Comments on: Getting an Account with Lightning Source http://www.kreelanwarrior.com/2009/01/getting-an-account-with-lightning-source/ Tales and Musings Tue, 15 Jun 2010 01:07:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 hourly 1 By: Michael R. Hicks http://www.kreelanwarrior.com/2009/01/getting-an-account-with-lightning-source/#comment-626 Michael R. Hicks Mon, 24 May 2010 16:38:13 +0000 http://www.kreelanwarrior.com/?p=217#comment-626 Gina - LSI is a distributor, not a retailer. They'll sell you (the publisher) one or more copies directly, but they don't fulfill direct orders from customers, only through their retailers like Amazon, B&N, etc. So once your books goes live on LSI, it will automagically be made available through LSI's retailer channels (although it may take a couple/few weeks for your book to appear), and your customers would just buy the books there like they would any other book. Their distribution, by default, is through Ingram (since LSI is an Ingram-owned company). :-) LSI's pricing information is available once you've gotten an account, although for standard-size paperbacks up through at least 6x9 format, it's $0.90 (cover) + (number of pages) * $0.013. Larger formats like 7x10 are more expensive: $1.30 (cover) + (number of pages) * $0.018. Note that these are the prices to print for retail distribution; if you want copies for yourself, the page price is higher ($0.015 for small format, and $0.020 per page for large format). So that determines the print price. Then you have to figure out what retail price to set it to, taking into account the print price (which is LSI's cut), the retailer's cut (which is a minimum of 25% of the retail price), and whatever royalty you want. I believe there are some calculators floating around out there that can help on this (try searching on "book royalty calculator"). They'll put the ISBN on, you just have to provide it (they don't have a "we'll provide an ISBN for you" program). As for the PDFs, that can get a bit tricky. You have to read the submission guidelines very closely, particularly for color saturation and other issues with CMYK color. NOTE that LSI is *not* for casual do-it-yourselfers: they'll hold your hand through the process, but at a price of $40 a change or per half-hour. That can get a bit pricey. So you might want to hire a third party to help with the technical bits, or consider going with CreateSpace for your first book run - it's sort of like LSI with training wheels, but the price of entry is cheap ($39 for the pro pricing model - don't go the "free" route!) and their technical standards aren't as demanding... Hope that helps! Gina – LSI is a distributor, not a retailer. They’ll sell you (the publisher) one or more copies directly, but they don’t fulfill direct orders from customers, only through their retailers like Amazon, B&N, etc. So once your books goes live on LSI, it will automagically be made available through LSI’s retailer channels (although it may take a couple/few weeks for your book to appear), and your customers would just buy the books there like they would any other book. Their distribution, by default, is through Ingram (since LSI is an Ingram-owned company). :-)

LSI’s pricing information is available once you’ve gotten an account, although for standard-size paperbacks up through at least 6×9 format, it’s $0.90 (cover) + (number of pages) * $0.013. Larger formats like 7×10 are more expensive: $1.30 (cover) + (number of pages) * $0.018. Note that these are the prices to print for retail distribution; if you want copies for yourself, the page price is higher ($0.015 for small format, and $0.020 per page for large format). So that determines the print price. Then you have to figure out what retail price to set it to, taking into account the print price (which is LSI’s cut), the retailer’s cut (which is a minimum of 25% of the retail price), and whatever royalty you want. I believe there are some calculators floating around out there that can help on this (try searching on “book royalty calculator”).

They’ll put the ISBN on, you just have to provide it (they don’t have a “we’ll provide an ISBN for you” program).

As for the PDFs, that can get a bit tricky. You have to read the submission guidelines very closely, particularly for color saturation and other issues with CMYK color. NOTE that LSI is *not* for casual do-it-yourselfers: they’ll hold your hand through the process, but at a price of $40 a change or per half-hour. That can get a bit pricey. So you might want to hire a third party to help with the technical bits, or consider going with CreateSpace for your first book run – it’s sort of like LSI with training wheels, but the price of entry is cheap ($39 for the pro pricing model – don’t go the “free” route!) and their technical standards aren’t as demanding…

Hope that helps!

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