Selling through other sites

[crawfordh]

I have started a book publishing company. The first title should be coming out in June. We will be concentrating on serious nonfiction. The first book will be on mental illness.

What I think I want to do is contact sites dedicated to that subject and offer them the opportunity to sell the book on their site. I'm guessing that, if they send someone to my site, there needs to be a way of identifying them so that they can be credited for a commission. How?

Another question concerns shopping carts. I will have a fairly limited number of similar products for sale. Would Paypal's setup be sufficient?

Thanks, Crawford

[topout]

Is direct-distribution the best use of your time? Are you better of saving the expense and selling on Amazon and to other retailers?

There are affiliate programs, two very popular ones are Commission Junction and Linkshare. You then need to integrate them with a shopping cart, which is very straightforward but you need a cart that will allow you to add code to the reciept page.

We use Commission Junction on my martial arts site. They do an okay job.

[crawfordh]

This will be only one method of distribution. I just want to maximize my efforts. There is a great need of cashflow early on and the traditional avenues take large chunks. I can offer these sites a larger piece of the pie than Amazon, et al. and still realize a greater piece for my firm.

Another consideration is that the book industry is unlike others. Retailers can return stock at any time for a full refund. These sales are never final, so you must keep a considerable reserve to cover returns plus deal with the extra shipping incurred.

I do appreciate the suggested software and will look into them. eCommerce is new to me, although I was an assembler language programmer for Delta Airlines on the big iron 30 years ago. It seems there have been a few changes.

[topout]

I'm not saying it's wrong use of your time. If it's not something you're comfortable with, consider how else you could use your time and figure out which use will best help you appreciate your short and long-term goals.

[nexternal]

crawfordh,

I don't know all of the ins-and-outs of your business model, but I'll give you my .02.

If you choose to sell through YOUR website, topout is correct, you will need to look into an affiliate program (to be able to give credit to your referrers). There are also shopping carts with these affiliate systems built-in.

However, topout has some good points. The internet has revolutionized the printing industry. crawfordh, you even made that point yourself. "There is a great need of cashflow early on and the traditional avenues take large chunks." Companies like Lulu.com now allow you to print 0 books but sell to amazon sized markets without the overhead.

If I were you, I would sell all of the ways I knew how, but please don't ignore the huge markets because you can't afford it. That is a false premise now.