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    How Do You Calculate My Publication Date?

    Your publication date will be set after your Proofs and Cover Workflow sections are approved and confirmed by the Editorial Manager. This means that your manuscript and cover are edited and proofed and that your book is ready to send to the printer. This is normally around 4 months after the beginning of the production process after you first upload your manuscript.

    After the Editorial Manager approves and confirms your Proofs and Cover Workflow sections, we set the publication date for ten full months later (e.g. for a title finishing production in March 2024 will be schedule a February 2025 release). We have a nominal publishing date of the last Tuesday in each month (except December, when it is the second Tuesday), and we aim for the same publication date for ebook and paperback. Publication dates are set on or before the 20th of every month.

    There is such a long wait because it takes 10 months (sometimes more) for information about your book to circulate through the trade worldwide, and this is essential to maximize your prospects of long-term success.

    Please note that this time may be slightly extended depending on where we are in the annual buying cycle.

    Pre-order Questions


    When is my book available for pre-order?

    Print

    The month after your text and cover files are finished, we send your book’s metadata to the trade. As soon as that information is live on retailers’ databases, consumers can pre-order your printed book. This is usually around 10 months before publication.

    Ebook

    On most ebook sites, your ebook will be available to pre-order one month before publication and can be downloaded and read from publication day, onwards.

    Can I see how many pre-orders I have sold?

    We receive notice of Amazon.com pre-orders from our NBN Amazon sales rep, and we are able to monitor early orders, with the aim of predicting and maintaining the necessary stock levels. The distributors then dispatch these orders to the trade accounts in the weeks leading up to publication.

    However, we can't track individual pre-orders as and when they come in. We get an idea of the figure only when Amazon etc. place their initial orders a month or two before publication. An author can gauge pre-orders only by checking the sales rank.

    What Should I Do if My Online Info Is Wrong?

    If your book’s information (printed or ebook) is not displayed correctly on Amazon, Google, Apple, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Hive, Indiebound, Waterstones, or your preferred retail site, post a query with your title and publication date on the Sales & Distribution/ Sales Online forum, and we will follow up.

    How Do I Order Discounted Copies of My Book?

    • You can order discounted copies of your book from your local distributor (details below) one month before publication.
    • For any large orders (20+ copies) order direct from us on the Sales & Distribution: Sales to authors forum. This is so that we can ensure our distributors have enough copies left over after your order.
    • Australia & New Zealand authors — order from us by posting on the Sales & Distribution: Sales to authors forum. We prefer 25+ copies orders, because we have your books printed in Australia. You can order from our Australian distributor if you wish, but they will order from the UK and have them shipped over, and it will likely take longer.

    As a blanket rule, we recommend ordering your books 2 months in advance of when you need them. 3 months if you are in Australia/NZ.

    How to order from us

    Post the order on the Sales & Distribution: Sales to authors forum and make sure that you mention:

    1. Quantity of books you would like.
    2. Where you would like them sent.
    3. When you need them (note: we need at least three weeks’ notice from the time payment is received for US, UK, and Europe; more for other countries).
    4. Payment needs to be by cheque/check or wire transfer. We will assume that the address to be billed is your author address in your Profile.
    5. Delivery is charged for all orders placed through the office.
    6. Our standard author discount is 50%. For one-off orders of 500 copies or more, we offer the following discounts: 55% on 500–999 copies; 60% on 1000–2499 copies; 65% on over 2500 copies. The 55%+ discounts do not apply to later smaller orders.
    7. Please note that orders going from the UK to Europe will now incur customs charges.

    How to order direct from the distributor

    We use three main distributors.

    Remember — when you order, say that you’re an author or contributor, and they will apply the standard author terms of discount: 50% firm-sale non-returnable on any book in any imprint (the exception is Australia, where it’s 40% when authors order from Brumby, our local distributor).

    The books you buy with the author discount are non-returnable. So it is important that you estimate the quantity you need for events. You can sell the books at whatever price you choose.

    Distributor information for ordering

    John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

    John Wiley & Sons Ltd. distributes our books to individuals and trade customers throughout Europe and the Middle East.

    Call: + 44 (0)1243 843291 or email [email protected] with your order and pay by credit card, or ask for a proforma invoice (which can be paid either by phoning with a credit card number or by sending a bank transfer). Payments by cheque or postal order are no longer accepted. Delivery charges will be quoted on ordering.

    National Book Network

    National Book Network distributes our books throughout North, Central, and South America. Tel: +1 8004626420 | Email: [email protected] | More info: http://www.nbnbooks.com/contact

    • Delivery charges will be quoted upon ordering.
    • Please be aware that if you request advance copies in the US, we will delay stocking our warehouse at NBN, because copies might arrive more than two months before the planned publication date. This is because NBN will advance publication date and distribute it to all databases, including amazon.com, which causes confusion.

