Expanded Book Distribution (Another Failed Experiment)

Someone told me once that I should make my books available on bookshop.org, and as you know, I believe everything I'm told. But since I publish through KDP, there are rules. And don't try to skirt the rules or you're going to end up like the bazillion or so authors posting on Reddit that their accounts have been terminated. (Of course, they claim to have done nothing wrong, and a few of them probably haven't. Welcome to the world of bots running companies.)

Well, it turns out it is possible for physical books to have wide distribution, even if they're published through KDP. Ebooks, too, if an author's not enrolled in KDP Select or ends his or her participation in the program. Since I never make sales, but instead get a few Kindle Unlimited page reads from time to time, I'm sticking with Select for now. 

To make a paperback eligible for sale on sites other than Amazon, it's a simple matter of checking the "expanded distribution" box on the setup screen. So, okay, I did that.

Jumping to conclusions is one of my regrettable habits.

I didn't really check out bookshop.org, which I'm sure is a lovely place for some people to visit. It's a nightmare for authors to navigate, but if one is dedicated enough, it's eventually possible to set up an account (or "store") and do the other useless tasks the site wants us to do.

My quibble with bookshop is that it's the NPR of bookstores. And thus, my store was never going to be frequented. Bookshop is the non-human equivalent of the literary agents I wrote about in a previous post (assuming that literary agents are human, which I'll accept). It's very, very woke; and I'm very, very not. But I went ahead and signed up with Draft2Digital and uploaded my manuscripts and covers and got my three paperbacks added to bookshop's inventory. Never sold a single book.

Here are my D2D stats as proof:

 

My readers, I'm fairly confident, don't peruse bookshop.org. Look at it this way: Yes, the site supports independent bookstores. I, in theory, like independent bookstores, too. But that's not one of my pet political causes. Because I shop wherever I can get the best deal. Physical bookstores, independent ones, are fun to visit. The ambience is intimate, quiet; the lighting is subdued. The clerk knows a thing or two about books and can readily recommend one or two she thinks I'd like. There's value in that. But there's also value in staying within my budget, so I buy books on Amazon. My readers subscribe to FreeBooksy's newsletter, because they're not rich, either. Or they'll grab a free Kindle deal. I doubt they surf over to bookshop.org to be condescended to. Bookshop likes Booker Prize winners and Oprah's Book Club (though hardly the same category). It also advertises books in categories such as:

queer whimsy

honoring world water day 

get cultured 

honoring the struggle for farm workers' rights

They're like the school's most hated social studies teacher; the one every kid dreads discovering on his new class schedule. 

To be fair, I didn't just utilize D2D for my bookshop.org folly. I also used it to get onto public library databases. That hasn't worked, either. My three books (which are the only ones I could upload to D2D) are, sure, included in the databases, but last time I checked, no library system had ordered any of them, despite readers' high demand. 😉 Shoot, I even went to OverDrive, which my local library uses, and requested one to be added. They rudely ignored me. 

So, no, expanded distribution has not been the magic bullet I was searching for. My best bet is to stick with Kindle Unlimited. I'll have you know that one person is currently reading my novel! Hey, we take what we can get.