Brent Sampson: CEO of Book Publishing & Marketing Firm OutskirtsPress.com

Yesterday I posted the 2011 version of the About Us page that appeared on our self-publishing website. It contained the “About Us” story through 2010. As 2011 came to an end, we needed a new version for 2012, which continued the story of our company and our successfully published authors through 2011.  Consolidating 10 years of achievements and milestones into one page was becoming laborious (to read), so with this version, we shorted it considerably. Here’s the new version:

Ten years ago, Outskirts Press was founded by author Brent Sampson in 2002 as a result of his personal frustrations with getting published. Outskirts Press incorporated in Colorado in 2003, and through strategic partnerships with companies like Writer’s Digest, Outskirts Press quickly became the fastest-growing full-service book publishing and book marketing firm.

The years between 2004 and 2006 marked a growth rate in excess of 1,500%, an amazing accomplishment that was publicized in July 2007 by The Denver Business Journal when Outskirts Press was recognized as the 3rd fastest-growing privately held company in Colorado.  By the end of 2006, Outskirts Press already had nearly 1,000 books in print,  all of them available worldwide through Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble online, among others. And by the end of 2007, Outskirts Press had more than doubled its title totals again.

In 2008 The Denver Business Journal recognized Outskirts Press for the second year in a row as the fastest-growing publisher, and in fact, the fastest-growing privately held small-to-medium sized company in Colorado (in any industry), boasting growth of over 500% for the years between 2005-2007.

2009 and 2010 marked more new milestones, as well. In 2009 Outskirts Press published its 5,000th title and became the only self-publishing company to appear on the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing privately held companies.

And in 2010, and again in 2011, Outskirts Press repeated its appearance on the Inc. 5000 twice more, and became the only self-publishing company to appear on the list of top 5,000 fastest growing businesses in America for three years in a row.

So how does Outskirts Press remain the fastest-growing full-service publishing provider?

• It begins with our Mission Statement: To exceed the expectations of every author we help publish.
• It continues with our commitment to conservationism and recycling. Our most popular book sizes offer a recycled paper-stock option, featuring 30% post-consumer.
• It grows with our authors.  Just ask Gang Chen, who earned over $100,000 in 180 days; or Sally Shields, the stay-at-home mom-turned-2-time Amazon.com bestseller; or Ronnie Lee, who has become one of the most prolific published authors of our generation with the assistance of Outskirts Press.

As we look toward the future, our commitment to produce high-quality books and offer high levels of support to our authors in all three phases of their journey (writing, publishing, marketing), only grows stronger.

For instance, we have embraced digital e-books with three a la carte digital publishing options:

• The Amazon Kindle
• The Barnes & Noble NOOK
• The Apple iPad

 We have embraced social media to help our authors further promote their books:

• Our author community on Facebook grew ten-fold in the past year
• Our author videos on YouTube number in the hundreds
• Our company blog continually keeps our authors informed

And, we practice what we preach, publishing our own series of books to help authors navigate the sometimes tricky waters of book publishing and offering free publication in various anthologies through the year to showcase how easy, fast, and fun it can be to publish with Outskirts Press.

• Self-Publishing Simplified
• The Highly Effective Habits of Five Successful Authors
• Fandemonium, the Facebook Anthology

Through it all, Outskirts Press authors have remained our main focal point. With over 8,200 published titles, Outskirts Press continues to pour development dollars and resources into further improvements to the Outskirts Press website and its growing list of writing, publishing, and marketing services/products to further support our authors’goals and dreams.

What does success mean to you? By any measure, you will find it here with Outskirts Press and we look forward to helping you on that journey.

Many of us, and some of our family members, took a moment during our July 4th picnic, to pose…

Over the last couple of weeks we have held two different Web 2.0 polls on our Outskirts Press blog. The first poll asked our community of authors, readers, and industry professionals what new option we should introduce from among three choices: An Author App for the iPhone, a “Featured Book-of-the-Week” option, and a Social Media Market Research option that allows authors to leverage the same polling process for their creative purposes (to determine the best cover to use, the best title, the best ending, etc.). It was a close race between the Featured Book-of-the-Week and the Market Research, with Market Research gaining a victory.

As a result of the poll results, we immediately went to work creating the option and launched it live on our site late last week. Since it is primarily intended for authors to gain market research insights regarding the production decisions for their book, the option is currently only a pre-production option available exclusively for our authors, but in time, we may open it up to ALL authors, as we are starting to do with many of our options. We’ll soon have the first of hopefully many Author Polls appearing on our blog for our community to participate in.

