's a good distinction. I think a lot of people still don't understand that their books won't be on bookstore shelves.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: So we do get that question too, but I think at somewhere like London Book Fair you're dealing with, you know, a slightly elevated understanding amongst authors that are there. And they understand that it's probably not going to be on bookstore shelves, but it needs to be available to the bookstores for either people who come in and want to order it, or for online ordering through their favorite bookstore, yeah.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: So we thought we'd talk about that a little bit today. We have –

Matt: Well, Lauren thought we would talk about that for a little bit today.

Lauren: Well, yes. Yes.

Matt: And I'm along for the ride.

Lauren: Yes you are.

Matt: Distribution is not my favorite topic.

Lauren: Well, at the end you can tell me whether or not this was better or worse than any of the screen simulation rides that you rode this weekend.

Matt: Okay, fair enough.

Lauren: Okay.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: But, yeah, you know, I just wanna – I want to right up at the top, kind of clarify that This is not an episode about how to pitch your book to retailers or bookstores

Matt: No.

Lauren: – or bookstores or whatever. We have done an episode on how to get your book into indie bookstores, and we have done an episode on how to get your book into libraries. I will link both of those in the show notes if you want to check those out. But this is more along the lines of the mechanics behind how do you make sure that it's available to them, before you go pitch them?

Matt: Yes, but even more so this is really about distribution itself.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: And the nuts and bolts of distribution. So that as an, as an author, as a creator, you're armed with all of the information you need to know to make the right choices when it comes time to publish that book.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Because it's, you know, as much as we are pro direct consumer sales, and we think everybody should be selling direct, you should still have your book in distribution. We're not going to argue that. And so you should understand the ins and outs of it and how to make it successfully available to retailers. But you know, to have it loaded properly into distribution in general is not just as easy as clicking one button. So that's what this is about.

Lauren: Right.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Right. And we are actually also the first kind of half of this as we walk through this is going to be just kind of a high level understanding of the process in general.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: For any type of book, whether it's traditionally published or indie published. And then like once we kind of establish what that framework looks like and how that works, then we can go specifically talk about what self-published authors need to do to get their books into that cycle.

Matt: Great. Can’t wait.

Lauren: Cool. Alright. So let's get into it.

Matt: Let's do that.

[9:40] –  Establishing the Basics of Book Distribution

Lauren: Just kind of to, to really set the scene, I want to make sure that we talk through, like, kind of the key players and the key elements of this. Because I do think one of the other issues that makes this confusing, and one of the reasons that a lot of people have a hard time fully grasping the idea of book distribution and how this works, is because there are a lot of different words and phrases that get used kind of interchangeably throughout the industry but are all talking about the same thing.

Matt: Well, and there's a lot of people involved too. And –

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: – especially if you're an indie creator, there's a lot of people involved in getting your book in distribution and available to retail outlets. Which means there's a lot of hands in the pot pulling money out every time you make a sale.

Lauren: That too.

Matt: So understanding who these key individuals are, players, will also help you potentially understand where your book is traveling to, how it's traveling there, and then why you're getting paid what you're getting paid at the end of a sale.

Lauren: And also not just the like taking money out or taking a cut of the royalties, but also the kind of gatekeeper part of it. Where there, there's a lot more – not necessarily quality control with stuff like this –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – but there are a lot more restrictions and regulations for books that are in retail distribution.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: That, you know, if – we've talked about this in other episodes, like for example, if you are publishing a coil bound workbook, that's not eligible for distribution. That's something that you'd have to either sell on the Lulu bookstore or sell direct. So.

Matt: And the reason why is...

Lauren: Because, because not everybody can print it that way.

Matt: That’s right. So the reason why certain products are not available in the wider distribution ecosystem is because when you go through a distributor, when you have your books running through Ingram or through Amazon – which is technically a retailer, but – Amazon also wants to print the content when it sells it. So. Ingram does the same thing. Regardless of who you run your, your book through, whether it's Lulu or Draft2Digital or, you know, any of those other aggregators or publishing platforms. If it's going, ultimately, to Ingram or Amazon when a sale takes place, they want to be the ones that print it. If they don't offer that product type, like coil bound, then they're not going to make it eligible for distribution, because they can't print it.

Lauren: Right.

Matt: So, that’s why.

Lauren: Well, and there's also – there's also a lot of requirements that are more along the lines of the, the customer experience as well. So like your book has to have a table of contents. If you're, if you're publishing a book in retail distribution.

Matt: Right.

Lauren: That is one of the requirements, that it has to have a table of contents. You don't need to have a table of contents to publish your book on the Lulu bookstore.

Matt: Right.

