Now let’s talk about distributing a paperback printed using offset printing. To sell on Amazon, you’ll need to apply for an Amazon Advantage account. If you get approved, the account costs $99 a year and pays 45 percent royalties to authors. You will receive purchase orders from Amazon based on their esti- mates for upcoming sales volume, and you will fulfill those orders directly to Amazon’s warehouse. From there, Amazon will fulfill individual orders to readers. Distribution beyond Amazon will be nearly impossible as a self- published author. IngramSpark does distribute POD paperbacks to bookstores, which means bookstores CAN buy your book, but the truth is most book- stores won’t. In our opinion, that doesn’t matter. To get into most bookstores, you need a sales rep going store to store to convince them to stock your book. However, this is very difficult to do without going with a traditional publisher, which comes with its own long list of negative consequences. TL;DR: For limited distribution but easy paperback distribu- tion, use KDP. HOW TO DISTRIBUTE YOUR HARDCOVER SHOULD YOU DO A HARDCOVER? Most authors don’t need a hardcover. For those who do, it’s for one or more of these reasons: • They want special copies to give friends, family, or clients • As a higher-quality print, a hardcover is a better fit for their brand 346 · ThE SCriBE METhOD