I’ll discuss the results of the other poll tomorrow…

A couple weeks ago I started a new series on this blog with the purpose of helping our authors get featured on our free self-publishing app for the iPhone 4 (available for free download by clicking here).  While that was the specific goal of the series of postings, in more general terms, my advice (and the advice I will continue to provide this week) extends to all authors from all publishers who are interested in securing a little more “attention” from their publisher.

You see, the self-publishing industry is BIG, and there are only a handful of self-publishing firms handling the vast majority of self-published books.  Now that publishing is so easy, getting exposure for your book after publication becomes one of the major hurdles self-publishing authors face. The degree to which you have an opportunity to get ANY exposure for your book depends upon the self-publishing company you choose. Some, like Outskirts Press, offer a lot of opportunities. Others don’t offer any; they’re done with you the moment your book is published.

The blog series a couple of weeks ago discussed 6 different ways our authors can receive exposure for their books on our blog, which would also result in being featured in our iPhone app.   The “Blog” section is just one section of the app. There are three others:  Authors, Videos, and Twitter.  I will discuss those opportunities this week, beginning with the “Authors” section tomorrow.

Sorry for the delay in updating. I had a bit of a medical situation when I was in New York.

Speaking of New York, I participated in two panels for writers last weekend. One was on all things “social networking” related and another one covered the topic of book promotion.  On both panels, we (me and the other panelists) had the opportunity to answer questions from the audience.  To benefit those who were unable to attend, I’ll report on some of the information that was shared on the panels along with some of the questions we fielded (and the answers, of course).

At the book promotion panel, the first question we received was this – perhaps a bit paraphrased: “You’ve thrown a lot of information at us. It’s all a little overwhelming. If we only had the time/money/resources/interest in doing ONE of the things you suggested, what would you recommend doing first?”  

All three of the panelists and the moderator agreed upon the answer: You should have a website or a blog, not unlike this one.    Most blogs can effectively act as an author website as long as you’ve added a widget or some other form of functionality to sell your book from it.   Outside of that, as long as your book is sold on Amazon, your Amazon “sales page” can act as your website and accept book sales for you.  Amazon’s sales page also posts reviews of your book and can broadcast your blog if you have one — by setting that up through your Author Central account, which I’m positive I’ve blogged about in the past.

The good news is, between your Amazon sales page and WordPress.com or Blogger.com, it is relatively easy and free to get started on the right path toward book promotion.  The only cost is time.  Blogging takes commitment.  But it is also the one thing all the panelists agreed upon was the first most important thing you should do to promote a published book. Blog consistently, professionally, and respectfully. After all, you’re building your author platform, here.

I’ll talk about other things we covered on the panels in New York in future posts, along with more Facebook stuff as I promised.

I’m becoming a believer in this “Facebook phenomenon.” Only recently has Outskirts Press actively engaged the “social community” in terms of Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, YouTube, and the rest. Even though it sounds like I’m mindlessly jumping on the bandwagon when I say this, I’ll say it anyway: It has shown immediate dividends.

Sure, we’ve been “blogging” for a number of years; but to successfully engage the promise of “Web 2.0,” companies need to embrace the multiple platforms and entertwine them.

Yes, we as a company have a long way to go on all those platforms. It’s an on-going exercise that requires quite a lot of effort, actually. For example, thanks to our Kindle giveaway in December and our Facebook Anthology project in January, we are seeing large increases to our Facebook Community, and we will continue to offer our community more promotions and incentives to become involved. It is wonderful that these people are all supportive of each other and positive in general. 

And perhaps that is one of the main reasons Facebook is so popular.  People there are nice and respectful.  Isn’t that a refreshing change of pace from other “locales” on the internet where anonymity allows people to be rude, spiteful, argumentative, and sometimes downright jerks? Amazingly even those who aren’t anonymous often choose to show their true colors daily, a la Russell Hantz on the TV show Survivor.  Every comment to a Yahoo article ridicules something; many bloggers seem to believe the only opinion they’re allowed to have is a negative one; and forums are filled with such pervasive confrontation they’ve actually coined a term for it: flame war.

And yet on Facebook, people are supportive of one another, kind, giving of their time and knowledge, and respectful.   This never became more obvious to me than it did a few days ago on my birthday (January 19th).  Current friends, old high school and college friends, relatives, Outskirts associates, and Outskirts authors all took a moment to wish me “Happy Birthday” on Facebook.  So did my wife, since I was on a business trip that day.

