Episode 180
Do you want to reach library readers? Erin Wright is here to help us understand how libraries buy books (ebooks, audio and print), what formats libraries prefer, and how to let libraries know about our books.
Author Website:
💜 🎙 Become a supporter of the podcast! We can’t wait to give you a shoutout in a future episode. WishIdKnownForWriters.com/Support
Time Stamps:
Transcript:
Sara Rosett [00:00:25]:
Welcome to the wish I’d known, then. Podcast. I’m Sara Rosett.
Jami Albright [00:00:28]:
And I’m Jamie albright. And this week on the show, we have Erin Wright. Yes, and we have her again, but it’s not a rerun, it’s a new podcast. We’re going to talk about libraries, or we talked about libraries with her and how to get in and just kind of demystifying the process a little bit, because it is a little confusing.
Sara Rosett [00:00:52]:
It’s very different from just selling to readers directly or through a store. She talks about the ways to get into libraries and how to let libraries know how to get your ebooks, audiobooks and print books into libraries, what formats libraries like, and how to let libraries know about you and your books. Because that’s kind of the… discovery again. That seems to be the issue, that’s what we’re trying to all figure out is discovery.
Jami Albright [00:01:24]:
I think I’m going to have Discoverability tattooed on my behind. That’s what I’m thinking. That doesn’t seem like a very good place to do it, does it? If I want to be discovered?
Sara Rosett [00:01:38]:
Maybe somewhere else.
Jami Albright [00:01:39]:
Maybe somewhere else.
Sara Rosett [00:01:41]:
It’s kind of a metaphor for our problems, for Discoverability.
Jami Albright [00:01:49]:
Anyway, what’s been going on with you?
Sara Rosett [00:01:52]:
Not a lot. I’ve been getting the final touches on the Kickstarter and I’ve had a thought. I’ve been researching it, so I want to know if anybody else has done this. Has anybody used shopify to fulfill their Kickstarter? Because I’m going I have a store, I have the ability to do all that. So I’m researching it and I think it can be done. I’m just having a hard time finding details on how to do it. Not that I need to know it right now, but I do want to know if it’s a possibility.
Jami Albright [00:02:20]:
Yeah, that sounds interesting.
Sara Rosett [00:02:22]:
Yeah. So then that way, because, like, last time, I had to put everything in Kickstarter and then I put everything in again into backer kit. And then I was thinking, this time, if I’m going to put everything on my website, then I got to upload it all to my website, each product. So I see. Maybe I could just do it all on shopify and that would simplify things. So if you’ve done that, let me know. You could post in the group or get in touch with us, send me an email or something and you can dig into that. So been working on that. And my other bit of news I was going to try and remember to talk about is I watched the extraordinary attorney Wu. I started watching that.
Jami Albright [00:03:03]:
No, but I’ve heard about it.
Sara Rosett [00:03:06]:
Yeah. So I think it was Ines who mentioned it and recommended it. So I started watching that, and I really am liking it. I’ve never watched the K dramas, but I think I’m about to go down A big, deep rabbit hole.
Jami Albright [00:03:24]:
It’s very you know, there’s some days that I’m like, oh, yeah, give me some good subtitles. And then there are other days I’m like, I want to scroll my phone and listen to this TV show or movie.
Sara Rosett [00:03:37]:
Sometimes I’m like, I just can’t do that today. I don’t want to work that hard. I need to find a show in English.
Jami Albright [00:03:42]:
Yeah, I know.
Sara Rosett [00:03:49]:
Anyway, what about you? What’s going on for you?
Jami Albright [00:03:51]:
Not much, not much. Just still plugging along, trying to ride a little bit every day and Yeah, that’s it. I don’t really have a whole lot of news. We just recorded the last intro a few days ago, so I’m pretty boring, so I don’t really have much. We can get on with the show and Erin because she’s got some amazing information.
Sara Rosett [00:04:18]:
Okay, well, we will do that. Here is Erin.
Well, today we are really happy to have Erin Wright with us for the second time.Jami Albright [00:04:26]:
Welcome back, Erin.
Erin Wright [00:04:28]:
Thank you.
Sara Rosett [00:04:30]:
We had so much to talk about last time. We’ve asked Erin to come back and talk about libraries and a little bit about her marketing that she’s doing for her books. So let me read her bio, and then we will get into the questions. Erin Wright is a full time contemporary Western romance author, but unless you’re a fan of sexy cowboys, you’ve probably heard of her instead because of her work in Wide for the Win Facebook group, she conned Susie O’Connell close writing friend and fellow cowboy romance author into co founding the Facebook group back in March of 2019 and has been avoiding writing books by posting in the group ever since.
Erin Wright [00:05:08]:
There’s so much truth in that.
Jami Albright [00:05:11]:
Well, Erin, tell us what’s the most important lesson you’ve learned recently?