Lauren: But if you want it to go through retail distribution, that is that is necessary. And that's not necessarily to do with whether or not they can print the book. But that is, that is part of the quality control part. So there's a lot of different hands in the pot kind of every step along the way here.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: So we're going to try to boil it down as much as possible and give you just, like, the streamlined version. But there is a lot going on in this. So kind of the three three key players that you need to understand in this are the publisher, the retailer, and the distributor, and kind of understand the distinction between those. So the publisher: traditional publishing, it's, you know, your publisher, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, whatever higher level imprint is publishing your book for you. If you're self-published, Lulu or whatever other self-publishing platform that you're using for that.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Retailers: I feel like that's the one everyone already knows. Hopefully. And hopefully it's your favorite local indie bookstore.

Matt: Yeah, but this also includes, you know, online retailers.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: So Barnes & Noble.com, Amazon –

Lauren: Bookshop.org.

Matt: Bookshop.org. You know, any online source where you purchase books is also considered a retailer.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: In the publishing ecosystem.

Lauren: Yes, absolutely. And then your distributor, which is kind of a key, kind of a key point in all of this. The distributor is the middleman between the publisher and the retailer. The distributor is the organization that is delivering – distributing, perhaps, you might say – their books on behalf of the publishers, whether that's traditional publishers or indie publishers.

Matt: Yeah. And for most people, I mean, we're really talking about Ingram.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Most of the publishing ecosystem either distributes through Ingram or partners with them in some way or another, or Ingram supports their distribution channels. There are very few other standalone distributors in the world. There's a few, but for the most part, you know, distribution, especially in the US, is primarily through Ingram. They have the most retail relationships, the most libraries associated to their distribution channels. So, you know, most of the time we are talking about Ingram Content Group.

Lauren: Yes. And that that little tag you added on the end there is also a very important distinction that I want to make, because this is another thing that I think people get confused about. Because when we say Ingram they go oh IngramSpark. IngramSpark is a self-publishing company that is within the Ingram Content Group ecosystem. But Ingram Content Group, colloquially known as Ingram, is a much bigger –

Matt: Yes.

Lauren: – thing and a much bigger – And what that is is the probably the largest book distributor in the world. Definitely in the US.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: So when we are talking about, when we're like, throughout this episode or throughout any resources that you're seeing where you're talking about book distribution, Ingram is the distributor. Not to be confused with IngramSpark, the self-publishing platform that is owned by Ingram Content Group.

Matt: Yeah, if you want to reach the most amount of retail outlets possible, and libraries and other organizations worldwide, Ingram is your best bet.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Yes. And when you are distributing your books through Lulu, that's who we're distributing it through. So that's where that's going.

Matt: Yeah.

[16:36] – 4 Key Stages of the Distribution Cycle

Lauren: Alright, so. Talking through the actual cycle, the distribution cycle, the workflow.

Matt: Here's the fun stuff.

Lauren: This is the fun stuff. I'm, I'm loving this. It’s okay. I want to be so clear that when I say that this is, like, I've really narrowed this, this high level look as much as possible. I know that sounds like a contradiction, I narrowed down this high level look. But, like the, the first resource that I found that showed me a step by step breakdown of this workflow was nine steps long, and I cut it down to like four or five. So there are a lot of – understand that there are a lot of other, smaller steps within this, but I just wanted to do the high level, this is what you need to know.

Matt: Yeah. No, I think that's smart.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: And I think the very first one that you've got here is probably the most important, but it's also the one that people mess up the most.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: It's the genesis of whether or not your book will perform well in distribution, whether it’ll be found well. It is the, you know, kind of the epicenter of your discoverability. You have to get the metadata right, which is attached to your ISBN.

Lauren: Yes, yes. And that is absolutely... You can't do any of the rest of this without that. And that is something that people absolutely have to grasp. We've done whole episodes about this. We've talked about this. I will link resources in the show notes. A book doesn't exist in the retail distribution world, ecosystem, anything, until it has an ISBN attached to it.

Matt: Right.

Lauren: And now, depending on which solution you're going with or which publishing path you're going with, that might be the very first thing that happens. Or it might not be until the day that you hit publish on that book. I actually don't remember if this was in the final episode or not, but the, when we talked about Heated Rivalry, there – they massively leaked the announcement about the third book. They've, they've announced that there's going to be a third book in the series.

Matt: We did touch on that, yeah.

Lauren: Specifically. And that information was leaked before the announcement was officially published, because the metadata had been created and pushed out and people found the record online. So even though the, like, the book itself doesn't exist yet.

Matt: Right.

Lauren: But the publisher, because this is how traditional publishers, their workflow –

Matt: They go ahead and register the ISBN.

Lauren: Yes. They register the ISBN immediately.

Matt: And start loading the metadata.

Lauren: Yup. And the second that that got pushed out to distribution databases.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: It started showing up online and people found it and were like, oh my God. So.

Matt: Yeah, but there's a publication date that you fill out.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: So I wonder how that happened, yeah. So what we're talking about is when if you're going to register your own ISBN and you can go to Bowker and buy your own ISBN, if you don't want to use the free ones from Ingram or Lulu or Amazon or whoever. And when you do that, you're filling out all of the metadata fields. And it is, it's a bit daunting to say the least. I actually went back and redid mine like two times.