    Brumby Sunstate

    Brumby Sunstate. Tel: +61 232555552 | Email: [email protected] | More info at http://www.brumbysunstate.com.au/

    Bookreps Ltd. Tel: +64 94192635 | Email: [email protected] | More info at http://www.bookreps.co.nz/contact-bookreps-nz-ltd

    • In general, Brumby Sunstate need three months' notice to have sufficient stock available. Discount is 40% through Brumby, firm-sale, no returns. Delivery to Australian addresses is free for orders up to AUD $165 (wholesale, inc. GST). On orders under AUD $165, the delivery charge is AUD $13.50. Please ask on the author forum for latest NZ terms.
    • Alternatively, for Australia and New Zealand, authors can order online from Booktopia, Book Depository, or Amazon.com. Amazon.com.au no longer sells print copies, only ebooks. Or if you are ordering 100 copies or more, put a note on the Help forum, under Sales & Distribution: Sales to authors. We will then arrange a separate printing in Australia, which bypasses Brumby & Bookreps, so that you will get the standard author terms of discount 50% firm-sale no returns plus shipping and taxes, and be invoiced from the office.

    How far in advance do I need to order?

    It takes time to ship the books to you, and even more time if they have to be printed first.

    As a blanket rule, we recommend ordering your books 2 months in advance of when you need them. And to be absolutely safe, 3 months if you are in Australia/NZ.

    UK

    In general, Wiley needs 5 working days to process an order, pick, pack, and deliver books to a customer on the UK mainland, but if a customer doesn’t order frequently, it tends to add 4 working days — so assume 9 working days.

    • If you order after 4pm, add an additional 1 working day.
    • If you're ordering from the Highlands and Islands, add an additional 2 working days.
    • If the books need to be restocked from the printer, an additional 14 working days will need to be added.

    USA (and Central and South America)

    NBN needs up to 10 working days to process, pick, pack, and ship books to a US customer by Standard Ground UPS.

    • If it’s the end of the month, when the warehouse is busiest, add an additional 2 working days.
    • If you're ordering from offshore or you're hard to reach, add an additional 5 working days.
    • If the books need to be restocked from the printer, an additional 14 working days will need to be added.
    • If you’re planning an event, allow two months, but give as much notice as you can.

    Large retailers, such as Barnes & Noble, buy centrally; the books go to their central warehouse, then out again, adding a week or so.

    Canada

    Allow 30 working days for delivery due to border customs.

    It can take longer to get books a few hundred miles from Pennsylvania to Ontario than a few thousand miles from England to Singapore. British Columbia is worse, still.

    Other regions

    • South Africa: 5–6 weeks to deliver books that are in stock (please be aware that there may be a Customs charge when books enter South Africa).
    • China and Singapore: 6–8 weeks
    • Australia & New Zealand: 10–12 weeks

    Discounted author orders do not count towards your overall sales figures for royalties.

    But they do count towards the sales figures that automatically trigger extra publicity at every 500 total copies (print and ebook) sold to customers.

    Distributors ask for payment from individuals and authors on ordering, and they generally accept all credit cards if they have the book in stock. We cannot offset payments against royalties because the accounts that the distributor holds with you are separate from the ones that we hold.

    What's the difference between a wholesaler and a distributor?

    A wholesaler buys a book from a publisher and supplies it to bookstores, libraries, or whoever else may want your book. A distributor does similar tasks but works for the publisher.

    In addition, a distributor provides many services that a wholesaler doesn’t, including making sure that your book is available with all the different wholesalers, such as Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Bookazine, New Leaf, or Quanta in the US, and Bertrams, Gardners, Westnedge, OLF, or Bookspeed in Europe.

    In our case, by using Wiley in the UK, we gain a total supply chain solution including demand planning, print and distribution, customer service, and credit collection. Shops normally order your book from a single wholesaler. It is quicker and more efficient than buying all their books from many different publishers or distributors.

    Can I order multiple ebooks?

    Yes, you can, but not through us. We recommend the bulk buying of ebooks through ebooks.com. They can be used as part of a special offer or prize giveaway, for example.

    For smaller orders, you can purchase on your site; for bigger orders, it's worth contacting them directly.

    You can distribute your ebooks in 3 ways:

    1. You can receive a spreadsheet of voucher codes/links you can distribute. The user then clicks the link and signs in to their eBooks.com account (or creates one) to redeem the voucher and add the ebook to their account.
    2. Through a service called Campaigns, ebooks.com creates a landing page for you. You can then supply a list of authorized users (either by email address or by email domain), who can navigate to the landing page and enter their email address — they are then emailed a voucher code to redeem on eBooks.com.
    3. ebooks.com can create a series of accounts for their website, consisting of usernames and passwords, and you can redeem a voucher against each name and password. This way you distribute the usernames and passwords to the people who you want to have the ebooks, and whoever receives the ebook does not have to create an account on the site.

    Ebooks will be in EPUB format, and ebooks.com recommend that ebooks be read in Adobe Digital Editions (Mac and PC) and the ebooks.com Ebook Reader app for mobile devices. All software is free.

    To order, please contact Alex Turvey [email protected] and copy in [email protected]

    When Will You Do My Book's First Print Run?

    We aim to have printed stock in the warehouses by the first day of the month in which your book is published. So we place a print order the month before publication. It takes varying lengths of time to get into the shops.