Erin Wright [00:05:17]:
Oh, wow. You all just like to start out with the easy stuff, don’t you?
Jami Albright [00:05:25]:
Yeah, we just knock you right out of the park right there.
Erin Wright [00:05:30]:
So it’s really funny because very recently, within the last week, I have been starting to realize that again. I come to this realization regularly, and then I sort of forget because apparently I have memory issues, but that I really need to start prioritizing writing because it is very easy for me to put off writing and post in groups or teach classes or be on podcasts. And I love all of it. I love helping people. I love having that light bulb moment. But at the same time, I really do need to write my own books. I have not released a book since April of 2021, which is definitely not a release schedule that I recommend to anybody. And so at least part of it for me is megan actually said this the other day on her podcast, but it’s the tyranny of the urgent where something is on fire and so I have to go put that thing out. My writing isn’t on fire.
Jami Albright [00:06:47]:
Literally and figuratively, if you’re like me.
Erin Wright [00:06:55]:
I’m trying to reset again and I’ve tried this before. Like I said, I have a hard time sticking with it because there is that element of urgency. But I genuinely just need to be writing every morning before I get into other things. And then I at least have some sort of progress towards the book, even if it’s not as much as I thought that I wanted to get done, because it never is. At least it’s something. And if I had been writing something every day for the last two and a half years, I would have at least a couple of books out.
Sara Rosett [00:07:32]:
Yeah, you’d at least have a book or two. It’s so hard though, because it’s so easy to put that on the back burner because you’ve got all this other stuff that must be done this week or today.
Erin Wright [00:07:41]:
Exactly.
Jami Albright [00:07:42]:
Well, like we were talking about just before we got on, you’re a helper, and I am too, and that’s more fun sometimes than writing a book. Yeah, it’s more satisfying because I’m also number one activator. So if I sit down with a client and we go through a consultation and we see those light bulb moments, then I get off the call thinking I’ve accomplished something and the book writing, I don’t accomplish anything until I finish the book in my warped thinking. And so it’s very hard.
Erin Wright [00:08:25]:
Absolutely. A number two helper in the Enneagram profile, if anybody wasn’t sure what that’s referring to.
Jami Albright [00:08:34]:
But yeah, I’m number one.
Erin Wright [00:08:36]:
Yeah, I’m a very strong helper, the number two in the Enneagram because that’s what makes my heart happy. Since I was a little kid, I wanted to be a teacher. I would line up my dolls and I would teach my dolls and that sort of thing. Right. I actually was a teacher there for a bit and I thought when I left the teaching world that I was just going to be an author and I didn’t think that I was going to be getting back into teaching and then now I’ve sort of married the two together. But one of the parts of those partnership is definitely large and in control and the other half is kind of fall under the wayside at points. Yeah, that’s something I’m working on.
Jami Albright [00:09:25]:
Yeah, that’s a great lesson.
Sara Rosett [00:09:30]:
Yeah, I think that’s a lot of. People will be able to identify with that. Definitely. Well, has your business model changed recently?
Do you still have the same business model you started out with? Have things shifted?
Erin Wright [00:09:42]:
You mean in terms of teaching people or in terms of writing?
Sara Rosett [00:09:46]:
Just your writing? Because I think a lot of people get into writing like they’re going to be a writer all the time, that’s going to be their full time job. And then sometimes their mindset shifts and they do different things.
Erin Wright [00:09:59]:
Yeah. I obviously am not putting out books fast enough, but I am lucky in the regard that I have a fairly diverse catalog where the topics of the books, it’s fiction, it’s all in One World, Long Valley, they’re all Western romances, they’re very focused in that way. But I have a lot of different formats, right? So I have my ebooks and then I have my print books and then I have my audiobooks and I have translations. So at least I have diversity in that regard. And then obviously, of course, I’m on all the different platforms, of course, so that really helps. But I’ve also realized that not everyone is driven to teach and not everyone is good at teaching, and that is a skill that I possess. I just naturally am good at teaching and so I can really help people in that regard. So then I’ve started using the information that I get from the writing world to teach and help other people. And like I said, that’s been taking over sometimes a lot of times, but I have been able to make a really big difference in the author community. I feel like maybe I’m deluding myself. There’s always that.
Sara Rosett [00:11:43]:
No, I think that’s probably the truth.
Erin Wright [00:11:47]:
But by running or helping lead the wide movement and letting people realize that this is a valid strategy to publish and be successful on my platforms, I’ve been able to make a difference in that regard and that means a lot to me. So but I have started at first I was just doing the wide for the women Facebook group and then I started doing one on one consultations and then I’ve now added on classes because there’s just not enough hours in the day for me to teach everybody right now. If you went to my consultation calendar, I believe the next opening is either in December or January. And I get people all the time who are like, I’m begging you, just like, put me in and I will pay you. And I’m just like there is really just only one of me. You have no idea how hard this is for the number two helper over here to be like, I can’t help you right now, but I can’t. Science is letting me down. There’s no duplication machine. I guess I’ve been diversifying in terms of the teaching part of things. By trying to teach these classes, maybe I can help more people all at the same time rather than.
