Dick Claassen, dick@awestruckebooks.net
| Our authors are very curious about how many distributors we have and who these distributors are. This is to be expected: the more distributors we have, the more likely you are to make sales. We do sell from our site, as you already know. No doubt you’ve navigated through a good part of our site and realize that there is shopping cart access on every description page. Our site is, and will continue to be a major sales portal for your books. But it would be foolish to depend on sales just from our site. It would be equivalent to Ford Motor Company selling cars just from their factory! They have dealers all over the planet. Like Ford, we have distributors all over the planet. And all our distributors sell all our titles to customers all over the world. The table below will give you a partial picture of our distributor network. |
Be sure to read the FAQ's below the table. They should answer most of the specific questions you probably have.
DISTRIBUTOR | FORMAT more info |
| Mobipocket | |
| | |
| Microsoft Reader, Hiebook, PDF, Palm | |
| All formats more info | |
| eBook Corp. | All formats |
Distributor FAQ's
Q: Is Awe-Struck actively trying to bring on board new distributors?
A: Yes. We are always open to finding new portals to sell our books from.
Q: Suppose I go to one of Awe-Struck's distributors and, through a search, determine that my book isn't listed. Should I let you know?
A: You can let me know, but it's doubtful it will do any good. Let me explain. Some distributors--not all, but some--are way WAY behind on getting our books uploaded to their sites. This isn't a problem unique to Awe-Struck. It's a common problem that all of us publishers have to put up with until the distributors figure out how to deal with the massive influx of ebook titles they receive daily. This will, no doubt, improve over time. Right now we all have no choice but to be patient. I could give you names of specific distributors who are the biggest offenders, but that wouldn't be fair to them. They are all doing their best.
Q: Well, what if I, as an author, decide to contact a distributor who isn't listing my title(s)? Maybe they'll listen to an individual author.
A: We would appreciate it if you would leave the contacting to us. The people who are in charge of uploading titles are doing their level best to be fair to everyone. An individual author complaining is just going to tick them off. That only hurts us all, not just you as an author. Besides, they won't listen to you. Authors have tried and have just been ignored. If a distributor clearly has forgotten to upload your book, we will contact them.
Q: What would happen if I would try to submit my title to one of your distributors? Would that make it easier for you?
A: It wouldn't. It would severely complicate things for everyone. Patience is a virtue, and in the ebook business it's a double virtue. Besides, you will torque off the distributor which will have repercussions for all our authors, not just you. We really do have to wait until a distributor decides to move. Distributors consider having to post ebooks a pain because it's a lot of extra work for them. The best thing we can do as authors (and I include myself and Kathryn and Mary in this category), is to be nice to them. The rest will take care of itself.
Q: What percentage of Awe-Struck's titles do you send to your distributors? Does it depend on if a title is a best seller?
A: We send every single title to all our distributors. It does not depend on how well your title sells from the Awe-Struck site. How can a title become a best seller if it's isolated on our site? It can't. Every title goes to every distributor. Period. :-)
Q: When do you send them?
A: As a rule, we send your ebook to distributors within a week or two after your title is released on the Awe-Struck site. This doesn't mean your title will appear on a distributor's site within a week or two of the Awe-Struck release. It only means we've set our end of it in motion. Ultimately, posting to a distributor's site is up to them, not us.
Q: What if I've changed book covers and you (Awe-Struck) have asked them to change to the new cover and they haven't yet?
A: Distributors are loath to change covers once they've posted the first one. Many distributors post the ebook, book description, and cover automatically, all in one swoop. We send them files named a certain way, and their software grabs each file according to the file extension and plunks them up on their site. They will not go back and do "hand work" like changing covers. This has proven to be irritating to those authors who have decided to improve their initial cover design, but there is nothing we can do about it. The distributor calls the shots, not us. And even though Awe-Struck has a well established reputation, distributors don't care. Their goal is to get their volume up. If a particular title does poorly because of a bad book cover, so be it. They'll take that as a small loss. They're game is volume, not quality.
Q: Then how can I get a newer cover version on these sites?
A: You can't. That's why it's imperative you make a very smart decision on your cover the first time around. To read my further rantings about the importance of good book covers, click here. :-)
Q: I know that Awe-Struck pays author royalties quarterly. Does this mean that all the distributors pay towards our royalties on a quarterly basis as well?
A: Oh, how we wish that were true. :-) Some distributors are very slow about telling us which titles have been sold and how many. That means even though you may have sold 'X' number of titles three months ago, distributors may not tell us this until they're good and ready. There's nothing we can do about this. Even though we pay royalties quarterly, those royalties are based on the current information from our distributors. These unavoidable delays will be reflected in your royaltiy check. But even though this can make royalty pay-outs very uneven, rest assured you will receive what's due you.
If you should have further questions beyond those answered above, please email me at- dick@awestruckebooks.net
Content Reserve isn't a distributor. It's a company that sells our books to distributors. In other words, Content Reserve is the middleman... excuse me, middleperson! :-) We try to avoid selling to a company who turns around and sells our titles to someone else, because that, obviously, reduces our profit. But Content Reserve is extremely valuble, even so, because they place our titles with companies that are out of our reach. For example, Content Reserve will be selling our titles to the Palm bookstore, (palmdigitalmedia.com). Palm won't deal directly with us, but they will deal with Content Reserve. The Palm bookstore (the store from palmdigitalmedia.com's site), is a huge opportunity for all of us. But be patient. Big deals take time. Even though we have been faithfully sending our Palm Reader files to Content Reserve, our titles still haven't been put on this site. Everything takes time. Content Reserve puts our titles into foreign countries and into libraries. Content Reserve is also valuable in placing our titles with retailers we've never heard of. So beyond the distributors on the table above are many distributors "hidden" in Content Reserve's network.
The Booksurge site is the portal for our books in print. Customers who order POD's from our site have their book orders fulfilled by Booksurge.