Why is Facebook popular? Because Facebook makes people feel good. It makes them feel liked, popular, and as if they are a part of something bigger than themselves. 

This doesn’t seem to be a happy accident, either. Facebook appears to have been designed with that specific purpose. Unlike other “voting” mechanisms on other sites (“thumbs up vs thumbs down” on many sites or the 1 star thru 5 star rating on Amazon, for example), Facebook only has a “Like” option.   It doesn’t give you the opportunity to dislike something or to be mean, even if that is your intent.   The “meanest” thing you can do is NOT vote .  And that’s probably not very satisfying for mean people. As a result, they don’t get involved.  Facebook stays a happy place while the rest of the Internet continues to revel in its own misery. Win-win.

 It just so happens I’ll be talking more about Facebook and other social networking opportunities for writers the day after tomorrow at the Writer’s Digest Conference in Manhattan.  But I thought I’d give another sneak peek here first. And I’ll be discussing more about Facebook in upcoming posts, too.

As the author of Sell Your Book on Amazon, I speak at quite a few conferences, seminars, and writing groups on the subject of online book marketing. And since I am also the CEO of Outskirts Press, it is probably no surprise that one of the most common questions I am asked while at these events is why should an author publish with Outskirts Press rather than directly through Amazon.

When I am in-person and in “speaker mode” I strive to provide impartial advice and information, and I also strive to be very diplomatic. In other words, I prefer to not specifically answer questions that cannot help but shine a negative light on a competitor. That’s not my goal at events; my goal at events is to impart as much information about publishing and marketing that I can.

But on my blog, I don’t have to be quite so diplomatic.  The very short, glib answer to that question is, “You get what you pay for” and this is true in all areas concerning customer service and quality of the final product itself.   There is a reason Outskirts Press is called “full-service” and Amazon is called “DIY” (do it yourself).

But the answer is actually more complicated than that.

For one, many authors are, for some reason, under the delusion that publishing through Amazon is the only way to get their book listed for sale on Amazon.  This is due, in no small part, to a devious tactic Amazon undertook in 2008 to instill this very fear into new authors.  That exercise failed, yet the misconception lingers on.  Please allow me to officially dispel the myth.  Just about every self-publishing firm out there will get your book listed on Amazon.com.  I can’t think of one that doesn’t, although I can think of a few who accomplish this goal by using Amazon’s own Advantage Program, and that’s kind of silly — but that’s a topic for a different post, and I outline the silliness in my book.

I’ve even heard that Amazon’s customer service publishing reps will strongly imply this myth while courting new authors.  Do not be deceived; it is simply untrue.  All of us in self-publishing recognize the value of having our books listed on Amazon, and we’ve all made sure that our books appear on Amazon.

Ironically, this Amazon myth is perhaps also Amazon’s greatest weakness.  Up until the middle of 2010, if you published through Amazon, your book would ONLY appear on Amazon (and AbeBooks, if you really care).  Barnes & Noble? No.  Borders.com? No.  Books a Million? No?  Ingram, the largest book wholesaler in the US? Not on your life.

And, in fact even now, if you conduct a search on BookFinder.com for a book published by Amazon and compare it against a book published by just about any other self-publishing company (like Outskirts Press, for instance), you will see the major disadvantage to publishing through Amazon.  Hint:  Amazon doesn’t want anyone else selling books. Ergo, books published through Amazon typically receive far less availability. In other words, by and large, they are still only available on Amazon.

Let’s look at some proof.

The first screen shot below is for a book that Amazon published that I found by conducting a search on Amazon. I tried to select two books that had comparable retail prices to make this comparison fair. This book is titled Pocket Guide to the HCG Protocol with an ISBN of 978-1442152663 if you want to play along yourself at http://bookfinder.com  — Bookfinder displays all the online e-retail results for an ISBN search.

You will notice the Amazon book’s distribution is limited to 4 new sales channels (the left-column), although the first two are both the US version of Amazon, so it’s hard to count those differently. The right-column is for used markets, and there are 14, although 9 of those are Amazon.com, also. So if you count Amazon as just one, you’re looking at a total of 8 unique sales channels for this book published by Amazon.

For comparison, let’s look at my book Sell Your Book on Amazon, published by Outskirts Press. Its ISBN is 978-1432701963 for those who want to play along at http://bookfinder.com.