Jami Albright [00:13:12]:
I love that. That’s wise. I think that’s a wise choice for you, especially given your strengths and talents. I think that’s great that you’re doing that.
Tell me, how do you view mistakes and how do you recover when things go wrong?
Erin Wright [00:13:37]:
How do I view mistakes honestly. I mean, I always get frustrated. I don’t know anybody who’s like, I made a mistake today. This is awesome. But I also don’t tend to I don’t honestly get that depressed or driven down by it because I’m naturally a very optimistic, positive kind of a person. And so I’m like, well, that sucked. That wasn’t fun. But I did learn XYZ from it, so I guess there was that. And then I just sort of moved forward. I don’t know. I don’t get sucked down into negativity.
Jami Albright [00:14:30]:
Ines Johnson will tell you that she fails fast. Like, she is one of those people that she’s like, yes, now I have the data. We were talking about this at lunch at Inkerscon and I was listening to her. I said, I hear the words you’re saying. They just don’t make sense in my head. And she’s like, what do you do? And I was like, oh, well, there’s a period of self loathing that I have to work through and it can last a while. And she just looked at me like I was nuts. She was like, why do you worry about and I’m like, because I fail. And I have a bad view of failing. I know that. But yeah, so most of us are like, me, I think, right?
Erin Wright [00:15:19]:
And I feel like I’m more kind of in the middle. I don’t go through long phases of self loathing, but I am also not like, the best thing ever. I just failed. But I’m like, all, hey, I I learned something from that. Don’t do that.
Sara Rosett [00:15:38]:
Yeah, that’s really important when you can kind of reframe it, even if you start out. I’m more like, Jami start out, oh, I made a mistake. But if we can reframe it in our minds and go, okay, we’ve learned something, so it’s a good thing. It takes a while, though, to get.
Erin Wright [00:15:50]:
To that know, it’s really interesting because for anybody who’s a Clifton strengths super fan, like I am in terms of stuff, yeah, I’m number four positivity. So I’m naturally hardwired to look at the positive things and be like, okay, well, I mean, that kind of sucked, but we’ll go forward. And I always find it interesting to talk to people who don’t have a natural inclination to just bounce back because you genuinely have to fight for that. And for me, I will literally say this evening, I’m kind of in a bad mood by morning. By the time I wake up, I’ll be fine again. And I will be like, I’ll wake up the next morning and it’s like a reset button. Now I’m just like, back to being fine again. But it’s not like I’m like, oh, I’ve worked so hard to make this happen. It’s literally just baked into my personality. So I don’t feel like I have not had to strive to make that happen. And I really have a lot of respect for people who are not naturally optimistic and still pull themselves back from bad things happening because that’s genuinely very difficult. It would be like me learning another language, which I absolutely suck at. I cannot speak other languages. I’ve tried I can’t even tell you how many other languages I tried to learn. It does not make sense to my brain. English, I only speak it half the time anyway. There’s things that you’re just naturally good at, and there’s things that you just naturally not.
Sara Rosett [00:17:40]:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense too.
Jami Albright [00:17:43]:
Right?
Sara Rosett [00:17:44]:
Well, this is a weird transition. I can’t figure out how to transition from that into libraries, but we’re going. To go that way because we wanted to have you back to talk about libraries.
So tell us a little bit about your background working with libraries and kind of what you’ve done with libraries in the past.
Erin Wright [00:18:04]:
Well, I will help you make that transition more smooth. I got fired from the only time I’ve ever been fired in my life. I was a library director for 18 months, and I got fired.
Jami Albright [00:18:16]:
Well, there you go.
