You’ve probably heard more than enough recently about the difficulties and challenges small presses are facing. So here’s a piece in praise of our successes, our small victories, the things we get right. After all, who doesn’t like some good news to brighten up dark times?
Our online shop is a lifeline, an invaluable lifeline. It allows us to sell our books direct to customers, meaning we make more from a sale than the pence we get when someone buys our book from a corporate giant like Am**on. Like all small businesses, we need that money. Mr Bezos doesn’t.
What our shop also does is bring all our titles together in one place. And that brings possibilities. Last week we got an email from someone in the USA who’d come to our online shop looking for one book, taken a look at our other titles, and decided they all looked good. (spoiler alert: they’re right) Given that the chances of finding our books in their local bookshop were next to nil, they asked if they could buy a copy of each of them. As they put it: I’m not likely to find any of these locally, so why not venture out a bit?
We checked out postage options and prices, and very soon a parcel will be on its way to Alabama. The cost to the customer? A smidge more than buying all those titles over the counter in a bookshop here in the UK. Our authors win. We win. The customer wins. Everyone’s happy.
Oh, and we did the maths. If you’re in the UK and you follow the lead of our friend in Alabama, you’ll get eight great titles, you’ll have enough incredible reading to get you through the summer, and you’ll save over £25.00 on buying those same books anywhere else.
Sometimes we get things right, folks. Sometimes we get things right.