The Outskirts Press book’s distribution has 19 new sales channels (the left-column), of which 6 are Amazon. Interestingly, only the Outskirts Press book has new book distribution through Amazon’s own international sites (Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de).  The right-column is for used markets, and there are 43.  Yes, yes,  Amazon plays a large role here, too. In fact, ironically again, Amazon’s presence for this Outskirts Press book is even greater than its presence for its own book, but with Outskirts Press, that presence does not jeopardize distribution through other book markets.   Perhaps even more impressive is that this isn’t even a comprehensive list, since I know for a fact my book is also on Barnes & Noble and BAMM.com, among others not found by Bookfinder. So if you still only count Amazon.com as one single source, that leaves a total of over 50 unique sales channels.

Books published by Amazon: 8 unique sales channels.

Books published by Outskirts Press: 50 unique sales channels.

You can do the math.

Speaking of math, numbers (royalties, etc.) are another good reason authors choose Outskirts Press over Amazon (and other) publishers. And I’ll discuss that next time.

With a 99% author satisfaction rate, Outskirts Press faces 1 or 2 complaints a month from our published authors. That’s bound to happen, statistically, when you publish books by roughly 150 different authors a month.  So I thought over the next few posts, I would address the Top 5 “Outskirts Press Complaints” that arise, along with what leads to those complaints and what Outskirts Press does–and is doing–to mitigate similar complaints in the future.

It is my hope that by discussing these complaints with transparency that future Outskirts Press authors will be more familiar with issues that have caught an author off-guard in the past.  Because, ultimately, that is what a “complaint” is — catching a client/customer off-guard.   I’m a writer. I love helping writers. So I hate receiving complaints, and we take steps to receive as few complaints as possible, which is difficult given the emotionally-charged nature of this industry in general.

These complaints will not be presented in order from “greatest number of complaints received” to “least number of complaints received” because that implies that the #1 issue has received many more complaints than the #5 complaint. That may not be the case. In fact, I actually had to stretch to come up with 5, but who’s ever heard of a “Top 4″ list? In reality, the number of all these complaints is statistically low.

I’ve numbered them 1-5 for the purposes of identifying them in the blog headline, and I will discuss each of these Outskirts Press complaints alphabetically over the next 5 postings.

Outskirts Press Complaint #1: Annual Storage Fees

These fees fall under different names, depending upon the firm. Some call them annual fees, or storage fees. Others call them maintenance fees or distribution fees.  No one likes paying fees, but especially no one likes paying fees when they don’t know why.   Here’s why many self-publishing firms charge an annual fee.

All print-on-demand self-publishing firms that distribute via Ingram are charged an annual fee by Ingram for every book uploaded into Ingram’s POD/distribution system. This system is what allows a book to be printed on demand, and what allows a published book to appear in Ingram’s database so it shows up on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble’s website (among many others).  The amount self-publishing firms pay for each title depends upon how many total titles the self-publishing firms have published.

There are self-publishing firms that pass along this cost to their authors transparently (clearly), and there are self-publishing firms that pass along this cost to their authors subversively (hidden).  Outskirts Press passes along this annual fee transparently, meaning we disclose this cost up front.  It’s mentioned on our website and in our Agreement. We bill for it clearly every January.  Outskirts Press is among only a handful of self-publishing companies that pay 100% of the profits of the book to the author, and as such, there is very little opportunity to “hide” this storage fee from the author.    The other firms that also pay 100% royalties to their author also charge this annual storage fee transparently for the same reason we do– the author’s profits cannot go towards the fee because the author’s profits go to the author.

On the other hand, self-publishing firms that pay 80%, 50%, 35%, and yes, even 20% of the profit to the author obviously have no need to charge an annual storage fee because they are getting much more from the authors by taking so much of the book’s profit. What’s even more troubling with this procedure is that successful authors with these firms are subsidizing unsuccessful authors.  A successful author’s profits are being used not only to pay her own fee, but the fees of an author whose own book sales don’t cover the firm’s annual costs. Ouch.

Our blog at blog.outskirtspress.com discussed this topic at some length back in 2009 and you can read the specific posting here.

Outskirts Press Kudos #1

To offset the tone of these 5 postings about Outskirts Press complaints, I figured I would also include a comment from one of our published authors at the bottom of each posting. We receive so many positive comments each month that we rarely have a “place” to put them all, so by adding some to my blog, we’ll create another opportunity for our authors’wonderful success stories to be shared.  We post many more testimonials on our website here every month.