Erin Wright [00:18:17]:
And that put me into a funk that lasted more than one night, I promise, because it just made me question my self worth of, like, what happened? I am not somebody who gets fired. I’m an overachiever. And it just really made me question, like, there’s something wrong with me as a human being. I am screwed up. A lot of it was just being in a small town, and they hired me. I was an outsider. They told me they wanted me to make all these changes, and I was naive enough to go, oh, okay, and make all the changes without necessarily realizing that small towns are a little bit change averse and risk adverse. And I was sort of dragging the library along behind me, and the library board didn’t, despite telling me this is what they wanted me to do at every single board meeting. They were then like, well, I mean, did you really have to do that, though? And I’m like, yes. This is what you guys wanted me to do, right? I’m really confused right now. And then I ended up getting fired for it. So that’s fun. I had to go to therapy for that one. That really messed with my brain. But I am now back in the library world, and I’m the chairman of the local library board for the town that I now live in. So I eventually got back to the point of like, I can still love libraries, even though I had this really traumatic experience, which hashtag, thank you, Positivity. Let’s see. So I started working in libraries as a cert clerk. So if anybody listening has worked in libraries, it’s a circulation desk, which is that desk. You walk in the front and you check books in and out. That was where I started, was just checking books in and out for patrons. And went really well. Super enjoyed it. And then my boss moved on to another job and I applied and I got her job and I was now the circulation manager. So I was managing the schedules for a large group of employees. And I used to joke that my job title was to get yelled at if anything bad ever happened. They were like, let’s go get Erin. And I’m like, thanks. So it was my job to get yelled at there for a while, and then I applied for and got hired as the library director in another town. And I was there for 18 months before I got fired. And so I spent a total of seven years in the library world and so fairly significant time spent there. And I love the idea of libraries the equalization of access in our society and the knowledge that is contained inside of a library. Just genuinely, I guess it’s part of my helper personality that that is something that really makes me feel like I’ve helped make a difference in the world by providing access to knowledge and information to everybody, that there are no gatekeepers really, in the library world. It’s open to the whole world. So it’s a big part of who I am with all that in mind. When I started in the author world, I originally published in Kindle Unlimited because that’s where everybody published. And then when I realized that my books couldn’t be in libraries, I was like, well screw this. I’m going to go wide so I can get my books into libraries. So one of the things that I’ve been thinking about, what I should talk with the audience about today, is just the idea of how does the whole process work? Because without the library background, it is sort of like just a big black box. Not very entirely sure.
Sara Rosett [00:23:06]:
Yeah, it’s very murky. So enlighten us.
Erin Wright [00:23:10]:
Yes, absolutely. So I think the first thing that a lot of people get very confused about is the fact that libraries cannot purchase ebooks from a regular retail platform. Lot of I’ve had authors say, well, yeah, my book’s in Ku, but why doesn’t the library just buy it from Amazon? It’s for sale. There the print book they can buy from Amazon. They don’t always and I can get into print in just a minute. But right now there’s a lot of different facets. So let’s focus just on ebooks for this first bit. A library has to have a way to manage that ebook to lend it out to their patrons. So if you think about a patron of the library saying, okay, I want to know JR Ward’s latest novel. If the library were to just go and purchase an ebook from Amazon, then they would need to have some way of lending that ebook to that patron and then getting it back when it’s done. You could build your whole internal lending system. Colorado actually was doing that there at the beginning. Colorado, you could do what Colorado is doing or was doing back at the beginning of the ebook revolution where they were building an entire system in order to lend out ebooks from the library to the patron. It’s incredibly complicated and not something that can be done library by library. That would be just crazy. So instead, libraries use companies to buy the ebooks from and then those companies turn around and they deliver those ebook files to the patrons so that the library is simply using this company here to do all of the tech work. You also don’t want libraries buying your ebooks from retail sites and then lending them out to patrons, if that was even an option, which is not, you wouldn’t want that happening. Because I can tell you, in the library world, you have a constant weeding process where you get rid of older books and you’re bringing in newer books. And a lot of times books will just sort of weed themselves by not being returned by patrons who check them out or the dogs eat it. If you really want some nightmare material, I can tell you because I worked at the Circ desk, I can tell you about the condition that books would be returned in with puke and blood and all sorts of things all over the books and people just drop them off like nothing happened. Like, yeah, so we don’t really want this back, as a matter of fact. And then just books fall apart, right? So print books have a finite shelf life on them before they are really just not usable anymore and you have to replace it, right? Ebooks don’t have that. So you are selling an ebook to that library. That library has access to that book until the earth falls under the sun, right? So you wouldn’t want a library to be able to go to a retail store, buy your book for 499, and then be able to check that book out for the rest of eternity to their readers. It’s not a great deal for the author. So what ends up happening is that you have this company in the middle that sells the books on behalf of the authors to the libraries and then checks out the books to the patrons once the libraries have purchased them. The other option that there is, is instead of purchasing an ebook, a library can rent it. And so a librarian’s whole job is to have a very educated guess about what it is that their patrons want to read. Now, you’re going to have a lot of things of most libraries have a line in their budget, in their acquisitions that is just for patron requests, right? So you go into the library and you’re like, hey, I really want to read this book. And they go, okay, cool. They buy that book, they pull the money out of the patron request line. That aside, you shouldn’t just have an entire library of nothing, but you have to request it before it’s going to be available on the shelves. You have to have books other than that. And so it’s a librarian’s job in that case to decide, okay, and there’s going to be some gimmies, right. James Patterson’s latest book, you’re going to buy it and a lot of copies right? Absolutely, absolutely. And libraries actually have an auto buy list in case anybody’s curious. So you can say, okay, every time James Patterson releases a book, I want three copies of his release. And you sign these contracts with a publishing or a print company like IngramSpark, and you just go through and you’re like, okay, this is on the auto buy list. We had a big old list and we would say, okay, yes, this and this. Every time they released a book, we just automatically would get it. We didn’t have to know anything about that book. Again, this is print. So I just switched three in case somebody’s curious. Switch from ebook to print. But if you’re ever like, man, how is it that James Patterson and, and, you know, J. K. Rowling always hit the top lists even no matter, like they could publish their grocery list and they would be hitting the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Right? It’s because of these auto buy lists. It does not hurt, let’s just put it that way. Because they have a built in readership of all these libraries that are just going to purchase. Okay, so back to ebooks, though. A librarian is going to guess like, okay, this ebook is going to be checked out. We think that there’s going to be our local readers who would want to read this book, so we’re going to go ahead and buy it. You can also say, I’m going to let readers have this as an option. And if they pick it, then us as the library are going to pay a rental fee to rent this book, which is going to obviously be much smaller than the cost of the book itself. We’re going to pay this rental fee and then the reader can read it and we don’t have to pay for a full fledged copy of that book. And you can get a lot more books in front of your readers without paying as much.