Lauren: Oh really?

Matt: Because I kept finding, you know, other things that, that helped me create better descriptions and things like that, which is really important for discoverability. But there is a publication date that you fill out. Where, you know, you say what date is this book going to be published on. And I wonder if, like, why would that get – maybe they put the wrong date in there? But –

Lauren: No –

Matt: – it seems like that metadata information shouldn't get published if the publication date is further into the future.

Lauren: Maybe that's true, and maybe there should be a better, like, catch-all for that. But that is also how... Any, any third party retailer that you can preorder books from, that’s the only way that you can do that, is because this metadata has already been pushed out. This, the book already exists in a catalog somewhere.

Matt: Oh, yeah.

Lauren: That record, that's the moment that your book starts to exist in the retail distribution ecosystem. In traditional publishing that is generally before the book has been published. In indie publishing or self-publishing it's usually after you – or it's usually when you hit publish and make your book live. So. But either way, that is, that is step one. That's how you kick off this whole cycle. That's how you get it started.

Matt: There's a lot of really cool tools out there that I've found that will help you optimize your metadata, which is really important. Like, the first time I just kind of breezed through it, and I filled out a bunch of stuff and left a bunch of stuff blank. And then I realized I shouldn't have done that, so I went back in and I redid it and resubmitted. I'm sure Bowker loves me. Although they probably have people that do this all the time. But there're some really great tools out there you can find – I'm not going to name any right now, but you can find them everywhere. That, that will help you generate, you know, better descriptions, and some of the other keywords and things that you're going to want to use, and how to choose better BISAC categories. Because there's a lot of stuff you have to fill out for that ISBN, and it's all really important.

Lauren: It is all really important. It's, it's absolutely essential. It's an essential part of this. It is something that you... it's worth taking the time to do it right. It's worth taking the time to be meticulous and make sure you're doing it right. It is also frequently one of the reasons that books get rejected from –

Matt: Yes.

Lauren: – retail distribution, is because there is an error within their metadata.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: So, you know, if that's, if you don't want to, if you don't want to go through the whole process of waiting and getting all the approval and doing all this only to have your book spit back at you because you spelled the author's name wrong in the metadata versus on the cover of the book...

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: You know? It's worth taking taking the time to do it right and making sure that you're doing it. Because it's also, now, step two of this process. That is how your book becomes discoverable to distributors. And it's not something that happens automatically. You still have to opt into it. Just because your book is, is immediately... like, just because you've created an ISBN and metadata –

Matt: Right.

Lauren: – for your book, you still have to, as a self-published author, actually like opt in to retail distribution.

Matt: You mean on your publishing platform of choice?

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Gotcha. Yeah.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Yeah. But your publishing platform should walk you through that.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: And that is part of the process.

Matt: Okay.

Lauren: For sure. But it's not something that like – just because you've created an ISBN –

Matt: Right.

Lauren: – all of a sudden Ingram is automatically generating –

Matt: Yeah. You, you have to still publish somewhere.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Yes. And I mean, even in the, even in the example of the, the Heated Rivalry book getting leaked. That's probably somebody’s, like, a monthly recurring task for them, that they batch create a bunch of metadata profiles for different books and publish them all at once to their distributor. And that's probably what happened there. But it's still something that somebody has to hit a button that says: submit this to the retail distributor.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: So that's step two. You have to actually manually go ahead and do that. Step three is the thing that we're not really going to talk about in this episode. And that's the fact that your bookstore or library or wherever it is that you want this book to be carried, has to be made aware of the book. This is for brick-and-mortar bookstores and retailers, specifically. For the online ones, usually as long as it's listed in the, the distributor, it will be available on their sites.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: But if you want your book to be carried in person in a bookstore, they're not, they're not just ordering every single book that shows up in the Ingram catalog.

Matt: No, it's, it's rare that your book will get on – I mean, again, we talk about this –

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: – in other episodes, so. Your book is not going to end up on the shelf at Barnes & Noble or Borders or one of your, your local, even indie shops.

Lauren: Well, it's definitely not gonna show up at Borders.

Matt: There are ways you can try to get in there. Yeah. I don't know why I said Borders.

Lauren: Because it's... I feel like it rolls, I feel like Barnes & Noble and Borders still rolls off the tongue for me.

Matt: You know what I was thinking about? There – so in Destin, Florida, there is a Books-a-Million. And it's a beautiful bookstore. It's the only one that I've seen in a long time. There used to be a ton of them.

Lauren: Books-a-Million?

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: And that's the only one that I know of, you know, anywhere really, at this point. I'm sure there are some others, but. I don't know why I was thinking, I was thinking of Books-a-Million, and for some reason I said Borders, but doesn't matter. Anyway, it's it's not going to show up on any of their shelves.

