Writing a Travel Book Part 6 - Distribution Companies

During our time putting together our first self-published travel book, The Long-Term Traveler's Guide, we had to spend a lot of time learning about the self-publishing process and the travel book industry in general.  In order to save future author's time and money, this ten-part Writing a Travel Book series was born! 
The following is a quick list of the entries into this special feature. To learn more about our book launch and other information associated, please check out the Travel Book sidebar on this site.
Part 1 -  Finding a Niche and Writing
Part 2 -  Editing and Formatting
Part 3 -  Evolution of a Cover Design
Part 4 -  Digital Packages and Special Features
Part 5 -  Developing a Website for Sales
Part 6 -  Distribution Companies
Part 7 -  Pricing Development and Launch
Part 8 -  Affiliate Sales Programs and Tips to Succeed
Part 9 -  The Cost of Writing and Sales Summary
Part 10 - Final Thoughts
Writing a Travel Book Part 6 - Distribution Companies
By now you may be wondering, just how am I supposed to sell my book?  With dozens of companies solely dedicated to the self-publishing market, discovering which is the best could consume several days of your time. This post will serve as the guide for you to save that time in order to put it to better use promoting your book and generating sales with your online distribution companies.
We released The Long-Term Traveler's Guide in the print-on-demand marketplace, the digital marketplace with bonus features developed for the book, and for reader devices such as the Kindle, Nook, and iPad.  As it turns out, finding one universal company to handle all sets of sales was impossible and we had to split it up with multiple companies.  Doing so made having a universal affiliate program (Part 8 of this feature) something out of our reach and forced us to set up our affiliate sales only for the premium digital package.  While frustrating, this detail paled in comparison to some of the issues that arose when working with a few of the major distribution companies that are available to the self-published author.
Print-on-Demand with CreateSpace

Print-on-Demand services are designed to be just that.  When a customer purchases your book these companies will print a copy within hours and handle all the logistics of binding, packaging, and shipping all for a marginal fee.  The work you put into it after launch amounts only to marketing efforts, and the revenue is deposited to your account while you pursue other endeavors or develop new products.
The downside to these type of services is that because they handle all the work, their fee is per sale and is nothing to laugh at.  We chose Amazon's CreateSpace as our print-on-demand services as their reviews are nothing but stellar and have a very easy to use interface.   The downside is that they have a higher fee per sale than other comparable networks as shown in the example at the end of this section.
How to Use the Site
CreateSpace has a very simple system to get your book from a basic Word file to a tangible final product that we found to be quite user friendly.  For each book size that is available, CreateSpace has basic guidelines to let you know what the formatting needs to be in terms of margins, picture bleed, and other easy to adjust settings. Make the changes in your draft, upload your book in PDF format, and start the virtual tutorial to look over your book and get a feel for how it will look when printed.
This check is something that we thought CreateSpace was really good at.  The software will notify you of any low resolution photos, characters outside the suggested margin, or internal changes the software had to make to convert your file to their format. A simple click will take you to the specific page, and that is it!  You can either make the changes or ignore them and move on, just like that.
Once you are satisfied with your content, upload your print-ready cover file and submit your book for a free review.  CreateSpace will then check your book to ensure there are no major issues and normally takes about 48 hours to send you a summary of their review.  Once you get the all clear you can order a print of your book to review and approve, then will be on your way to sales!
Note: Many formatting techniques discussed in the second section of this guide were developed based on our experience with CreateSpace.  Check them out!
Where Do They Sell the Book?
CreateSpace has several unique marketplaces that they will list your book, and even more so if you pay the nominal $25 fee to be listed in the Expanded Distribution Network.  These marketplaces can range from Amazon, to Barnes & Noble, wholesale sellers, or even public libraries if you use the CreateSpace provided ISBN*.
Their listings are said to be vast, but information published on what retailers are actually involved with the Expanded Distribution Network is kept quite secretive.  CreateSpace's largest partnerships are with Lightning Source and Ingram Content Group and are said to stock many of the top book stores around the world.  Unfortunately, even with this partnership, unless your book is really stellar it will only sold in the order-on-demand marketplace rather than stocked on the shelves.  But for a flat $25, it is hard to say no to the possibility.
For us, easy access to Amazon is #1, and the rest are just a bonus with moderate payments per sale.  Luckily this is where CreateSpace shines.
*A CreateSpace provided ISBN is free, but locks you in with CreateSpace as the publisher indefinitely.  Purchase an ISBN if you will keep options open for a future publishing deal as you are allowed to switch publishing companies if you see fit.  Any major reprints of your book past small spelling and grammar errors, or selling in other formats, will require a new ISBN.   Be careful when purchasing as buying 10 in bulk may be cheaper overall than buying one at a time.  Barcodes will automatically be placed in the bottom right corner if not added by your designer.
How Much Do You Make?
CreateSpace's fees vary based on the style of book you choose, the length, and what network the sale is made in.  A full color book will have a higher upfront cost than a black & white book, and a book with 300 pages will cost more than a book with only 100 pages.  Luckily, the service has a handy calculation tool that instantly tells you what your final payment will be on a per sale basis for each network.
Using The Long-Term Traveler's Guide as an example, we chose the pricing of our book to be $16.50 which we think is an appropriate cost for a 248 page informational paperback.  For the three distribution networks offered by CreateSpace, our payment per sale breaks down to be the following:

• Amazon - $6.13 per book sold  (37.2%) 
• CreateSpace eStore - $9.43 per book sold (57.2%) 
• Expanded Distribution Network - $2.83 per book sold (17.2%)

Other sellers have published that they use the personal distribution option ($3-$5 per print at your own cost) to order mass quantities of books and then ship to their customers directly for a larger profit.  As CreateSpace charges you less when ordering copies for personal use or free distribution, some users take advantage of this for significant gains. While this method is possible, it is highly frowned upon in most print-on-demand services and also requires a lot of continual effort on your part.  To keep this process as automated as possible, we are letting CreateSpace do the work and take the higher fee.
**Overall Experience: 9/10 - Aside from a few printing issues on the back end that were remedied without issue, working with CreateSpace was almost flawless.**
Sell Digitally with ClickBank and e-Junkie

Before looking to sell a book digitally, we thought the process would be as simple as signing up for a web service that would handle orders, process payments, deliver the product, and have a respectable affiliate program for others who want to sell our book.   As it turns out, a good program for those four simple points simply does not exist.
The two leading companies for digital sales is always said to be ClickBank and e-Junkie.  So with many other aspects of writing for this book, we put together a pro's and con's list for each to determine if they would be the better one to sell our book.
ClickBank Pros

• ClickBank is one of the leading websites for selling all things digital.  With a running counter of over $2 billion in sales and 10 years of operations, you know it is a reputable brand.  
• ClickBank's affiliate program is the best around.  An open network of thousands of affiliates are always searching the ClickBank marketplace to find good products to promote.
• All affiliate commissions are paid automatically without any work on your part.

ClickBank Cons

• To use the service, ClickBank has a $49.99 activation fee for your product plus takes a 7.5% + $1 commission off every sale.  For the $25 digital package, that means they take a $2.88 fee per sale.
• ClickBank does not offer delivery services, and you are responsible for delivering the product to your customer.  As we found out, creating a secured "Thank You" page (required by ClickBank) to distribute our product is next to impossible without extensive coding knowledge or purchasing software that could range from $50-$150. 

e-Junkie Pros

• e-Junkie's biggest pro is that it only charges a flat rate of $5 per month fee.  No extra costs to activate the product and no extra costs based on the number of packages you sell.
• e-Junkie handles all aspects of the sales process from the order page all the way to secured delivery of your product from their servers.

e-Junkie Cons

• Although e-Junkie has a well developed affiliate program, the biggest drawback is that you have to manually pay your affiliates each month through a PayPal business account. We really wish this was an automated process as it is one of the major drawbacks of their entire program.
• Picking up random affiliates through their program is not as widespread as ClickBank's, partly due to the payment system.

After several hours of fighting with coding our own secured Thank You delivery page for ClickBank's services, we gave up. But there was another solution: use both ClickBank and e-Junkie.
One of the silver linings of these two services is that they can work together; with ClickBank being used as the selling mechanism with affiliate sales and e-Junkie being used as the delivery mechanism.  Sure, it may be an extra $5 per month of expenses to add e-Junkie, but the amount of time we wasted trying to code a secure Thank You delivery page would have paid for at least a year of this service if put to better use.  As we would like everything to be automated from Day 1, this seems like the best option. Our hopes of securing a book deal in the first year or two after launch will hopefully end the need for this set-up in perpetuity; or at the worst case, a new solution will exist.
Steps to Use ClickBank and e-Junkie Together
For those looking to use both ClickBank and e-Junkie together, use the following steps to get both accounts working together.  We are including this walk-through in this post as the official steps are vague and confusing.

1. Register your product on ClickBank and get it approved with your own generic Thank You page as a placeholder.  We used one saying our product would be delivered via e-mail to not have to worry about delivery method issues and had no troubles getting it approved. If having trouble, follow these tips to get started.


2. Register and upload your product to e-Junkie and enter your ClickBank information where requested including seller ID and secret key.  If having trouble, follow these tips to get started.


3. Replace your Thank You page URL on ClickBank with the e-Junkie delivery page URL as supplied in the previous walk-through.