Jami Albright [00:30:52]:
Okay?
Erin Wright [00:30:54]:
So if you’re ever curious why it is that, for example, Overdrive does that they have a two tier system where you can purchase it as a library or you can rent it and you may be looking at your statement and going, why the heck am I paying? Why did I get paid so little for this purchase? I got screwed. You didn’t get screwed. It was rented instead of purchased. But when that happens, it goes to one patron and then it goes back and the library has to rent it again if it’s going to be read by another patron.
Jami Albright [00:31:34]:
Okay, all right, well, I didn’t know that. So speaking of Overdrive,
what are the companies kind of the middlemen that libraries get their ebooks from?
Erin Wright [00:31:46]:
Yes. Okay. So obviously, in terms of dominance of the library, ebook world, overdrive is kind of like the Amazon. They’re definitely the big kahunas. So there’s that. And then for the patron, what they are seeing on their app or on their ereader device is Libby. So Overdrive and Libby, it’s just which one is one is facing the librarian, one is facing the reader. But it’s the same company. I have people who are like, so how do I get onto Libby? And I’m like if you’re on overdrive, you’re on Libby. So it’s just how it’s marketed. All right, so Overdrive is a big kahuna. However, there are lots of other ones out there. Hoopla is one, and Hoopla is only rentals. You cannot purchase a book from Hoopla. It’s all rentals. Then there’s oh, man, out of Spain, they have a company called Odillo. There’s Biblioteca, there’s book in a box. Yeah, the list.
Jami Albright [00:33:01]:
Okay. But those three Overdrive Hoopla, Libby, those are the ones that we see when we’re trying to put our know if we’re in Ku and we’re trying to put our paperbacks in the library system. Those are the ones that we see. Well, no, that’s not right. That’s not right. Audiobooks. Yeah, audiobooks. Those are the ones sorry, you all I just confuse the conversation. Shocking, but yes. So those are the three, though, that I wanted. Digital products are the ones that people will see and not maybe not know what they are. Exactly. Again.
Sara Rosett [00:33:51]:
Well, so tell us, like, if an author wants to get their books onto Overdrive or Libby, what would you recommend for that?
Like, draft2digital or Kobo or something like that? Is that the easiest?
Erin Wright [00:34:05]:
Right, so, okay, so number you’re if you’re wanting your books on Libby, you’re sending them to Overdrive. Right. And then actually I just went ahead and pulled this there’s. Just so you know, there’s overdrive, Odilo, Biblioteca, Baker and Taylor, Hoopla, borrow Box and Palace Marketplace okay, thank you. Libraries that are in draft2digital, and there’s lots more libraries than that around the world. Okay, so what was your question again?
Sara Rosett [00:34:38]:
Oh, just like it’s okay. No, if an author is interested in making sure their books are in libraries, like, their ebooks especially, what do they do? Draft2digital, would you recommend or how would you recommend they do that?