Lauren: Right.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Right. But that is you know, that is a necessarily part of the cycle, is that they have to be made aware that this book exists. And then they will go ahead and, hopefully, order it. But there are some, there are some details in there that are really the important thing of the – kind of the crux of this whole conversation. When your book store of choice becomes *aware that your book exists, they're going to go check their distributor database and see... oh, this author said they want us to carry their book. Or six different people have come in in the last week and asked if we carry this book in stock. So we're going to go ahead and order a couple copies for the store. And they're going to go to their distributor database, and they are going to search your book, and they're going to look for three things. They're going to look for whether it's available. So either in-stock or, if it's POD, that it's something that is actively in production.

Matt: Right.

Lauren: And available to be produced. They're going to look for the wholesale discount. And they're going to look for whether or not the book is returnable. And if they don't find your book, or if they don't find those three things meet their requirements, then the cycle stops there.

Matt: Now, that doesn't mean that you can't go in, to your local bookstore of choice, and special order of the book.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: If it's in the catalog for the distributor, Ingram, it is discoverable. The store can order it for you, special order. You'll prepay for it, then they're not so concerned about returnability necessarily, or things like that.

Lauren: That was – and that was exactly the case at the bookstore that I worked at. This was exactly what we would do. We would go, we literally like, had a desktop computer that had, permanently had Ingram Catalog open on it, and we would search the book in there. And if it was, for us, our wholesale discount requirement was 40% or higher, and then it had to be returnable for us to order it as a standard order.

Matt: Right, to stock it. Yeah.

Lauren: Yes. If it didn't meet those two requirements, but it was still available... Then we would take a special order.

Matt: Right.

Lauren: And it would be, you have to put a deposit down. You have to, like we're not, we're not taking a risk on you not coming back for this book.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Like, you have to actually commit to buying this book. And if you do we'll, we'll order it and we'll handle that. We'll take care of it. But – so it doesn't mean it's impossible. It just, it's just kind of a roadblock.

Matt: Yeah. But I just want to be clear. Your friends and family can go into a local bookstore and order your book.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah. Which, you know, once we do all that... I can't remember if I actually put. No, I didn't. Yeah. So that's it.

Matt: So you, you whittled all of that down to four steps?

Lauren: Yes I did.

Matt: Okay.

Lauren: I think step five was the book is delivered, which felt like a – I feel like that was, that didn't feel essential. It didn't feel necessary to include in here.

Matt: So create the metadata and the ISBN. That gets your book listed with the distributors. You're going to make sure that the bookstores are aware of the book, and that it is in a catalog for distributors.

Lauren: Yep.

Matt: And then step four was basically trying to get bookstores to order your book.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Okay.

Lauren: And making sure that it met their standard and requirements to do so.

Matt: Right. Okay.

Lauren: Yeah.

[28:53] – The Difference Between Self and Traditional Publishing

Matt: Alright. Is this the same for traditional publishing and self-publishing?

Lauren: That is a great question.

Matt: Or are there differences?

Lauren: So realistically the, the cycle is the same, yes. Where the differences are is how you get these things done. And who's responsible for getting them done. So in the traditional publishing workflow, the author doesn't really have to do any part of this. Except maybe, like, depending on how big or small their release is, they might have to do some networking with local bookstores or libraries. If they want their book to be carried somewhere that might not necessarily be on the publisher's radar, then they might have to do some of that legwork themselves. But other than that, all of the, the backend, the ISBN –

Matt: The administrative stuff.

Lauren: The administrative metadata stuff, pushing it out to the distributors, making sure it's listed and available and meeting all criteria, blah, blah, blah. That is all baked into the traditional publishing workflow.

Matt: Which is one of the benefits of traditional publishing.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Because they do this stuff so often, they are going to be way better at it than, you know, an indie publisher who maybe it's your first or second time around.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Because again, the stuff is so important for discoverability that there's a lot there. And it's easy to, to mess it up or miss it.

Lauren: Yeah. This is something that authors, self-published authors, mess up a lot. And I don't think that that's necessarily a reflection of experience, or whether or not you're doing things right. I think this is just, like there are a lot of steps to this, and there are a lot of different points throughout it where you can get rejected, or like if you miss this one small detail, you're going to have to go back and redo it and you might not notice that until you're several other steps down the line, or things like that. It's also something that for the most part, like you, you can just always go back and fix it and try again.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Like, you can resubmit a book. If your book gets rejected for retail distribution and you fix the things that need to be fixed, you can go back and resubmit it and try again.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: So it's just, you know, there's – it's a learning curve. It's a learning experience for sure. But the, probably the biggest difference between this process for self-published authors and traditionally published authors is that traditionally published authors have somebody else doing all the legwork for them. Self-published authors have to do all this themselves.

Matt: If you're a traditionally published author, though, does that guarantee that your book is going to be on the bookstore shelves?

Lauren: No.

Matt: Okay.

Lauren: Definitely not.

Matt: I guess yeah, it wouldn't. Because that means there’d be a whole heck of a lot more books in bookstores.

Lauren: Yeah. And I mean, don't – don't get me started down this rabbit hole. But probably my biggest complaint about the publishing industry right now is that it's just the same hundred books every – like, in every bookstore.