    We also gauge how many to print by looking at your Marketing page for any Promotional Plans and Marketing Activities. Above all, please advise any bookstores with which you are in contact to allow us time to replenish stock if necessary. We need at least three weeks’ notice for US, UK, and Europe, and more for other countries.

    Stores for whom books are only a small proportion of their stock may be able to order books through their usual wholesaler.

    Before we order the first printing, we check in with the trade buyers to see how many they have ordered — we want to have as many orders as possible before we print. Many trade buyers do not make their initial orders of stock until around 4–6 weeks before publication. So we leave our first print order as late as we can in order to get a sense of what the trade are ordering. Shops and online retailers should start receiving printed copies of your book when you receive the Your book is now in the warehouse notification (usually four weeks before publication). If stock is ordered earlier than six weeks into our US warehouse, NBN, they will advance the publication date, which can complicate things. In the US, we aim to deliver stock four weeks before publication so that this doesn’t happen.


    Help! Retailers Say My Book Is Not Available. What Should I Do?

    We spend a lot of time dealing with queries from people saying their book is not available. Very occasionally, it’s because sales are going faster than we expected and we’re temporarily out of stock (usually two weeks, max.). More often, the answer is among the following categories:

    Inaccurate information

    • Your friend has gone into a local shop asking for something like, “It’s by Herron, with two rs, and it’s got the word well-being in the title,” and they say they cannot find it without your going into more detail ... The problem is that there are several hundred books by the surname "Herron" and there are more than 10,000 with the word well-being in its title.
    • They miss or omit a digit on the ISBN or a letter in the title. This happens with the distributors, as well. If someone rings up NBN, for instance, quoting the title as Jeremiah rather than Jeremiad, they will search that and it will show as unavailable. They cannot spend time searching amongst more than 100,000 titles they have in stock. Nielsen and Amazon track around 12 million. A tiny error in the detail, and your book may not be found.

    Non-availability

    Sometimes a bookstore in one part of the world or another complains that they can’t get a book from our distributor. This is usually for one of the following reasons:

    • The bookstore does not place backorders. So, for example, a bookstore orders a title from a wholesaler before the wholesaler has received their stock ... so the order isn’t fulfilled and it isn’t kept as a backorder.
    • Their account is on stop because they’re late payers.
    • They only want to order one copy, and the distributor has a minimum order level of 10 units to obtain the best discount (the case with NBN) and the shop is waiting until it gets enough orders to reach 10 copies.
    • There’s a freight-free level that the bookshop wants to reach, and the orders are held until they reach that.
    • If it’s a chain store, it is usually because they haven’t actually ordered it. Or the store ordered it before publication, but the central office of the stores will not let the distributor hold advance orders because they do not want those financial commitments to show up in their figures and they do not want to say that to the person asking.

    There’s a raft of similar reasons. Do let us know if you come across any problems. But be precise. Press the shop for details — Which store? Which manager dealt with your book? What date was the invoice sent? For how many copies? What was the invoice or order reference number?" — and then send those to us, along with the ISBN and title of the book. Distributors get thousands of orders from stores each day. They need the order reference to check. Virtually every time we look into this, the distributor is not at fault.

    Non-visibility

    The total number of books available in English is somewhere north of 30 million. The number available to buy online is over 10 million. The average number stocked in a bookshop (if it's a large one) is around 10,000. Most of these are backlist sellers relevant to the shop’s marketplace, which they know are going to sell. Some are new books, but most of those are by well-known names. We can get directly to only a very few of the 20,000 shops in North America/UK, because they mostly buy centrally or through wholesalers. So, if it is not there, the most likely reason is that the information we sent to the main buyer and wholesaler was not persuasive enough. Or, if it's a chain, they have allocated it to a few shops but not all of them. Or if they did buy it and it's in the month of publication, it may be because the book has not reached that shop yet. If it is later than the month after publication, it may be that the shop has had the book but then sold it and not reordered yet, or did not sell and has been returned. Most new books are stocked for only a few weeks and then returned if they are not selling fast enough.

    Amazon Stock

    See below.

    Amazon Questions


    Why isn't my book available to pre-order on Amazon?

    This is likely for the following reasons:

    The information from Amazon.com feeds through to regional Amazons in France, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Australia, Brazil, Japan, China, India, and Mexico. This means that people in those countries can order the book from the US site. Your book may not appear on these sites until your publication date or just after.

    If you are searching for your pre-order title on Amazon in a region other than your own (e.g. searching Amazon USA from the UK, or vice versa), you may not find it or you may see it come up as unavailable. Don't be too concerned about this — readers in that region will be able to find it and pre-order.

    My Amazon price is different from the RRP. What can I do?

    Since the demise of the Net Book Agreement in the UK in 1997, Amazon UK has the right — as does every retailer — to sell books at whatever price they choose. In fact, in 2016, Amazon UK implemented a policy of deliberately not displaying the RRP and regularly offering some books at prices £1 or so above the RRP.

    If you do see a price promotion on Amazon, it is a great opportunity to promote the book to your networks. It’s also worth pointing out that a discounted price on Amazon, or any other retailer, doesn’t affect your royalty payments, which are accrued from the trade sale made to Amazon from a distributor or wholesaler and have nothing to do with the final price charged.