Erin Wright [00:34:53]:
Yes. Thank you. So one thing that ties all of these libraries together is the fact that none of them want to work with individual authors. It turns out that we are a bunch of whiny people who we’re annoying. Yes. We break. We can’t figure out our password. We don’t know how to upload something. All of that customer service. The libraries are just like, these library companies are like, we don’t really want. To deal with all you all you’re kind of a pain in the patootie. So you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to use a distributor. So even if you wanted to go direct, you cannot, because I’ve had people who are like, so how do I upload to Overdrive? And I’m like, not by going to Overdrive. You’re going to there’s. Okay. Bit of a history lesson. So Kobo and Overdrive used to be owned by the same parent company called Rakuten, which is a company out of Japan. At that point, Mark Leslie Lefebvre ran Kobo writing life, and he negotiated a really great contract between Kobo and Overdrive that when you upload to Kobo, it is as if you are uploading directly to Overdrive in terms of the money that you’re making from it. Again, back this is all back to just ebooks that I’m talking about right now. So then Rakuten sold off overdrive. It’s no longer owned by them. They still own Kobo. But Kobo and Overdrive are no longer sister companies, but they still have that relationship in place. They still have that contract in place. So you can absolutely get to Overdrive through Kobo. That is the only library that you can get to in some other way other than one of the main distributors. So typically, I recommend either Draft2Digital or the other distributor that is quite good is Street Lib. Street Lib is a company out of Italy, and they’re a big distributor. And the thing that I like about StreetLib is that they have access to a lot of libraries and retailers that you can’t get access to. Otherwise, you can’t get to them through Draft2Digital. And does it make sense to go to them direct? And so you can really get your books out to a worldwide audience. Draft2Digital is getting there. They’re adding more partners all the time. But I feel like Street Lib sometimes doesn’t get enough love in attention. So I’m just saying, like, if you haven’t heard of Street Lib, they’re totally at a valid option. Also, as an author, you’re going to either upload to draft2Digital or to Street Lib to get to every library except for Overdrive. You can get to overdrive through street Lib or draft2digital. You can also get to it through Kobo. So at that point, it’s kind of your choice. Once these companies so book in a box or Palace Marketplace, once they get the item, then they turn around, they sell it to libraries. Libraries purchase or rent it, turn around, and get it to the patrons. So it’s kind of a long usually when you’re selling books, you’re like, hey, you reader, you want to buy my book? And the reader’s like, sure, I’ll buy your book. And it can be as direct as off your own website. Right? They don’t even have to go through Amazon with this. It’s like, okay, I’m going to upload it to draft2digital, who’s going to send it to Palace Marketplace, who’s going to send it to the libraries, who’s going to send it to patrons? And then we’re like, I don’t know why this is murky and dense for people to understand. Totally makes sense. There’s just a lot in the middle. So some important things to know is that when you are selling ebooks, I think I started to make this point, and then I got sidetracked. What? That you should be selling at higher than retail to libraries because they do get to keep your book for the rest of eternity. So you should not just be selling at retail prices to them. I mean, libraries will be like, God bless you and all your children, but there is actually also a librarians tend to be a little bit more traditionally published focused than indie pub. Right, right. And so, honestly, if your ebook is too cheap, they will kind of look down on it.
Jami Albright [00:39:57]:
It’s perceived value. Yeah.
Erin Wright [00:40:01]:
There’s got to be something wrong with this book. Obviously the author didn’t have it proofread or whatever. It’s got a big plot hole in the middle, whatever it is. Sometimes authors who are like, well, I want to make my book really accessible to all these libraries because I love libraries so much. You can actually almost be hurting yourself in terms of sales by making your book too cheap.
Sara Rosett [00:40:24]:
Right, I know. Like, when I’m going to put that library price in, I always feel like, oh, I love libraries, and I want to give them a good deal, but we should not be afraid to up our price. Is there like a recommended multiplier of if you have a regular price of like, 499, do you want to do like two or three times that, or.
Erin Wright [00:40:49]:
No. So I have a really handy dandy rule of thumb. You all are free to use, which is where I take the price of the book, just the dollar amount. So say 499, you’re going to take the $4, multiply that by three and add the $0.99 back on.
Jami Albright [00:41:12]:
There you go.
Erin Wright [00:41:13]:
499 booked would become 1299. Okay. 299. Book would become 699. If you’re like, oh, I can’t handle that. Then maybe multiply it by two or by two and a half. But add the $0.99 back on and call today. Now, just to really confuse the waters, let’s switch over to audiobooks for just a moment. I was talking to Will Dages over at FindAWay Voices within the last week, and we talked about library pricing. And I asked him, what is a good rule of thumb? And he said two to three times. So whatever your retail cost is for your audiobook, it should be two to three times that for the libraries. And every platform is going to give you the ability to set a library price versus a retail price.
Jami Albright [00:42:11]:
So we’ve talked about ebooks.
Can you tell us print books. How do we get print books in library?
Erin Wright [00:42:19]:
Yes. Okay, so number one, libraries are in love with hardcovers because they just last so much longer. Books get returned in return chutes, and they land on top of each other and they get all smooshed up. And libraries are tough on books even if the patrons are nice to it, just the system itself can be tough on it. So if you’re really wanting to get your books into libraries, focusing on getting hardcovers is important. The second thing is, in terms of getting into libraries, large print is a very useful format that many authors overlook. Print paperback, regular print books are so easy to buy and everybody has them. Large print is not done for all books. Even in traditional publishing, you have books that are released that are never put into large print versions. Typically. In terms of your library patrons, I can speak from experience here. The ones who tend to be their most religious about coming dedicated, every week, they’re coming in and returning a stack of books and getting another stack are older, retired, and have lower eyesight. Right? So there’s obviously people who have lower eyesight who are not older. But I’m just saying statistically that is the most common. So in that case, these patrons are also the ones who are there, and they are voracious readers because this is their hobby. Some people go out golfing, some people sit there and read all day. And for those really voracious readers, then you end up with a real problem of there’s not a great supply because so many people don’t bother to put their books into large print. And so especially depending on the genre that you write in, large print can be a really big part of your income for print books. So, like, I write cowboys and my demographics, my audience skews older. So for me, I actually make like 60% of my income from print books from large prints. Wow. Now, let’s say that you wrote in Ya or middle grade or horror things that don’t tend to have an older audience, then the large print may not make as much sense for you. But especially if you write cozies, especially if you write cozies, mystery thriller, suspense, romance, you really should be looking at getting your books into large print.