Matt: It does seem that – I mean, we go to a lot of –

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: – bookstores and yeah, in general, it does seem like it's mostly the same. I will say, you know, you'll find pockets of – like, when we were in London, obviously they, they stock, you know, slightly different, you know, titles based on genre. And, you know, you'll find different cover variations and things. But in general you do tend to see the same, you know, fifty to a hundred titles.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah. I think that's also one of the reasons why I like genre specific bookstores so much. Because they are more likely to have –

Matt: You see more from that genre?

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Versus just the, the top ten from that genre.

Lauren: Right.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Right. Like I love this trend of romance bookstores.

Matt: I bet.

Lauren: I mean, of course I do. But there also have, there have always been like, mystery bookstores, and sci fi fantasy bookstores, and stuff like that. And I, I love that. Because –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – those are the places that you're most likely to find indie published books or books that are not current or recent New York Times bestsellers. They've actually, like dug in a little bit and published more than just like the top ten most popular books –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – in this genre at any given time. So no, being traditionally published does not necessarily guarantee that your book will be, will be physically available in bookstores. But the other kind of key distinction here – that I don't want to get too far into, but this is a question that comes along with this question quite often – is that traditional publishers have sales reps.

Matt: Right.

Lauren: And self-publishers don't. So one of the questions – well.

Matt: Well, as a self-publisher, or as an indie publisher, you are your own sales rep.

Lauren: You are –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Yes. But you know, we don't have, like... one of the questions that gets asked very often in tandem with the question about retail distribution is does Lulu have an in-house team that is responsible for getting books placed in bookstores? And what they mean by that question is, do we have, do we have sales reps here? And the answer to that is no.

Matt: No. No self-publishing company does.

Lauren: No. But traditional publishers do.

Matt: Yes.

Lauren: And those are people whose whole job it is, is they have, they have ongoing long term relationships with the buyers at bookstores. And they will go, once a quarter, to these bookstores, or reach out to these buyers and say hey, here's a list of our upcoming titles, that... We think this title is going to be huge, and you should order twelve copies of this. You should, you should have a face out display of this, you should have an end cap display of this. You should buy three copies each of all their backlist titles, because this one's going to be so big that everyone's going to want the backlist too. That, that is a whole department of people at every publishing house – every traditionally publish – every traditional publishing company.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Words are hard. And so that is a part of this cycle that, that just doesn't exist – there is no self-publishing comparison to that.

Matt: Yeah. And in fact, if you have ever attended a show like London Book Fair or Frankfurt or some of the other bigger publishing shows, oftentimes the, the mass amounts of bodies that you see in a traditional publisher’s booth are sales reps. In many cases, they’re sales reps or marketing people whose job it is is to sell books.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Really.

Lauren: Yes. And it is. I think we've, we've talked about this in other episodes too, is one of the things that was kind of the most shocking to me when I was working at a traditional publisher and realizing how much influence the sales team had on the production and design of books. And it's, it's interesting to kind of see like that play out between the editorial teams and the sales teams.

Matt: Yeah, I mean, the editorial team just wants to create a good book.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: The sales team wants to sell a lot of books.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: So, you know.

Lauren: Yeah. That's kind of, kind of a key difference there. And there's really nothing that self-published authors can do about that.

[36:14] – What Self-Published Authors Can Do to Optimize Distribution

Lauren: But there are plenty of things that you can do to make sure that your book is situated in a way that it is available to retailers, so. I tried to put these in order, in like the order of how you're gonna – not order of importance, but like as you're going through the experience of publishing a book –

Matt: Chronological order.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Thank you, that's the word. So, you know, first and foremost, you need to make sure that whatever self-publishing, print-on-demand company that you're working with has a distribution option.

Matt: Like Lulu.

Lauren: Like Lulu, yes. Lulu does. But, you know... Amazon is not a distributor.

Matt: No, they're not.

Lauren: So, you know, that is something that, that you need to think about when you're –

Matt: They will –

Lauren: – publishing.

Matt: – distribute it to Amazon.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: That's it.

Lauren: Yes. So, you know, that – And then there's also, within that themselves, there's, there's different levels of customization and control within the publishing platforms. So some of them, whether like – assuming that they have distribution as an option – some of them, it's kind of just like baked in, it’s a default. And you don't really get to customize all that much about it. Which is great for you because you don't have to – like, it's automated. But it also means that you might necessarily – like, you might not necessarily be able to do things to make it more competitive for you?

Matt: You give up some control or some –

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: – some creative freedom there too.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: And for some people, that's not as important.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: And that's fine. And for others it's a deal breaker, at times.

Lauren: Yeah. So it's just, it's one of the many things that you need to, you know, use as a comparison point when you're looking into your different publishing options.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: And then kind of hand-in-hand with that is that you need to make sure that your book is eligible for retail distribution. And not just that your, your POD provider has it as an option, but the book that you're publishing with –

Matt: Right.