    Amazon may decide to run a promotion on your title (especially if you have a lot of reviews). We can’t influence these promotions directly. If we find out that Amazon have picked your title for a merchandising program, such as Kindle Daily Deal, we will record it in your Marketing Activities as an “Advert.”

    Amazon also offers other publishing merchandising programs. They cost between $5000 and $100,000 and are only worth thinking about once your title has held onto a top 1000 sales ranking on Amazon for a couple of months. These programs are run through our distributor NBN in the US and through Amazon Advantage in the UK.

    Misc. Amazon info:

    We make every print and ebook edition available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

    Amazon.com buys non-return from our North American distributor, NBN (National Book Network), at 50% discount on RRP and 15% through wholesalers. Amazon.co.uk buys on consignment, paying 45% of RRP on books sold. Amazon typically buys 85% of books direct from our distributors, NBN & Wiley.

    We are also on the Amazon UK Advantage program for publishers, which speeds up supply and allows us to exchange editorial, sales, and marketing information with Amazon.

    Amazon and other retailers show low stocks online. What should I do?

    Unfortunately, there is very little we can do to manage Amazon stock levels — their orders are placed automatically based on current stock levels and previous purchase patterns. If you contact us on the Editorial & Production - Printing queries forum, we will let you know their last order details and the current stock at NBN, our US distributor.

    The number of copies that the retailer shows as being in stock is not significant. These days, retail stock control is highly automated, shipping is fast, and books in the distribution chain aim to match reader demand. This means that many retailers can keep low stocks and order books from distributors, non-returnable.

    Big retailers such as Amazon pick up several times a week from the distributor. Our US distributor, NBN, can deliver books within 10 working days (12 at the end of the month); our European distributor, John Wiley & Sons, 5–7 working days.

    Will people be able to look inside my book on Amazon?

    Every book we sell on Amazon offers Look Inside functionality. Readers can read random pages from no more than 20% of the text, mimicking the experience of browsing in a bookshop. We don't have any control over the pages of your book that Amazon chooses to preview. The content is decided by the Amazon algorithms, and they don't accommodate special requests.

    My Amazon categories are different from my Collective Ink categories. What should I do?

    Amazon categorises your book according to its own algorithms. This process is highly automated, and categories vary by retailer and region. In some categories, such as History, Amazon's sub-categories will go deeper than the BISAC categories you chose for your book at the beginning of the publishing process.

    If you want to change your Amazon categories, you can recommend changes to bibliographic data, including your paperback categories, on Amazon.com via an Author Central account. You may request additional categories or removal, too. You cannot change Kindle categories on Amazon.com. For Amazon UK, if your categories are wildly wrong, please contact us through the Author Forum in Sales & Distribution/Sales Online; we can ask Amazon to change categories for your paperback but not for the Kindle version of the book in the UK. However, be warned: Amazon will remove a category more easily than add one. Changes can take several weeks to feed through and aren’t guaranteed.

    I received a negative Amazon review. What should I do?

    We, as the publisher, have no power to remove negative reviews. If someone has posted a review of your book that seems unjust, you can complain to [email protected] or report it through your Author Central account.

    Note: Amazon reviews are vital for promoting your book. For advice on how to generate them, please read Marketing 365.

    Should I join Amazon Author Central?

    • Yes. We recommend that all CI authors create an Amazon Author Central account to share the most up-to-date information about themselves across their Amazon books. You must wait until your book is available to purchase on Amazon before you can set up an Author Central account. The account connects your books together in an easy way, gives your readers more information about you, helps you build your brand, gain fans, and learn about how to sell more books. Information available includes access to your Amazon Sales Rank, Nielson Bookscan data for authors published in the USA, and access to all your online reviews in one place. NOTE: Amazon Author Central Accounts are not yet centralized — you have to create one for Amazon.com (USA), one for Amazon.co.uk (UK), etc. We recommend that you:
    1. sign up for the US first, then UK, and then your "home" Amazon site (if you don’t also live in the US or UK);
    2. complete as many sections of your account as you can;
    3. on Author Central US (not UK), narrow the categories to increase your book’s visibility, and add keywords;
    4. note that Author Central US has more capabilities than Author Central UK, including the ability to add Editorial Reviews directly;
    5. add your top, most-exciting reviews to your Editorial Reviews;
    6. can add Editorial Reviews by contacting customer service, for your Amazon.co.uk account (and presumably for other countries too).
    We also recommend reading blogger Jane Friedman’s article about using Author Central. There, she explains how to claim your Author Central pages and gives details of how you can activate your page in countries other than the UK and USA. More useful links:

    Sales and Distribution Questions

    How can I find out my sales?

    We provide monthly sales figures on your Financials page, by units and value in £ sterling.

    When are monthly sales updated?

    All print sales for any given month should be uploaded by the end of the following month. E.g., February sales will be uploaded by the end of March.

    For ebook sales, a number of retailers, including Amazon, do not report ebook sales until the middle to the end of the following month. We add the sales to your reports when they self-invoice to us. Your ebook sales will, for the most part, be a month behind when they were bought (or later if we receive the corresponding invoice later).