Sara Rosett [00:45:44]:
How do you let the libraries know about your books?
You’re probably going there.
Erin Wright [00:45:50]:
I am, yes. Sorry. Sometimes my answers are so long winded, it drives myself crazy. Okay, so in terms of selling to libraries, libraries can buy print books from Amazon. That is a thing that they can do. A lot of libraries don’t tend to like to do it because of several built in, baked into the system features that are true. First off, libraries are still very old fashioned and that a lot of them have purchase orders. Amazon really just is like, what are we doing here? This is not how right you can’t send them a purchase order for a retail purchase. So they’re not really built in that way. The other things that Amazon isn’t really built for is they don’t have the records. So in the library world, there’s something called a marc record, marc and it gives the library information about the book itself so that when the book gets into the library, when the book gets into the library, the acquisitions clerk can easily then cataloging clerk can easily put it into the system. They don’t have to create a whole record from scratch. They can pull in, and it sort of fills a lot of it in, and then they can add things in if they would like. That, again, doesn’t exist with Amazon. That only exists in companies like Ingram spark. This is why I’m constantly know you got to get into IngramSpark, Lulu. And I’m actually not sure at this moment about book vault. I am putting together a meetup with them so I can pick their brains about a lot of stuff so I can have better information in terms of so put a pin in it, at least in terms of my information on book vault, I can’t speak to that yet. But Ingram spark does have that metadata information to help create the marc record. So, again, back to this is something that Amazon can’t really offer. The third thing that Amazon can’t really offer that a company like IngramSpark or Lulu I don’t know about Lulu, but I know IngramSpark can is a library. Can say, look, when we get a book, we don’t have a lot of people on the back end to help us put dust jackets on and put barcodes on and put security strips in and do the stamps and do all these things. We would like it to just be shelf ready. So if you could just do that, that would be great. I mean, does it cost money? Yes, it does. But you can order books from Ingramspark that already have the spine label in place, already have a book barcode that is set for your library. It can already have the dust jacket and security strips and the stamps. And it’s like you literally take it off the cart, scan it, put it on the cart, somebody goes and puts it out on the shelf. That is not available from Amazon. So when people are like, oh, just go buy my book from Amazon, I’m like, you don’t quite understand. There’s a totally different world in terms of libraries. So if you’re wanting to sell to libraries, you really do need to put your books out on Ingram spark, at least at this point. That’s a very big thing. I’m still researching lulu. I’m a little bit unsure about them, and I’m completely unsure about book vault. I’m 100% sure about Ingram spark. You get it there, they will get it to libraries. If Ingram Spark is intimidating to you because they’re not the most user friendly website on the planet, an option is to use draft2digital. They do print that then gets sent to Ingram. So at least in book world, I’ve been saying forever, all roads lead to Ingram. If you upload your book to Amazon and you checkmark that expanded distribution box, they’re literally sending it to Ingram. That’s how they’re doing. Expanded distribution.
Sara Rosett [00:50:20]:
Yeah. And you’re getting paid like a tiny little portion. Don’t ever but you could have received. A little bit more or a lot more in some cases from Ingram if you take the time.
Erin Wright [00:50:32]:
100%. Yes. I remember the first time I got paid for a print book through Amazon because I didn’t have money for my own iSBNs, and I’m an American, so I don’t get my own ISBNs like some cool Canadians do. So I didn’t have money to upload my books to IngramSpark, so I put expanded distribution on my printbook. And this is back when it was create space. Right. And I remember the first time I got paid for a print book and it was six cents. And I called because I was like, there’s something wrong. Right. Like, you can’t have just paid me $0.06 because I sold a print book. And they were like, no, that’s how much you made. And I was like, what? I was unhappy.
Jami Albright [00:51:16]:
Few expletives later, you found out it’s because you check expanded distribution.
Erin Wright [00:51:23]:
Yeah, exactly. If you aren’t wanting to do the full fledged to Ingram Spark, you can use draft2digital. They send it to Ingram Spark. Do you make less? Yes. You the because draft2digital has to take their cut. So you are going to make less. Do you have less opportunity to make sure that your metadata is optimized?
