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In this newsletter, I talk about some interesting news on the book distribution front and present my holiday book sale. I’ll explain how book pricing works, and give a preview of things to come for my own work.

​Holiday book sale

My books are distributed by IngramSpark and they’ve just announced a “Buy direct from the distributor” service. This allows the publisher/author to bypass the middleman (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc . . .) and sell directly to the customer. It’s terrific for holiday sales and saves you—the valued customer—money by cutting out the middleman.

I’ll explain how book pricing works in a minute, but first, here’s my Buy Direct Sale:

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Just in time for the Holidays! My short story collections, A Betrayal & Other Stories and Blister & Other Stories, are 40% off if ordered directly from the distributor. Sale runs until December 31. Both of these handsome books make terrific stocking stuffers.

A Betrayal & Other Stories:

​https://shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?params=5SueoUU6OHCprHtq3tJJZugnBKdZYLVVMaSujajoMiV​

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Blister & Other Stories:

​https://shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?params=xO0gUdtkuzotdor2EYg2zRH3Mpu8nOmkdDLB7AGypTA​

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And lest I forget, the second edition of my Publishers-Weekly-shortlisted-for-the-Booklife-Prize novel, The Astronomer, is available now, direct from the publisher:

​https://whiskeytit.com/product/the-astronomer/​

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Note: These are the latest editions (meaning that any typos/grammatical boo-boos have been cleaned up).
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How book pricing works

Publishers select books, prepare books for publication, and publicize them. Distributors print books and sell them to retailers. Retailers sell books to consumers.

Let me explain how book pricing works by giving an example. Say you want to buy a book that sells for $20 on Amazon. Retailers (Amazon in this case) expect a 55% discount on books they purchase from a distributor. That’s a lot, but if they don’t get a 55% discount, they might not stock the book, and they certainly won’t promote it.
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So the $20 book that’s being sold on Amazon cost them $9 (that’s why they’re able to offer “discounts” and still make money). The distributor takes $5 of that $20 book for printing costs leaving the publisher with $4 ($20 - $11 (after 55% discount) - $5 (after printing costs)). The author typically gets 8% royalties off of the $20 list price, that is, the author is making $1.60 from that $20 book. The publisher gets what remains, $2.40 in this example. (Progressive publishers, bless their hearts, offer 50% royalties of the net price, the price after discount and manufacturing costs, which means that the author and publisher each get $2 ($4/2)). You can see why nobody is getting rich here.

In reality, it’s more complicated. Libraries typically pay twice as much because of circulation issues. Independent bookstores offer a plethora of wonderful services that the big retailers don’t provide, all of which costs the independents money and makes them vulnerable to undercutting since they can’t match big box retailer’s discounts (which the big boxers are only happy to offer since they’re trying to put the independents out of business).

As you can see, it’s a rough world out there.

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​This Month’s quote

This month’s quote is one of my favorites:

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
​―Marcus Tullius Cicero

Truer words were never spoken.

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What’s coming up?

The long awaited audiobook version of The Astronomer should be out in time for the holidays. Narrated by me, I tried to narrate it in a relaxed, informal tone, like one of my bookstore readings.

Early next year, I hope to have an announcement about my next novel, Floating On Air. This is a more traditional novel (compared to The Astronomer). On the surface it’s about a young woman searching for love and meaning in a world where nothing is as it seems, but it’s also about the birth, life, and death of the human race. Stay tuned.

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That’s all for now

Thanks for reading and hit me up with questions/comments anytime (simply reply to this email). I’ll do my best to respond quickly. And feel free to forward this email to anyone who you think might enjoy my writing.

You can access my newsletters anytime, as well as a page with links to some of my favorite sites.

Best,
​Brian​
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