    Ebook sales are listed in the US sales column

    All ebook sales (worldwide) are listed in the US sales column on your Financials page because they are run through our US distributor, NBN.

    Sales figures include sales to authors

    The figures include sales to authors but not free copies issued to reviewers.

    Print sales numbers are sales to booksellers, not to individuals!

    Print sales numbers are sales to booksellers, not sales to individuals.

    If various individuals report to you that they bought your book from a bookseller in March, and your page reports no sales for March, then those copies will have been recorded on your Financials page in February, or in the months before, when the bookseller initially bought the book and added it to their stock.

    Ebook sales are all direct-to-reader sales

    Ebook sales are all direct-to-reader sales — while customers can return an ebook, booksellers cannot!

    How many pre-orders have I sold?

    Preorders will also show up in the monthly sales figures on your Financials page.

    We can't track individual pre-orders

    Our books are available to pre-order around 10 months before publication. Over this period, authors understandably want to know their pre-order sales.

    Unfortunately, we don't have access to individual pre-orders as and when they are made. We get an idea of preorders only when booksellers place their initial wholesale orders a month or two before publication. These show up on your Financials page by the end of the following month.

    However, checking your Amazon sales rank before publication is a ball-park indicator for how your pre-orders are going with Amazon.

    Printed copies do not equal sales

    Printed copies of your book are not the same as sales of your book. We print the copies. Then we have to sell them to booksellers.

    • You can see the books we print on your Production page.
    • The record of your sales is on your Financials page.

    In an ideal world, we would sell every copy we print, but in practice, it is unlikely. We carefully manage our print runs, avoiding too many unsold copies by aiming to keep stock levels at the number of books that have sold in the previous three months.



    I have negative sales. How can this be?

    Besides buying books from us, booksellers also return unsold stock.

    If you have negative sales for any given month, it means that there were more returns (by booksellers) than sales (to booksellers) in that month.

    The numbers you see refer to net returned books rather than gross.

    • Gross sales are the total number sold to booksellers in the period before returns from shops have been deducted.
    • Net sales are the total number sold when the returns from the bookstores have been deducted.

    Net sales can appear as negative because orders from over-ambitious retailers are being returned and are often higher than more-recent outgoing orders, and it is now more cost-effective to pulp returned copies.

    I want to see my Amazon sales. Can I do this?

    No, you can't see your specific no. of Amazon sales. If you have an Amazon Author Central account, you can see your Amazon sales rank, which gives you an indication as to how well your book is performing.

    Amazon also offers Nielson Bookscan data for its Amazon.com site. This gives an indication of books sold at point of sale to customers for the USA only (not the same as the numbers on your Financials page, which is books sold to the trade).

    Foreign rights sales

    For foreign rights sales, read our Foreign Rights chapter here.

    Pre-2008 sales figures

    The current monthly sales figures, going back to November 2008, are accurate, though there may be slippage from one month to the next. Before 2008, they are not, particularly if your book was published before January 2005. The royalty statements, however, will be accurate overall, but we have put in an approximation at times rather than checking every royalty statement for each book. Sales of ebooks before November 2011 are not given on the website but will have appeared on your royalty statement.

    Video: How can I find out my sales?

    Sales teams

    We are represented by companies that are generally reckoned to be amongst the best independent sales teams around the world:

    • NBN in the USA.
    • Watkins in the UK.
    • Durnell in Ireland and Europe.

    They work at contacting all relevant wholesalers and retailers, online and bricks-and-mortar, about your book, worldwide. Libraries usually find out about books from wholesalers, so they are covered too. You can be sure that your title will be presented to larger retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Hudson, Hastings, BAM, NACS and Folletts in the USA; Indigo in Canada; and Waterstones, WH Smith, Blackwell, Foyles, and John Smith in the UK. Reps also present to library suppliers such as Brodart in the USA, and to Bertram Library Services, Askews and Yankee Book Peddler in Europe. We're in constant touch with the above groups, sending them AI/tipsheets and catalogues, and attending sales meetings. All the main reps get access to an AI sheet on every title, and we provide them with subject catalogues that include strong backlists.

    Important note: Please do not contact the sales teams directly. They all represent numerous publishers, and it's not feasible for them to work with authors on an individual basis.

    Realistically, with us, your best chance of getting stocked in physical bookstores is in the UK, North America, and Europe (and getting them stocked in these regions is tough).

    The market in Australia is extremely difficult at present, and it is highly unlikely that we will be able to get your books into shops there unless you're a national name or there's specific demand.

    Until the end of 2017, we worked with Hay House in South Africa, but they closed down their operation in that country, and it is no longer financially viable for us to have a local distributor there.

    Countries such as India are nigh on impossible because of low retail prices. So, outside the UK, North America, and Europe, your book is probably going to be available online only via the regional Amazon or other retailers such as the Book Depository (free international shipping).