Lauren: – that company –

Matt: Which we touched on a little bit earlier.

Lauren: Yes. When you go on the Lulu website, you can see we actually have like, a little icon that denotes whether or not a format or a design choice is eligible for distribution.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: And if it does not have that icon next to it, then it's not. And you can't do it that way. Or you can, but then you can't do retail distribution for it. But then like I said earlier, there are also a bunch of other little requirements within there too that have nothing to do with the, the design choices of the book and are more along the lines of the metadata, the information that you have inside of it, the front matter, stuff like that.

Matt: Yeah, so those are typically reasons for rejection. The first step of the actual binding types, you know, cover types, things like that, printing types and methods, that will either prohibit you or allow you to go into distribution to begin with.

Lauren: Right.

Matt: But you may get through the entire publishing process, let's say on Lulu, click the button, and then two days later get a rejection notice. And that's because, like you said, there was something maybe on the interior file, like lack of a table of contents or something else, where they said, no, this doesn't meet our criteria. So it gets kicked back and you have to adjust it.

Lauren: We're not – in this episode, we're not going to get really into how to do this specifically on Lulu.

Matt: Right.

Lauren: But we have plenty of resources that walk you through that step by step. And I will link all those in the show notes. And one of the articles that will be in there is a list of common reasons that your book will get rejected from retail distribution, and a list of requirements –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – for what your book needs to have in order to be eligible for distribution. So, you know, if you want to be proactive and try to avoid getting the rejection the first time around, check those lists before you start the process. You're also – we talked about this already, a little bit, too – you're going to want to make sure that your book metadata is thorough and accurate.

Matt: Yes.

Lauren: And that it meets all the necessary requirements, that it has all the necessary information.

Matt: Now, the thing that you have to be careful about is they will accept your metadata. So Ingram, for example, your metadata doesn't have to be fully complete. There are some required fields, obviously. But there's nothing that's going to help you ascertain whether or not you've put the best possible description you can put in there. And whether or not you've chosen the best possible BISAC categories for your book to get maximum discoverability. They're just going to say, did you pick three? Great. Did you fill out a description? Great. Does your title match, you know, the actual interior file? Great. But again, I would encourage you to fill out all the fields that you can, and potentially use one of these tools that I mentioned. Like, go out there and Google, you know, there are plenty of tools that will help you optimize the best metadata and descriptions and keyword choices and BISAC categories to give you the ultimate shot at discoverability.

Lauren: And this is something that is not just relevant to retail distribution. We've talked about this, we did the episode on –

Matt: That's fair.

Lauren: – maximizing discoverability –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – with generative AI search.

Matt: That's true.

Lauren: And we talked a ton about the value of metadata in that episode. I'll link that in the show notes if you don't recall or haven't listened to that one. But this is something that is not, it's not just a valuable part of the process if you're interested in retail distribution. There are a lot of reasons why you should take the time to be accurate, thorough, and meticulous with your metadata.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Which is also, if you're going to take all that time and you're going to do all this, you definitely want to make sure that your book is actively in distribution. I would highly discourage you from going to pitch your book to a bookstore, and talk and go through all the process of convincing them that they should carry it, and then after the fact you find out that it's not available. Because you messed something up, or it's not actively listed in distribution yet, or you misunderstood that.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Because they're not, they're not going to go back and do it again.

Matt: More than likely not.

Lauren: So.

Matt: Unless they are just really nice.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: And they just really like you for some reason.

Lauren: I mean, like, yeah, unless you're like a really good salesman and you really pitched it so hard that like, the person you pitched it to is personally invested in. Which, never say never. But...

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: You know. But yeah, you definitely want to make sure that, that you've confirmed that it is actively in retail distribution, that it has been accepted for that. You can do that by searching your ISBN in Ingram's catalog, if you have access to that. Or you can even just, if you, if you can't access that, go on Bookshop.org and search your ISBN.

Matt: I went to Barnes & Noble.com to, just to search mine and that's how I, you know.

Lauren: Yeah, that's, that's usually – well and that was, you know, back to the Heated Rivalry thing. When the first one of my friends texted me like, oh my God, I saw this on Reddit, have you seen this? Is it true? The the first thing that I did when he texted me was I took the ISBN from the screenshot that he sent, and I searched it on Barnes & Noble.com, and I searched it on Bookshop.org. Because that's, that's where it shows up immediately –

Matt: You’re such a nerd.

Lauren: – is on those retailer sites. Okay, but I was right. So.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: It's fine. Whatever. Look, I have a very, I have a very niche set of skills, and when – on the rare occasion that my weird knowledge of how the publishing industry works come in handy outside of work. I'm not going to, I'm not going to turn down that opportunity to show off my knowledge.

Matt: Okay.

Lauren: But yeah. So that's, that's, that's a quick and easy way for you to check that for yourself, is to do that. And then kind of – I mean, if I was, if I was putting this list in priority order and not in chronological order. This, this is step that would have been number one in priority order. This, this next one.