“When I came to Outskirts Press I had a story I needed to tell. Joan took that story and turned it into an incredible book! She walked me through each step with unbelievable patience, explaining every detail along the way. She gave me accurate timelines throughout the process. Joan went above and beyond anything I ever expected or imagined possible. My book wouldn’t be what it is if not for her unbelievable effort and attention to detail. I can’t thank Joan or Outskirts Press enough!” – Glenn Skinner

In the category of “You can’t believe everything you read on the Internet” have been my past several postings about what I call the Google Scam, or more officially, the “Google Suggestions” functionality. In previous postings I displayed some screen shots that indicate that, according to Google’s new functionality, everything on the Internet is a scam. Regardless of whether your Google search involves Inc. 500 #1 company Ambit Energy, bottled water, chiropractors, Google, Zappos, or even Outskirts Press, scam display results in Google are misleading.

No need to describe it yet again (this posting does a good job of it), but my previous several postings about apparent “scams” on the Internet caused me to mention a recent correspondence I had with one of our new authors.  Even with our 99% satisfaction rate at Outskirts Press,  I touch base with all of our new authors to see if things are going smoothly with their self-publishing process and if I can do anything to assist them.

One of our recent authors mentioned “negative stuff” on the Internet when I reached out to her:

So I replied:

Hi Catherine,

You’re right, the Internet is a double-edged sword. It is filled with valuable and useful information.  It is also so unregulated that anyone, with any opinion, can post anything they want without repercussion, no matter how inaccurate it is. If it would help comfort you, I would be happy to provide my perspective on the “negative stuff,” if you feel like sharing the exact location of what you are referring to.

I’m happy to hear things are going smoothly. Thank you for saying “hello.” We look forward to working with you.

Sincerely,

Brent

Her response in turn:

Hi Brent -
 
And you are exactly right – it’s our responsibility to sift through the unedited information, weigh what may be behind it and make our own decisions, listening to our inner feelings. If we don’t, we’re just sheep being led.   I look forward to working with you, also.

Catherine

—

Hi Catherine,

 I couldn’t have said it better myself. Say, with your permission, would you mind if I posted this email exchange on my blog?

 Sincerely,

Brent

Brent -  No problem….permission granted.    Catherine

And there you have it. The system works.   In spite of Google’s attempt to display controversial, irrelevant information, most people are knowledgeable enough to know that there are two sides to every story; one does not simply believe everything one reads on the Internet without thinking for one’s self.     And for those who do…. Well, maybe you don’t want them for clients anyway.

As I continue this discussion of the new Google Suggestions and “Google Instant” functionality, particularly as it relates to its rubber-necking tendency to reward controversial searches like “scam”  (see the previous  post for a refresher), it presents an opportunity to remind new customers investigating online business that all too often, the perception is worse than the reality.  A high number of “scam” results in Google  may not mean what it implies.  For instance, in many cases, the Google Search results may simply be locating questions from consumers about whether or not a business is a scam.   The answers may be to the contrary, and yet Google still displays the page, which in turn causes an undeserved negative perception. 

Along the same lines, in the case of Outskirts Press, for instance,  some of the books we have published have various scams as their subject matter; so those books appear in the results, yet it takes additional investigation on the part of the Google searcher to separate those realities from the perceptions.

So a customer/consumer/client must first determine, really… how big of a “scam” is it, based upon the Google results.

That said, here are 3 things a consumer/customer/client can do when investigating an online business to truly determine the relevancy/accuracy of any such “scam” claims that they may run across thanks to Google’s new search functionality.

1)  Determine the source of the controversial or negative websites/blogs.

More often than not, the source is not reliable. Outskirts Press, for instance, is a part of a fiercely competitive industry without much regulation or policies.  As a result, the competitive environment is ruthless, savvy, sometimes unethical, and even downright nasty.   The same can be said for many other industries.  So if you, as a potential customer are looking up a business on the Internet and  run into a blog posting or a website claiming Business XYZ is a “scam” or in some other way not on the up-and-up, then it is up to you to determine if the source of that information is truly impartial, or whether they have ulterior motives.   You’d be surprised how many businesses post inaccurate, unsavory, or maliciously libelous statements about their competitors behind the anonymity of  blogs or in the name of journalism.  Due diligence is essential.