    A bookseller is far more likely to be persuaded to order copies of a new book if they are alerted to significant marketing. This includes details of upcoming events, scheduled interviews, endorsements from high-profile reviewers, and any traction a book may have gained in mainstream press or on social media. Our Sales Coordinator passes on important marketing information, which the reps then highlight to buyers when pitching your book to bookstores. Tell us about the marketing you do by adding it to your Marketing Activities. For really big news, let us know on the Author Forum.

    Our trading terms are effectively sale or return (returnable), and we offer trade accounts a discount off the recommended retail price (RRP) of 35–60%. We never refuse returns from an event and often offer an increased discount.

    Who are the sales teams?

    NBN in the US

    One of the largest independent sales teams in N. America, they have nine in-house sales staff, all highly experienced, covering wholesalers and central buyers for chains and use further six sales commission groups with several dozen reps between them for sales to selected independent stores. Andrea Jacobs is our Account Manager. National Account Managers are: Omuni Barnes (Amazon.com), Spencer Gale (Barnes & Noble), Ed Lyons (Baker & Taylor/Mass Merchant), Sheila Burnett (Ingram), and Max Phelps (Books-A-Million, REI, American Wholesale, Select Outdoor). Special Markets: Dennis Hayes (Gift, Gourmet, Special Sales) and Amy Alexander (Special Sales Account Manager). Field reps and territories are: Joseph Novosad and Larry Seidl (Rocky Mountain West); Hand Associates — Lynn Wakabayashi, Jock Hayward, David Diehl, Pam Sheppard (West); Geoff Rizzo, Tom Caldwell, Angie Smits, Teresa Rolfe Kravtin, Jan Fairchild (South); Wybel Marketing Group — Terry Wybel, Ron Prazuch, Bill McGarr (Midwest); McLemore/Hollern & Associates — Sam McLemore, Larry Hollern (Southwest); Mark Carbray (New England); The R&R Book Company — Richard C. Re, Eileen Bertelli, Linda Cannon, Jason Kincaide (Mid-Atlantic). There are a further 100 or so reps on commission who cover the rest of N. America and non-book-trade outlets such as museums, garden centres, and craft shops. They are in the top 20 vendors in all sections of the book market.

    NBN in Canada

    Headed by NBN Managing Director Les Petriw. Commission reps cover the Canadian retail and special sales accounts: Hornblower Books, Inc. — Laurie Martella (Atlantic Canada & Eastern Ontario), Karen Stacey (Quebec), Roberta Samec (Toronto, Northern & Soutwestern Ontario), Neil MacRae (Eastern Canada & Academic Sales); Rorie Bruce (Winnipeg); Lisa Pearce (Manitoba and Saskatchewan); AV Sales & Marketing — Aydin Virani and his sales group (Alberta and British Columbia), Kamini Stroyan (British Columbia Interior and Vancouver Lower Mainland).

    NBN also sell titles for us in Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean through a partnership with JCC Enterprises.

    Watkins in the UK

    Debbie Jones (South West England), Anna Murphy (Scotland), Colin Edwards (South & South East), Ian Tripp (Midlands & Wales), Christine Edgeler (London), Gill Hess Limited (Ireland).

    Durnell Marketing in Europe and Ireland

    Durnell have a team of three directors/territory managers: Thibault Appell (Finland, France, Iceland, Malta, Switzerland); James Dunphy (Albania, Belgium, Gibraltar, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Spain); and Timur Sayfullin (Austria, Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine); supported in sales by Iva Mikulikova, Dr Alice Sanders, and Sarah Moore.

    Brumby Sunstate in Australia

    Predominantly MBS titles; we push separately from the office in other areas.

    Publishers International Marketing in Asia

    Does Collective Ink produce catalogues?

    We produce catalogues twice a year. These cover eight areas:

    • Zer0 Books/politics/culture/society
    • Paganism
    • MBS
    • General non-fiction
    • Fiction
    • Transformation
    • History
    • Cristianity
    • Children & Young Adult

    We also produce "Top 20" lists in BISAC categories and in all sub-categories.

    Download these from www.collectiveinkbooks.com, clicking on Catalogues on the top menu.

    A local bookstore wants to buy some copies of my book. What should I tell them?

    If the bookseller plans to order in quantity for an event or other special promotion, they may need extra discount, delivery by particular day, or have other requirements. If so, direct them to How to Order on our website, where they will find contact details for the distributor in their region and can contact CI to negotiate terms. They can order on account or not, but non-account holders will be asked to pay in advance by credit card.

    The discount and whether returnable or non-returnable terms depends on the type of retailer, credit risk, order history, and size of order. In the US and Australia this is determined by the respective distributors NBN and Brumby, elsewhere by negotiation with us, CI.

    If the bookstore wants to order a few copies for their shelves, they can also order direct from our distributors via the How to Order page, or they may prefer to order through a wholesaler. The main book wholesalers in the US are Baker & Taylor (and New Leaf for Mind, Body, Spirit), and in the UK, Gardners.

    Please let us know of any trade orders that you are involved in through the Help forum, under Sales & Distribution: Sales to authors. It helps us plan our printing.

    How else do you work with Booksellers?