Matt: Why?

Lauren: Because first of all, this is, this is probably the number one reason that authors fail in this effort, is that they don't do this part correctly. And that it's, it's also – it's what I said earlier, was the roadblock. Where like, it all – even if it, you've done everything right until now. This is where it can all fall apart. And that is making sure that you have set your wholesale discount. And if you have control over it, your returnability and availability. Those are, those are so important. They're so important. Like, unfortunately that is the reality. Because as much as we all love to believe that, that everybody in this industry is here for the love of books and the love of storytelling and the love of craft, and a really, really dedicated bookseller at a really good bookstore will, will care more about the content of your book than anything else... The reality of it is, is that these bookstores, even the ones that do care truly, truly and deeply about the books, they also need to be making money in order to stay alive.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: So bookstores are not going to carry books that they're not going to make a profit off of.

Matt: I don't understand why the distributors don't just require a certain percentage, instead of giving you the the power to choose.

Lauren: That is actually a great question.

Matt: I mean, there's so many resources out there that tell you, yeah, you really should offer at least 40% or higher discount. But they should just say, okay, listen, it's 45%. If you're not going to 45%, we're not gonna, we're not going to offer your books to the bookstores, because they're not going to make any money, and we're not going to make any money.

Lauren: Right.

Matt: You know? But, you have the freedom to choose. But it sounds like the sweet spot is at least 40% or higher. So.

Lauren: As far as I know 40% is still the standard. Like that's the default. It might, it might be a higher discount. But 40 to 55, I think, is the recommendation. And what we mean by that is that the, the retail price of your book needs to be priced at least 40% higher than the production cost plus the distribution fees of your book. So if it costs, if your, if your – this is not how it works, but think about it this way. If a bookstore is buying your book – because a book, that's, that is how they're getting these from the distributors, they are buying them.

Matt: Right, but let's also be clear. If your retail price is 40% higher than the distribution cost and the production cost, and you're offering the 40% discount to the bookstore, you're making zero loss of that. So yes, it needs to –

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: If you're offering a 40% discount or a wholesale price, your retail price, if you want to make any money, should be at least 50% higher.

Lauren: That’s fair.

Matt: But nonetheless, the math is if you're offering 40% it, it needs to at least be 40% higher than the production cost, plus the retail or the distribution costs.

Lauren: Right.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Right. Well, I mean, if you're thinking about it in terms of like, I'm selling my book direct on my website and I'm already making 100% of the profits on that.

Matt: Right.

Lauren: And I just really want my book to be available in indie bookstores, I want people to be able to get it that way. So I don't really care about making a profit because the, the $0.75 profit that I'm going to make on that book is, you know, quite literally pennies compared to what I'm making on the books that I have that I'm selling direct from my bookstore. So in that case, it's not really a priority. Like 40% is fine. I'm just trying to make it as attractive as possible to the bookstores so that they have less of a –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – reason to say no.

Matt: In marketing, it's an awareness play.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Like, you're just trying to get your name out there, so. Yeah.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: The profitability comes from selling direct. The awareness comes from being in bookstores or in their online catalogs or, you know, in a marketplace like Amazon or something like that. Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: I would agree with that.

Lauren: Yes. But, but that is, that's the number one reason that people find themselves hitting a wall with something like this, is that they have not correctly set up their discount for wholesale distribution. Or they have not priced their book correctly. And so that is something that you need to be like, really paying attention to when you're doing it.

Matt: Yeah. If you are wanting to make a profit off of your bookstore sales, then you definitely need to price it higher than the 40% discount.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Yeah, that makes sense.

Lauren: And, and don't forget that piece where it's the distribution fee as well, it's not just – because there is, you know, the distributors will take a cut –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – then too.

Matt: Of course.

Lauren: So, if you're, you know, again, if you're using Lulu, we do have a calculator built in where you can see that breakdown.

Matt: Yep.

Lauren: And it'll tell you exactly, you know, you say what profit you want to make on your book, and it'll do the math for you and tell you, okay, this is what you should list it as.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: And you can see the breakdown of who’s getting –

Matt: I think IngramSpark does too.

Lauren: Well, I haven't been on their website recently for that, that particular detail, but I have been on ours, so.

[49:59] – Episode Recap 

Lauren: I think that's the whole... Did I miss anything? I could do another hour.

Matt: My brain is pretty much fried.

Lauren: I know.

Matt: So I'd like to say no, you didn't. Because typically that much distribution conversation leaves me in the state that I'm in right now. I think we talked about all the important things, the ISBNs and how they're assigned and the metadata that goes along with them and how important that is. We talked about some of the steps as a, as an indie author on how to get through the distribution process. And, you know, at the tail end of it, making sure that the book is actually available before you go and make an ass out of yourself pitching it to a retail store and it's unavailable. We talked about the importance of a wholesale discount, making sure your book is returnable. We did talk about the difference between a publisher, a retailer, and a distribution chain. Yeah. I think we covered most of the stuff.

