The document discusses the challenges and opportunities of distributing books widely through multiple sales channels. It notes that the company distributes 63,000 books through 16,000 authors across 131 stores and 8 major sales channels. Going wide allows authors to reach more readers but introduces risks from unpredictable processing delays, quality issues, and complex tax and payment handling across stores. The document provides tips for evaluating book quality, monitoring stores, and preparing for the administrative burden as well as introduces Draft2Digital as a solution that handles distribution, payments, and tax reporting across channels.

1. The Follies and Triumphs of Being Everywhere

2. • We distribute 63,000 books from over 16,000 authors
• We reach 131 stores through 8 major sales channels

3. • We want authors to go wide
• It’s a big scary problem…
and it’s one we’ve spent a lot
of time solving
• We have precious knowledge
that we’re willing to share

4. The easiest definition is
“to put your book everywhere.”

5. • Discoverable
• Reader-friendly
• Diversified risk
• Additional income streams
• Positioning for future market growth

6. • Attacking Amazon (or Kindle Unlimited)
• Selling you on a particular
business strategy
• Selling you on Draft2Digital

7. • Sharing information
• What can go wrong?
• How wrong can it go?
• How can you solve it?
• Advancing the conversation
• Introducing ourselves

10. • Flipkart
• Print timetables
• Completely unpredictable
• Unresponsive support
• Abandoned ebooks support

11. • Flipkart
• FNAC
• French for…something
• One of the 115 partner stores of Kobo
• Sometimes slow to publish changes
• Working with Kobo to remove FNAC from our distribution

12. • Flipkart
• FNAC
• Tolino
• Another unproven foreign channel
• Also a distributor with multiple storefronts
• Testing showed they were actually pretty reliable
• Ultimately a success story (yay!)

13. • Flipkart
• FNAC
• Tolino
• 24Symbols
• In testing now
• Results are looking promising

14. • Unpredictable processing delays have real costs
• They can drive you nuts
• They can get you in trouble with Amazon
• They can keep you from taking other risks

16. • Work with proven business partners
• Test-drive “unproven” partners
• Schedule launches like a traditional publisher
• Where they’re available, preorders are a powerful solution.
• Where they aren’t, soft launches can help a little.

18. • Evaluate the quality of the end product
in Adobe Digital Editions (ADE)
• Free software that provides a pretty
reliable proof review
• Spot-check critical (or complicated)
formatting
• Table of contents
• Chapter breaks and titles
• End-matter
• Etc.

19. • Evaluating the quality of the end product in ADE
• Evaluating the quality of the end product everywhere
• Through all these different channels
• Across all these different conversions
• On all these different devices
• In all these different apps

20. • Evaluating the quality of the end product in ADE
• Evaluating the quality of the end product everywhere
• Status checks at every store
• Is the book live? (Is it supposed to be?)
• Is the price right?
• Does it have the most recent version of the product description?
• Does it have your most recent author bio?

21. • Evaluating the quality of the end product in ADE
• Evaluating the quality of the end product everywhere
• Status checks at every store
• Monitoring milestones
• Featured promotion
• Best-seller status
• New reviews

23. • Check your product
• Adobe Digital Editions
• Kindle Previewer
• Check it out on some representative samples
• Several devices (one eInk reader, one phone, and one tablet)
• Several renderers (one Kindle proof, one iBooks proof, and one ADE proof)
• Re-review whenever you re-format (or switch conversion methods)
• Monitor your sales pages
• Choose a representative sample
• Schedule a recurring reminder
• Set up a Google Alert
• Outsource the job
• Professional formatter
• Book publicist
• Virtual assistant

25. • “Cash Reserves”
• The minimum payment threshold
• Tiny dams on lots of tiny streams

26. • “Cash Reserves”
• Payment Methods
• Store-specific limitations can
fragment your revenue
• Multiple transaction fees from your
bank every month

27. • “Cash Reserves”
• Payment Methods
• Currency Conversion

28. • “Cash Reserves”
• Payment Methods
• Currency Conversion
• Tax Identity
• Not exclusive to going wide, but
it’s a compounding problem
• Negotiating a complex process
on multiple platforms
• Keeping track

29. • “Cash Reserves”
• Payment Methods
• Currency Conversion
• Tax Identity
• Accounting
• Multiple sales reports and royalty
statements every month
• Tax reporting

31. • Education
• Preparation
• Organization
• Evaluation

32. • Another solution is Draft2Digital
• We vet test the bookstores
• We catch publishing delays
• We coordinate your book release
• We generate beautiful epubs
• We enforce strict quality control
• We monitor changes on bookstores
• We consolidate your royalties
• We have a low minimum threshold
• We offer a variety of payment methods
• We deliver a single tax statement for all of
the royalties earned across all of our stores

33. Kris Austin, CEO
@krisaustind2d
Aaron Pogue, President
@aaronpogue