Erin Wright [00:51:51]:
Yes. You will show up for less searches because your metadata isn’t as optimized. Do you have any control over the discount or the return policy if you go through draft2digital? No, you don’t? It’s set by the company. You can set all that yourself if you go direct to Ingram Spark. So are there some big positives of going direct? You betcha. But are you one of those people who’s like, I hate my computer, and if I have to deal with this website, then I’m just not going to do it? Go through draft2digital. Then at least it happens.
Jami Albright [00:52:20]:
That’s great.
Sara Rosett [00:52:25]:
Oh, I was going to say, I think we’re kind of getting close to the end of our time.
Jami Albright [00:52:27]:
We are. I want to ask one more question.
Sara Rosett [00:52:29]:
Yeah, go ahead.
Jami Albright [00:52:30]:
Well, okay, so let’s say how do I get to know me? Just plain old Jamie albright.
How do I get them to know about my books?
The libraries is the best way to have readers go request them. Is it to email them? I mean, what’s the best way or.
Sara Rosett [00:52:49]:
To show or to ask for an event, agree to host something.
Erin Wright [00:52:57]:
Yes. So this is the number one question that everybody has in terms of selling to libraries, because there is no BookBub that you can get that sends your book out to all these libraries, right? So we’re so used to being able to access our readers easily. We’re going to run Facebook ads, we’re going to run AMS ads, we’re going to do a fussy librarian. We’re going to get a BookBub. And it’s like, I found my reader. With libraries. It’s like, okay, but how do I get my book in there? There’s a couple of different things. Number one, if you have a library that is local to you, libraries almost always love to have your book in their library because they want to have a lot of libraries will actually have a local author section. And so you can either send them an email or you can go in in person. If that’s intimidating to you, then definitely do the email one. If you do go in person, do make sure that you’re not picking a super busy part of the day. So I would not recommend the first 30 minutes of the day, because that’s when the librarian is opening up and they’re getting things set up and don’t pick during a really big event to go. But instead, like, 1030 in the morning, it’s quiet, all the regulars have come in, gotten settled in, and they’re just starting to get to work. That’s typically a pretty good time right before closing, not a good time. Right in the middle of summer reading program, not a good time. So you’ve got that there is the ability that readers have to request books at their own library. So every library, like even the little baby ones, are getting to the point where there is a button on their website that says, request a book. You can send out an email to your readers and say, hey, look, I’d really like to get my books into more libraries, and I have approached some libraries and stuff, but I know that it would help a lot if the patron was making the request. And you can hopefully convince at least a few of your readers to go to their own local library and fill out a request form for it. So if you do go into a library, it’s useful to have something called a sell sheet, S-E-L-L sheet. And if you Google that, you’ll be able to find what I’m talking about. And it’s just basically like, here’s the ISBN, here’s the blurb, here’s any nice things that people said about it. Here’s how to buy it. And it’s just a one page flyer. It’s like makes it easy for the librarian to purchase the item because that’s super key. And then you can actually attach that as a PDF to emails. You can put it into the email itself, or you can have it in your hand as you go walking into a library. But putting together a sell sheet is very useful.
Jami Albright [00:56:16]:
That’s wonderful.
Erin Wright [00:56:19]:
Yeah. I just wanted to say really fast, just so people know, I am teaching a class just on print because I know y’all are like, oh, my God, Erin, you just talked for the last however long about this, but it’s going to be a couple hours long. Class of like this know different strategies and return. And so it’s there’s just so much print is.
Sara Rosett [00:56:53]:
Will there be a link for that, like on your website? Or if you send it to us, we’ll put it in the show notes.
Erin Wright [00:57:00]:
How about that? Yeah, just ErinWright.Net/Authors. Or if you just go to ErinWright.Net, there’s an author’s link at the top, and that will take you to whatever thing I’m doing right now. So actually, at the moment, my next class is going to be a BookBub prep class, but I’m going to be doing print after that.
Jami Albright [00:57:21]:
BookBub prep class? What is that?
Erin Wright [00:57:22]:
Yeah, so I’ve just had a lot of people who are like, I want help figuring out what the best BookBub is, the type of BookBub to apply for, how to up my chances of being selected. And then once I do get a BookBub, how do I best prepare for it, how do I best maximize.
Jami Albright [00:57:41]:
That sounds fantastic, too.
Erin Wright [00:57:43]:
Yeah, that’s going to be the class that we’ll be doing next.
Sara Rosett [00:57:53]:
Well, we will have all those links in the Show Notes. Thank you for coming back on and Talking to us about libraries. We appreciate it. e’ll have all those links at Wish I’d Known, then for writers. And thanks to Alexa Larberg for editing and producing the podcast and to Adriel Wiggins for doing the admin. We’ll see everybody next week.
More Links:
The Big List of Craft and marketing books mentioned on WIKT podcast episodes
Resources from the Author and Reader Community to Help Ukrainians
Recent Comments