Paperback writer

I’ve resisted offering physical copies of A Thousand Lights for a long time. My reasoning was two-fold.

First, I have heard nothing but horror stories from indie authors about returns. I’ve seen too many people post about how returns completely wipe out their royalties, and how they often end up owing money. That sounds like a nightmare for any author.

Second, I just felt that nobody would take that kind of chance on an indie author, let alone a new one. I reasoned that with the lower price points for eBooks and Kindle Unlimited, readers would be more likely to say, “I have no clue who this is, but for a couple of bucks I’ll see what he’s all about.” I don’t think this is a reflection of any debut indie author’s writing ability, but more of the reality that for a lot of readers money is tight and physical books are more expensive.

However, I realize that physical books are still very popular. That there are plenty of readers out there who don’t or won’t use eReaders. Hell, for the longest time, I was one of those people! If I really want to reach as many readers as possible, I need to offer as many choices as possible.

So, this weekend I went ahead and set up my KDP for print copies. Everything is under review at the moment, but soon enough anyone could order a paperback version of my novel. I’m excited to see if and how that moves the needle in terms of sales and marketing. I just want to get my book out there in front of eyes, to share my story with the world.

Let’s see where the paperback takes things.