Where your book is sold
Once your book is published, you want people to be able to find and buy it. Luckily, this doesn't mean filling a warehouse with boxes of books then trying to work out where to send them all. When you publish with us at Wordzworth, we make your title available through the major print-on-demand platforms. This means it goes out via Ingram's huge distribution network as well as Amazon KDP specifically. In addition, we offer a dedicated sales page on the Wordzworth website. Together, this means your book is made available across the US, UK, Europe, Australia and further afield.
Ingram is your route into the book trade
Ingram is easily the biggest POD distributor in the world. Your book gets listed in their catalog and it can now be ordered into over 40,000 bookstores, libraries and retailers across nearly 150 countries. Obviously, that doesn't mean all those places will choose to stock every book, but if they want to, the route is already there.
In the UK, this includes places like Waterstones, Foyles and Blackwell, plus a wholesale feed via Gardners to supply independent bookshops and libraries. In the US, Ingram makes titles available to places like Barnes & Noble and Walmart.com, with libraries covered through its own ordering network. In Canada, that includes Chapters/Indigo. And in Australia, books can feed through to places like Booktopia, Dymocks, Fishpond and other retailers.
Amazon KDP
You can send a book to Amazon through Ingram too. But this is not the best route. Amazon will often show POD books with long lead times, out of stock or unavailable. Unless they are POD from within the Amazon KDP platform. In which case they will typically be shown as in stock, with fast dispatch and eligible for Prime. So if you consider Amazon to be one of your major sales platforms (and let's face it, who doesn't?) then the title must also be released directly through Amazon KDP. We do this all for you, handling different file setups across a completely different platform and just running it all in parallel with your Ingram launch.
Your Wordzworth sales page
We give your book its own dedicated sales page on our website. This shows your cover, all the formats available, your book description and author bio, with a nice clear button for someone to buy it. Once your title is in distribution, we send you your own personal link. You can then add it to social media, emails, your own website or anywhere else you're talking about the book. It's especially handy around launch time, when some of the other retailer listings can still take a week or two to settle down properly in terms of availability.
Selling through your own website
If you already have your own website then that's a very obvious place you want people to be able to buy your book from. But you don't want to be turning it into a bookshop with all the plumbing and tech behind it. Most authors tend to add a simple buy button linking to Amazon or Barnes & Noble, or link to their Wordzworth sales page. Let somebody else deal with all the payment and fulfilment so you don't have to.
If you really wish to sell copies yourself then you can. But keep in mind this also means taking payments, buying stock, packing parcels and arranging delivery. If you already sell other things through your website that might be fine, but for most people linking through to an existing sales page is just much easier.
Getting into local stores
If you want to see your book sold at a particular "bricks and mortar" bookshop then the easiest route is usually through the book trade. As your title is listed through Ingram, most stores can simply order copies through their supplier catalog.
But what if the ideal place for your book isn't a traditional bookshop at all? Maybe it's a local history book that's perfect for a gift shop, or a walking guide that you want in a visitor center. In these cases, you can buy author copies and supply them directly yourself, often on what's called a 'consignment' basis. You and the retailer simply agree what they will sell the book for, what margin they keep and when they pay you for the copies sold.
Publishing today really does not mean you need to buy stacks of books, find somewhere to put them and work out how to sell them. Between Ingram, Amazon KDP, your own sales page and website, your title can be made available across the main places readers are likely to look for it without you holding any stock whatsoever.
And if all of that sounds like the sort of thing you'd rather not spend your time learning, that's exactly why we do it for you. Getting everything set up and keeping the different platforms working together is all part of our book publishing services.