    Over the years, we have built good relationships with booksellers in particular subject areas, which you can see in the Contacts Database. For instance, in the Mind/Body/Spirit sector, we have close links with specialist bookstores such as Watkins Books in London and Banyen Books in Vancouver. In the Christian market, we have close links with the wholesalers A Great Read and Goodnews Books. Our imprint for radical politics and culture, Zer0 Books, is popular with booksellers such as Foyles, Blackwell, Bookmarks, Housmans, Folletts, Bluestockings, and City Lights.

    These outlets market and sell our books by hosting events, displaying books on their shelves and websites, as well as publishing articles, reviews, and adverts.

    We also work with festival organizers, colleges and other academic institutions, churches and retreats, arts centers and galleries, as well as therapy centers and healing groups throughout the world.

    We do not run front-of-store table promotions in the big chains. Exposure for books at the front of a bookstore is “bought” by the publisher at the discretion of the bookseller and costs in excess of $10,000.

    Libraries

    If you are an academic, please encourage your university library to stock your book and others on the list, and subscribe to our newsletter. Authors should contact your local public library. Tell them briefly what the book is about, of any reviews, and how to order.

    Public libraries now offer ebooks, too. So go online and check whether they list your book and, if not, recommend it and any others in the imprint.

    Overdrive distributes our ebooks to most public library platforms in the UK & US.

    Overdrive will list your book as available in a particular country only if a library has requested it. So ask for it in your local library and get friends in other countries to ask in theirs, too. If a library gets a request for a book from a reader, they will order it. So encourage friends to order in different countries where you can.

    I Believe That My Book Is Being Pirated. What Should I Do?

    Please note that many of these sites claiming to offer a free copy of your book do not actually do so. They are phishing sites looking to collect your personal data.

    Printed books are rarely pirated. Piracy of ebooks is more common.

    Along with most publishers, we do not build digital rights management (DRM) into our ebooks because it would restrict their readability and distribution. Third-party stores (e.g. Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble) add a layer of DRM that locks the book to a specific user account and device.

    If you do come across an instance of your manuscript being offered as a free download and you can find a contact email address on the offending site, post this and the URL link to your book on the Help forum in Sales & Distribution/ Sales Online. We will issue a take-down notice to their service provider. Word Press and YouTube are on our side and will take down any offending URL.

    Take down notice template

    If you would like to issue a take-down notice yourself, please use this template:

    To the ISP Hosting Company:

    [Author name] is the copyright owner of the ebook(s) being infringed at:

    [Insert URL link]

    This letter is official notification under the provisions of Section 512(c) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") to effect removal of the above-reported infringements. I request that you immediately issue a cancellation message as specified in RFC 1036 for the specified postings and prevent the infringer, who is identified by its Web address, from posting the infringing material to your servers in the future. Please be advised that law requires you, as a service provider, to "expeditiously remove or disable access to" the infringing material upon receiving this notice. Noncompliance may result in a loss of immunity for liability under the DMCA.

    I have a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of here is not authorized by the author, the copyright holder, or the law. The information provided herein is accurate to the best of my knowledge.

    Please reply to me promptly indicating the actions you have taken to resolve this matter.

    Yours Faithfully,


    Foreign Rights Questions

    I want to publish my book in another language. What should I do?

    We only publish in the English language, though we facilitate publication in other languages by selling the foreign rights.

    We sell about 30 foreign rights a year. Around 360 publishers subscribe to get a mailing from us. Last year, we sent out over 500 books for consideration, resulting in 35 foreign rights contracts.

    How do you sell foreign rights?

    About half our translation sales rights we handle directly, half through agents. We work with ten of these in different language territories.

    Agents take 10% or so of any income before it comes to us. We then send you your share when your royalties are due. For this reason, along with bank charges, the sum we receive does not always exactly match the advance given in the contract.

    We do not attend the major international book fairs like BEA (USA), Frankfurt, etc., though we go to the London Book Fair. We choose where we spend our money, and fairs aren’t one of the big choices. Our distributors and agents are there.

    How do I know if the foreign rights to my book are sold?

    When we sell the foreign rights to your book, you’ll be informed by an email notification.
    The event will be recorded in Marketing Activities on your Marketing page.
    We record the terms of the contract in the FOREIGN RIGHTS SALES section on your Financials page.

    Do you sub-license English editions of my book?

    No, we do not sub-license editions of your book to other publishers in English, with the exception of sales to India (their retail price is equivalent to our cost price).

    Someone wants to translate my book to another language. What should I do?

    If we have the translation rights (this is the case for roughly nine titles out of ten), to avoid confusion please log translation queries in the Rights section of the Author Forum.

    Do not sell your rights if we own them!

    The financial penalties involved in mistakenly selling translation rights to two different publishers in the same country can far outweigh income gained from selling any number of rights.

    When will you sell the foreign rights to my book?

    We approach other publishers for rights sales once your book is in print. Though some ask for PDF (proofs) by email, most want a physical copy of the book in their hands before they offer a contract, unless you are a well-known author.

    If a publisher contacts us, asking for copy of a book before it’s published, we send a hard copy if we have stock, or we send a PDF if it’s ready.

    How much money will I earn from a foreign rights sale?

    If you’re not a recognizable name or if we haven’t sold 10,000 or so copies of your book, the chances of rights sales are not high.

