HOW TO DISTRIBUTE YOUR PAPERBACK SHOULD YOU DO A PAPERBACK? Despite the proliferation of eBooks, the majority of book sales are still physical books.3 Most authors should print a paperback, given that print-on-demand has made it so easy and cheap to distribute high-quality copies of your book. Sometimes authors just produce a hardcover for exclu- sivity and to ensure readers only get the highest quality version of their book. But for the vast majority of authors, a paperback makes sense as an easy way to get physical copies of their book to readers. TL;DR: Yes. FACTORS IN PAPERBACK DISTRIBUTION If you want to sell a paperback, the big question is: how will you print your book? Your options are print-on-demand (POD) and offset printing. With POD, your books are printed as they are ordered, and cost about $4 per book. With offset printing, you print large batches of books, warehouse them, and fulfill orders as Amazon sends you purchase orders. Printers like Bang and Thomson Reuters will warehouse books for you. With offset printing, the more books you order, the cheaper each copy becomes. For books between 150 and 350 pages, pricing often works like this: • 1,000 copies: ~$3.00 3 Parker, Olivia. “Print Books vs. e-Books – an Update.” Graphic Arts Magazine, March 16, 2018. https:// graphicartsmag.com/articles/2018/03/print-books-vs-e-books-update/. 344 · ThE SCriBE METhOD