Newsletter: Me To You
In which Karl Drinkwater reveals one of his secret projects ...
The Store Experiment
When a book is sold, the author gets a cut of the sale price. For a £10 paperback a trade-published author might receive £0.70 per copy sold. An independent author would get a bit more. The rest goes to publishers, printers, distributors. It’s a similar story with other formats. For example, if an ebook is sold for £6 then a traditionally published author might receive £1.50 per sale if they have a very good contract. For an independent author the figure would be more like £4.20. (Independent authors get far higher royalties, but they have to pay for editing, cover design and distribution themselves, as an investment in the book.)
One of the themes discussed among authors in the last few years is about the different ways to go direct. This is the idea of cutting out middlemen where possible. As you may know, I left social media behind, and now communicate through my newsletter (and additional posts for paid subscribers). So, in a way, this is a more direct means of communication. I go straight to your email inbox. You can reply to me and I’ll read your email in return.
Selling is not such a simple proposition, but it is possible. And when an author sells a book directly, they cut out some of the intermediaries and more of your money goes directly to the author. Yay, I say! And once more, yay!
So I am doing an experiment. I have set up a new website, which has the potential to sell direct to fans. Ebooks and audiobooks were fairly easy. But I can also experiment with print books, and other items. For now I have only added one book - Lost Solace - as a proof of concept. It’s a brand new site, so I have yet to put it through its paces, but it should already work for selling variations of the book, both digital and physical. If someone orders a paperback, then it gets printed and shipped to them from the nearest site (US or UK), if I have set everything up correctly. It’s pretty complicated to integrate different tools and service providers, but it has a lot of potential for being the first port of call for everything related to Karl Drinkwater!
Feel free to have a look and let me know what you think. Also note that I have created a hardback version of Lost Solace. There have never been hardbacks of the Lost Solace books, so this is a first! It has a brand new cover as well, to distinguish it from the paperback. If I decide to keep the site then there are many exciting things I could do in the future, such as special limited editions of the books, maybe even including colour images inside. Like the Lost Solace hardback, they won’t be available anywhere else.
If the feedback is good, and I decide to make it my new website, then my plan is to gradually introduce my full catalogue of books. And for each one to have a hardback version, and perhaps an apopropriate clothing item or other goodie. We’ll see.
Note that this will just be an additional option: you’ll still be able to buy my ebooks from online stores and paperbacks from any bookshop. (But they won’t be able to sell the lovely hardbacks, they’ll be exclusive to my website!)
Personal News
Dolly has had a bit of a setback recently, and it seems that her diabetes has returned. As such we’re injecting her with insulin twice a day. I hate doing it (needle phobia), but she is very understanding and forgives us. Her next check-up is tomorrow, so please keep your fingers crossed that her blood sugar readings go down to safe levels.
Best of luck with your new website, book sales, and to Dolly.