I love a bookshop. Be that bookshop a large Waterstones or some other major chain, or a small independent book store, a dusty little second hand books shop, or a huge second hand book shop in a disused railway station. I love a bookshop. The picture below is from Waterstones Bradford, which is a particularly pretty one

I would, as I am sure you can imagine, love to have my books in bookshops. This is why despite been self published I have them signed up for extended distribution which means your local independent bookshop, or indeed waterstones, can stock my books… they don’t, but they can. You can however walk to your local bookshop, ask them to order a copy of my book for you and they will most likely will. I understand why many readers would prefer to do that, and support their local bookshop, rather than by from The Big River Company. Equally many prefer to buy from specialized book websites, as they view them in much the same way as they view independent book stores. The little guy punching upwards against the big corporation…. I have been known to do this myself. As I am no more fond of The Big River Company than anyone else, however there is a dichotomy here, and one many readers are probably unaware of.

If I am buying an independently publish book, published through The Big River Company, I always buy them from The Big River Company. This stands true even if I know the author and could buy from them directly. The reason I don’t buy indie books, published through The Big River Company, from book shops is because of the way expended distribution works for the authors. While buying from independent bookshops is a good thing, and if you are buying the latest Lee Child that’s exactly where you should buy from. Authors published through Amazon get a much smaller royalty share from a book id it is purchase from a bookshop. This is because the bookshops profit margin has to come from somewhere and where it comes from is out of the writers royalties.

For example, Buy a print copy Cider Lane (my first novel) from amazon and I make around £2.00 in royalties, which will be paid to me 3 months later. If you order and buy the same book from a bookshop, I will instead get about 12 pence in royalties (or about 5% of what I would get through an amazon sale), six months later…

There are ways around this with local shops. I could take a number of authors copies, and ask some local bookshops if they are interested in stocking them. The bookshop would however want at least 40% of the cover price. Print costs and shipping would account for another 40% and so I would make a couple of quid, if a book sells, provided I invoice the bookshop, which will pay me 60 days after the invoice. Any books that don’t sell I will have to go back and collect or they will bin them. Even if that was practical for more than a couple of shops, economically it would as ridiculous as buying a stock of books to sell at conventions, without any of the fun of working a convention and meeting readers at them.

As I have said on many an occasion, I do not make my living through my writing, it is a vocation not a hobby, but it is not how the mortgage gets paid. That is the only reason I have extended distribution, because I don’t care about the money, and some people will only buy from a bookshop because they despise Amazon. But if you want to buy books in part to support indie authors, frankly they are better off if you buy them from The Big River Company. Not only in terms of sales but in terms of amazon ratings and reviews for authors which we need to find a wider audience. And while books don’t pay my bills, they do go towards paying the bills of plenty of indie authors. This is not about me.

A while ago I opened a bookshop page on this blog, as it seemed a way to offer people books without people needing to have an amazon account, but that has become increasingly uneconomic because of postal costs. Frankly if someone orders a book form my directly what normally happens is I buy a copy on amazon and get it posted to them. Because I get free shipping so it works out cheaper for them.

I love bookshops, I find it hard to walk past one, they have a lure that never fails to entrap me. I will always support them. But when it comes to indie books I will still buy from Amazon because it is just better for the indie authors I seek to support that I do so.