    When we make a sale, most advances are at the level of €500–1000 (many are in the hundreds), or in places like Vietnam or Indonesia, many are sold with no advance.

    €5000 is generally a good advance, though it doesn’t happen very often.

    If you sell foreign rights to my book, how long will it take before I see it in print?

    Occasionally an overseas publisher will bring out a translation quickly, but this is the exception.

    Your overseas publisher will have to:

    • translate the book (possibly a year or longer); and
    • produce the book (at least 12 months between finished manuscript and publication).

    Where can I get the contact details of my foreign rights publisher?

    Look up the publisher you wish to find in the Contacts Database.

    Do I get author copies of my translated book?

    Yes.

    We will send you two copies of the translated book after we receive them from the publisher.

    We don’t get involved in detailed correspondence in this area. We do not chase overseas publishers, asking if or when they are going to publish or how many they are printing.

    Issues with selling foreign rights sales

    Publishers overseas prefer to work with authors in their own market, who can promote in their own language and avoid the very substantial translation costs, which effectively double the investment (which is why we have few translated books on our own list).

    Some markets, like self-help and health, are simply too crowded.

    In many countries or regions, like India or the Far East, retail prices are anything from one-tenth to a quarter of those in the West, and the costs to us of processing the transaction are disproportionate. It does not generate substantial income and is often outweighed by the cost of getting it.

    If there are illustrations in the book, a good proportion of this is taken up with the costs of administration. It can take months, even years, trying to sort out the complications of double taxation between different tax offices in different countries, with documents needing to be stamped in the original by Inland/Central Revenue Departments, and occasionally it simply doesn’t get sorted.

    Can I do anything to help the foreign rights sales of my book?

    Yes, you can help the foreign rights sales of your book.

    Approach overseas publishers directly, either contacts already on our database who have published our titles before or others that you know. We are easy to work with on the agreements. Encourage friends and colleagues in other countries to do the same. It makes a difference if a publisher knows that there are already people in their market keen to see a book.

    If they are interested, ask them to contact Lisa von Fircks, our Foreign Rights Manager. ([email protected]).

    I know a good translator for my book. Can they do it?

    Authors sometimes have friends/contacts who want to translate the book into their language, or are bilingual and can do it themselves. Which is great, but in terms of publishing the translation, we cannot get directly involved with that. Effective publishing means finding a local-language publisher in that market. Encourage them to find one.

    How can I evaluate the translation of my book?

    We don’t get involved in correspondence about whether the translation (including the title) is accurate.

    We don’t speak the language; we have to leave it to the local publisher. They’re the ones investing in the work.

    Similarly, if a publisher wants to shorten the text, we leave it to their judgment.

    This may happen particularly on longer books and especially with languages like German, which bulk to one-third more than English.

    There may be passages that are more relevant to an English audience than an overseas one, and they want to delete those or convert them to a local example. We give permission for the publisher to do this, without getting back to you, unless you ask us to do so in advance.

    Retain your own copies of your illustrations, photos, and pictures

    Please note: If you have supplied us with pictures or illustrations, make sure that you retain your own copies.

    We can’t guarantee to make these available to an overseas publisher in future years.

    The reason is that application software gets updated as the years go on, and earlier jobs reflow when opened up in newer software. It’s often simpler to produce new photographs or illustrations rather than sort the software out.

    When should I get in touch with my foreign publisher?

    Feel free to contact them directly:

    • if you want to buy copies of the translated edition;
    • if you want to run workshops/events in that country;
    • if you can provide marketing contacts; or
    • if you want information on timings.

    Statements

    Please note: We do not forward statements on sales from overseas publishers.

    We do record the advance paid to us, with subsequent royalties.

    You can make a rough calculation of the numbers sold from royalty received, but we do not track sales of translated titles like we track our own sales. We do not chase publishers for royalty statements. It may be a few years before you receive anything other than the advance. This is because it can take two or three years to translate and publish, and some publishers do not send us a statement until the book has earned through the advance. Different publishers send us statements covering different periods, one might be six months, another once a year.

    You can find this information on your Financials page.

    When do I get paid for my foreign rights sale?

    As soon as we receive the income, it will be paid over to you in your subsequent royalty statement. We do not pay over your percentage of the advance as soon as the contract is signed because sometimes it can take 6–12 months to come through; sometimes it does not come at all, and we have to cancel the contract.

    Sample contract

    There is a sample foreign rights contract in Appendix 2.

    Publisher story

    Most sales of foreign editions tend to be considerably smaller than those achieved in the home market, and they die down quickly. Which titles are picked up where often seems random, and sales sometimes seem inexplicably low, or more occasionally high, with little logic behind them, unconnected with the clout of the publisher. Our most-successful foreign rights title is a seemingly obscure little hardback called God Calling, which was first published in 1935 and to which we bought the rights some 15 years ago. Sales are still steady in the UK, at a few thousand a year, but overseas sales run into the many tens of thousands a year. Norway manages to sell more than we do, but we can’t sell it to Sweden or Finland. Go figure…

    God Calling is one of our most successful books in terms of foreign sales

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