4. Replace your sales links wherever posted with the generated e-Junkie checkout link, only selecting ClickBank as the payment option (especially crucial for those using ClickBank for affiliate sales).  This option will be grayed out unless you have all of your correct information submitted.  This link has a built-in tracker to ensure no one uses a link for delivery without purchasing, and redirects to the ClickBank checkout system to complete the transaction.  After purchase, the e-Junkie delivery page will kick in, confirm that a sale was made, and deliver your product. 


5. Order your product to confirm the delivery setup works from start to finish.  You must do a real order for this and not use ClickBank's test scenario that you used while setting up an account in Step 1.  Don't worry, you'll recover all costs except the ClickBank fee for the sale.  A few dollars is worth the comfort of knowing you have this setup correctly. 

**Overall Experience:  7/10 - Our major complaint with these services is that there are major cons to each that make them both less-than-ideal when on their own.  Getting across the mental hurdle of using them both together, at a financial loss, was the hardest part.  Integrating the two took a few trials, and a few headaches, but works perfectly after being setup.**
Kindle, Nook, and iPad Downloads

It is sad to say, but releasing a book into the digital marketplace for reader devices is quite possibly the most difficult of all mediums to work in.  The reason for this is that there is no universal format that all three devices accept.  In the second part of this series, we discussed ways to edit a file to look on reader formats.  This section will focus more on the difficulties of actually getting the file published when finished.
Kindle is the Winner
Amazon is the only company in this list that has all things going for them in the digital reader market.  The process was as simple as making the required edits, formatting into a .mobi file with Calibre, and uploading to their database for approval.  Within a few short days the digital package was up for sale on several country's amazon pages, looking great, and making sales.
Apple Hates PC Users
Apple has a very strict review policy before any digital product can go live in their iBookStore.  In fact, there is a fairly stringent review policy when you open a sellers account, even before uploading a file.  So suffice it to say, we were pretty upset when we found out you can only upload files to Apple's iBookStore format if you have a MAC after waiting a full week to be approved for sales.  Yes, you read that correctly.  To upload a file to Apple's iBookStore you have to download an uploading program, only for MAC computers.
The options to get around this for PC users are the following:

• Beg a friend to use their MAC, likely several times over the course of the revision process.
• Upload your file via an intermediate distributor, such as Lulu, that will submit your file to Apple on your behalf and take an additional 20% off the top of all of your sales.

We opted to use Lulu as a distributor for The Long-Term Traveler's Guide, as the headache of coordinating time to use someone else's MAC several times seemed like more effort than it was worth.  The downside to this is that the review process rejects all files published in the .epub format as put together by the Calibre software. 
To get around this, we had to convert the file to a Rich Text Format (RTF) and let the Lulu software convert the file to an acceptable epub file for reader devices.  Luckily the edits required for this format are very similar to those established in the second part of this series, so your additional work will be minimal.   A few oddities may pop up; however, so it is highly recommended to be able to review your files on an iPad or even an iPod Touch just to be sure before submitting the file for publishing.
Note: If it were not due to requests from a few readers to release the guide on the iPad format, we probably would have given up as this process was a major headache to figure out an alternative method to release the book in the marketplace.  Lulu displayed our Apple iBookstore product as listed shortly after uploading; however, after 5 weeks we are still waiting for guide to appear in the marketplace.  It is said that this is common and there is nothing you can do but wait. 
Nook Comes Along for the Ride
The one positive thing about using Lulu as an aggregate service is that they simultaneously upload your file to Barnes & Noble for their NOOK reader device at no extra effort to you.  Hooray!  Since we did not do any specific work for this format, we cannot report any positive or negative experience on the topic.
**Overall Experience:  9/10 for Kindle, 1/10 for Apple - Working with files for Kindle and the iPad are a night and day difference.  While both services have a human review all files, Apple has many added requirements that reject files outright and stop all PC users in their tracks to begin with.  There should be no surprise as to why Kindle is leading the e-book market at the time of publishing this article, and our experiences working on the guide back it up 100%.**
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The links included in this article are directed to our affiliate accounts on CreateSpace, ClickBank, e-Junkie, and Lulu.  By using our links to open an account with either network we will get a small commission.  Your fee for opening accounts and selling your product will not be increased by clicking these links.  If you like what we have provided in this series, we'd be happy if you used our affiliate links when opening your accounts.  Please comment below with any questions or comments about these programs and we'd be happy to answer them!
This ten part feature on writing and self-publishing a travel book is based on our experiences with our first book, The Long-Term Traveler's Guide, and is provided free of charge for those looking to write a book or e-book themselves. Other authors typically charge a modest price for an e-book that contains this information in such a fashion. Rather than requiring a purchase for this information, if you like what you have read please Reweet, Stumble, or 'Like' this post, use our affiliate links when registering for the companies we've recommended, or purchase a copy of The Long-Term Traveler's Guide to help us out! 
Thank you for your support and happy travels!