Look. We have to have a quick chat about the Paperbacks and how those are going to be coming out moving forward. 

I love paperbacks. I’ve been trying really hard to make sure that when the ebook comes out, there’s a paperback available at the same time. And for a while, it was working great! They were showing up in all sorts of places I wasn’t even expecting and I could schedule things in a way so that no one had to wait too long for the next installment in whatever format they wanted.

Unfortunately, I’ve hit a bit of a snag when it comes to getting the paperbacks done at a reasonable time. There have been a few changes with the distributor and I’m finding that my books are also available in paperback in fewer and fewer locations than before. The time it’s taking to get a book from proof to complete is taking months instead of weeks. And so, I am considering just allowing the Print book to be released a few months after the ebook version.

The backstory

I usually print with Createspace. It is an arm of Amazon, one that allows people like me to print a book. They would send out proof copies so that we could check our covers and interiors in a fairly timely manner. I could get a book from first iteration to final copy in under a month, which made scheduling releases really easy.

Unfortunately, Createspace is no more. It seems to have been disbanded and dissolved by a new thing called KDP Print. For you, this makes no impact. They will still print and ship books to customers quickly, so you should see no difference. But for publishers, there’s a problem. It’s taking longer and longer for them to even get our books make, much less mailed out. We’re waiting longer and longer to see them at all.

And then there’s what they’ve done to the covers.

If I had anything under that band, I would be unable to check it to make sure it printed properly. There is an online previewer we can use, but it isn’t ideal and nothing quite compares to the ability to check a physical copy of the book. It’s become a very frustrating process and it’s making my efforts to both put things out in a timely fashion difficult.

Not to mention that I can’t find my paperbacks on Indigo anymore. And Indigo is my store.

What now?

I’m thinking about not worrying so much about getting the paperback out at the same time as the ebook. I can put them out separately, and with a delay to make sure that the paperback is as good as it can be. I’m also going to add a new printer to my arsenal. Amazon is fine for printing to Amazon, but it’s not great for everyone else, so I’m also going to give Ingram Spark a shot. That should get my books back into the locations I love and shop at, plus Ingram Spark has the added bonus of printing for book stores. Which I have recently decided I want to try.

I’m still considering at this point, especially since I know there are some people who are very attached to the paperbacks, but I’m leaning towards doing it this way. Ebook first, paperback when I can get it to a standard I like.