2) Look at the date of the information

Information posted on the Internet is available for a loooong time… and yet it is easy to assume everything you read on the Internet is timely. Don’t be fooled. You may be looking at information that is 3, 4, 5 or more years old.  It may no longer be relevant or even accurate (if it ever was).  Always look at the date information was initially posted to make a better assessment of its relevancy to your search.  

And speaking of being fooled, be extra cautious of information posted on April 1.  “April Fool’s Day” has earned its namesake in the Internet age, with desperate marketers using the date as justification for posting false, fraudulent, and libelous claims.  A competitor of Outskirts Press, for example, once distributed a press release on April Fool’s Day claiming that the Library of Congress needed to add another wing to accommodate the vast quantity of books being published by said competitor.  Another company in our industry (this one not so much a competitor of Outskirts Press) claimed to have reached a deal with J.K. Rowling for the ebook rights to Harry Potter.   Were both these press releases clever?  Of course they were.  But they muddy the waters in an already misunderstood industry and ultimately confuse the end customer/consumer/client (or author in this case), who may not realize that such a press release is a “joke.”     Separating the facts from the falsities is hard enough on the Internet; companies don’t have to make it even harder one day out of the year.

3) Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet

With a 99% satisfaction rate,  all of us at Outskirts Press take great pride in our services and our books.  But when you publish 150 books a month, that leaves 1.5 authors, on average, who are less than satisfied.   That’s incredible in an industry with so much emotion and “artistic fervor” at stake, yet we constantly add additional procedures to improve our satisfaction rate even further. For instance, I am now personally touching base with every new Outskirts Press author who starts publishing with us, just to see how things are going and if there is anything I need to do to make their publishing process more enjoyable.  One such correspondence I had recently with an author touched specifically on the subject of not believing everything you read on the Internet, and it seems appropriate to share that correspondence in its entirety, and I’ll do that next time…

The solution to the wholesale/retail bookstore issue I discussed in the last posting was to combine both bookstores into one single store, and that is what we did with the launch of Version 4.0 of the Outskirts Press website.  We retained both URL links to the store but focus mostly on just promoting a single one: outskirtspress.com/bookstore

For example, this is the URL that appears at the end of most of our book videos, driving potential customers to the online store where they can get the book from the video they just watched on YouTube.

Now the retail store and wholesale store act in concert with one another seamlessly, by offering a tiered discount structure to the customer depending upon the quantity of books he/she buys.   In fact, even retail orders of just 1 book receive a discount. After all, we save money by not having to sell that book through Ingram & Amazon; why not pass that savings on to the book buyer?  The author still receives their full royalty in any case.

Retail orders are defined by quantity purchases of 1-9 copies of a single book.  For those purchases, the bookstore automatically applies a 10% discount to the retail price.  I discussed a bit about this and the reasoning behind it in some of my June posts.

Wholesale orders are defined by quantity purchases of 10 copies or more.  For those purchases, the bookstore automatically applies whatever trade discount the author set during their publishing process.  The majority of our discounts range between 25% – 50%, but in some cases authors elect to set a 55% trade discount on their book. Whatever price plan the author selected is the discount available to retailers, wholesalers, or customers who purchase those books direct from Outskirts Press at outskirtspress.com/bookstore in quantities of 10 or more.   

This is advantageous to everyone involved. The retailer gets a better margin than if they ordered from Ingram and the author still gets their full royalty.   In fact, at industry-standard 55% trade discounts, retailers are accustomed to just 40% margins, since Ingram often takes 15%.  But by removing Ingram from the equation, our authors can offer retailers a better deal, which incentivizes more retailers into ordering our authors’books.

These discounts are reflected dynamically on the bookstore detail pages for every book in an effort to incentivize customers to order more quantities, too. In fact, we’ve had authors order OTHER authors’books at wholesale prices when they knew they were going to be attending a major book event, because anytime you buy low and sell high you have a profit-generating opportunity.

The changes worked. Both retail and wholesale bookstore orders increased substantially with the introduction of the new Outskirts Press direct bookstore.

In fact, the downside is that some of our authors became a little confused.  Getting up to a 55% discount on books ordered through the Outskirts Press bookstore sounds so good, some of our authors have purchased their own copies from the store when, in fact, they get an even better discount within their own publishing center.  As a result, our IT department added an “alert” that triggers if the bookstore recognizes an author purchasing their own book from the bookstore instead of from their Publishing Center. 

We’re using similar alerts to notify authors and potential authors of the discounts they can receive on our a la carte writing and marketing services if they elect to publish with Outskirts Press. But that’s a topic for a future post.