Lauren: Okay.

Matt: You know, the great thing is those once you get your book into distribution, you've done it. It's there. And then all you got to worry about is just talking about your book, marketing it, you know what I mean? Let those, those channels do their thing and rely on them for discoverability. Drive all new traffic to your website for direct sales, and you're, you've gone fully wide. You've done it. So you can, you can breathe a little bit, but it's getting through the distribution process. It takes a little bit of attention to detail, and a little bit of persistence. But once you're done, it's good.

Lauren: If it's something that is a priority to you, it's worth doing. It's... the question is whether or not it's a priority to you. Because I do think that we are, we are finding ourselves more and more in an environment where people are less concerned about stuff like this. Like, I was a little taken aback by like, the first few people that asked me about this when we were at London Book Fair. I like, I kind of had to like, recalibrate a little bit. Because I was like, oh yeah, I forgot this is a thing that people cared about.

Matt: Yeah. I think that, you know, again, you know, we tend to straddle the creator worlds and the indie author worlds. And then, to a degree, publishing in general as a, as a business, as Lulu. So there are pockets where people don't really care about distribution or showing up on Amazon or, you know, Barnes & Noble .com. Or even necessarily being in a local bookstore, but. Then yeah, there's – obviously there's those other areas where people do care about that, and making sure that they're armed with, you know, the right information. Because again, if you get it wrong, it can go horribly wrong.

Lauren: Right.

Matt: But if you get it right, like. You're good to go. You don't have to worry about it again, so.

Lauren: Right.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah. So So –

Matt: I think you achieved your goal.

Lauren: I hope so.

[52:49] – Episode Wrap Up

Lauren: But did I achieve my goal in being less boring than the worst ride that you went on at Universal?

Matt: That's a close call. That’s a very close call.

Lauren: What was the worst ride you went on at Universal?

Matt: Honestly... Probably the Fast & Furious one.

Lauren: Did you go on the Transformers one?

Matt: No, no no. The wait was too long, and at that particular park, by that point in the day, we were like, it's on to the next. Let's go. But as you would guess, the wait for the Fast & Furious ride was not that long. And we learned why.

Lauren: It’s okay, was this – was this episode more or less painful than the Fast & Furious –

Matt: Are you asking me, would I rather ride that ride again or sit through this episode? That's a toss up. I would probably almost rather sit through this episode.

Lauren: Okay, I'll take it.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: You know, maybe we could have it playing on the cars. On the ride vehicles in the Fast & Furious ride.

Matt: Yeah, that was one of those simulator ones. And it was –

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: – it was, it was... it was something. I'll, I'll leave it at that.

Lauren: Well, you know, that's fine. Oddly, I have a hard time picturing you on any kind of ride except the Haunted Mansion.

Matt: I do like rides. Yes. I love, you know, more than Haunted Mansion.

Lauren: I mean realistically you must.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Like, obviously, but like.

Matt: But I'm also like you. I mean, I could spend days on Disney property, not get on a single ride, and I'm still completely –

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: – content and happy. So, you know.

Lauren: Well, I mean like, I also, I just – I also have a hard time placing you... like, on any Disney World transportation. Like in my head you just teleport from whatever hotel you're staying at directly into a park. Like, I just have a very hard time picturing you standing on one of the busses, and then going through the security process, and then going through the turnstile... like, you just go straight from –

Matt: I wish.

Lauren: I mean, who doesn't?

Matt: Yeah, I wish I could skip all that. Yeah, I don't know.

Lauren: Well, I'm glad I didn't bore you to tears, or at least make you wish you were riding the Fast & Furious ride.

Matt: I don't think anybody wishes they were riding it, but I don't know.

Lauren: Well, if you are still listening to this episode and, and you hated it more than the worst ride that you've ever been on, then I'm not sure why you're still listening, but I appreciate it all the same.

Matt: Oh, leave us a comment on the worst ride you've ever been on.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: I'd be interested to know that.

Lauren: Yes. Or the best.

Matt: Or the best.

Lauren: I'd like that too. But I'm also really entertained by the idea of the worst ride that you've ever been on.

Matt: Same.

Lauren: So.

Matt: Same.

Lauren: Yeah. Please, please do. And any day now this is going to just turn fully into a theme park podcast, so. We'll see. But in the meantime, I promise we will come back next week with another new episode that is about the publishing industry and books and selling books and marketing books and something in that, in that wheelhouse. And not about what ride at Universal Matt hated the least or the most.

Matt: Good.

Lauren: Until then, thanks for listening. Thanks for tuning in. Please like and subscribe. Hey, if you are, somebody that listens on Spotify, we have video up on Spotify now.

Matt: Yay.

Lauren: So, let us know how you feel about that. Definitely a learning curve there. So if you're, you're hating it, let me know. But, if you're liking it, let us know too.

Matt: Yep.

Lauren: And then tune in next week for another new episode. Thanks for listening.

Matt: Later.