A Review of Booksurge

December 20th, 2006 by Chris

On my plate of ways to further monetize my literature site has been plans to publish actual books. In one case I’m having a writer work on original content for a book that is encyclopedic in scope. In the other cases I’m publishing in book format the same work I publish in digital format.

For my first go at it I decided to make a pocket reading book of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. The reason is that Shakespeare is one of the most popular authors on my site, and I also run a sonnet newsletter with a whole bunch of subscribers to market to.

Since I have modest photoshop & PDF skills I did all my own formatting and supplied Booksurge with ready to print files based off their specifications. This meant my cost was only $99.

Since BookSurge is owned by Amazon the book will be included in Amazon’s catalogue. Additionally it’ll be included in the catalogues of many other online stores and be able to be bought by brick & mortar booksellers as well. Booksurge will print all orders on demand. The royalties vary, but in general I will receive 25% of the retail price of $13.95. This isn’t big bucks to be sure, and I’m not really counting on sales from all the various distribution channels. Rather, I plan to drive all my own sales through my sites.

Like with Cafepress, I can ask Booksurge to raise the price, however I do not get what it is raised to in additional royalties (like you would with a cafepress product) rather I still just get 25%.

Of course, when it is on Amazon, I can link to it as an affiliate link and get 30-35% overall.

So, I signed up with Booksurge on Dec 11th, and there was some back and forth with the files, but they were finalized on the 15th and today I received a copy of my book in the mail. It looks great. It is a trade paperback, though buyers have the option of a hardcover edition which will cost a little more.

All told, I’m very pleased with my $99 purchase. I think I’ll be able to sell a few hundred to a thousand of these just by marketing it to my own viewers, so it’ll be profitable. Plus, making your own books is fun.

You can see the book on Amazon here.

So, if any of you have content you think would work as a book, consider giving BookSurge a try.

Related posts:

  1. Amazon Switches from Google to MSN for Alexa, A9, and Amazon search.

Posted in: Generating Revenue »  by: Chris

9 Responses to “A Review of Booksurge”

  1. ToddW  Says:
    January 2nd, 2007 at 10:28 pm

    Wow, I didn’t even know such a service existed! This will come in handy in the future for lots of people I think.

  2. Timothy Fish  Says:
    January 10th, 2007 at 7:53 pm

    I just submitted my pdf files for Church Website Design: A Step By Step Approach. Part of the reason I did was to discover how well it works. I figure spending $99 for publication and maybe selling 100 books is better than spending two years and who knows how much money looking for an agent and a publisher with the risk of the book not being published. Given the nature of some of the information in the book, part of it would have to be revised if I waited two years for someone to pick it up.

  3. Mike  Says:
    January 12th, 2007 at 5:59 am

    Sounds like a very useful service; self-publishing has become so much easier.

    I’d be very interested in getting a rough idea of your results (not monetary, but whether you considered it successful) after the book has been out for awhile.

    I’ve been reading a bit about works that are in the public domain and repackaging/republishing these in other useful forms. I guess Shakespeare qualifies as a public domain work?

  4. sherry brier  Says:
    January 21st, 2007 at 8:04 pm

    Hi, Thanks for the above info. I was just starting to get info about printing my book with Booksurge or Cafepress. What
    do you mean by:
    Of course, when it is on Amazon, I can link to it as an affiliate link and get 30-35% overall.
    I guess you decided Amazon was better, why?
    Again, I thank you for being a trailblazer for me.
    Sherry

  5. Chris  Says:
    January 22nd, 2007 at 7:33 am

    I was referring to Amazon.com’s affiliate program whereby I can refer people to Amazon and get 5-10% commission on what they buy, which would be on top of my royalties.

  6. Timothy Fish  Says:
    June 7th, 2007 at 1:07 pm

    To update what I said before, Church Website Design: A step by step approach has been available on Amazon.com and has been selling fairly well. It is in no danger of being at the top of a best seller list anytime soon, but it is doing alright. I have no complaints about the quality of the final product and I have chosen to publish a second book through BookSurge. The second book is called Searching For Mom and will be available on Amazon.com by July 2007. The only complaints I have are these, I have not received any royalties and I have had some trouble getting them to respond to e-mails related to the second book, but they have been nice over the phone. I figure I just need to grease the wheels on the royalty thing, so I’m not worried about that, yet. The other issue, I think, is due to bad timing or something. One person said she was out unexpectedly.

  7. JR  Says:
    February 1st, 2008 at 6:11 am

    Today I was investigating book publishing options and I noticed that as of February 1st 2008 the rates are increased to 35%. I haven’t seen the rates of other publishers but this seems like a good option.

  8. Dave  Says:
    May 3rd, 2008 at 7:23 am

    I tried using Booksurge once and found them a joke from square one. A horror show is a good description. That was 100 plus titles ago and I’ll never ever go back, no matter if amazon does try to extort indie publishers into using them because they want the profits. No way. Just my two cents.

  9. Natalya I. Sabga  Says:
    May 5th, 2008 at 9:45 am

    Hi there- thanks for your feedback on BookSurge. I, myself, am considering entering into an agreement with them. But, my “Total Design freedom” package is being quoted at $1,299.00, so I am wondering what your $99 only fee included?

    Any light you can shed on this will help me make a sound decision.

    Thanks in advance!

    Regards,
    NIS

Leave a Response








(Email field must be filled in)

Top of page...