Advice please

[fishybits]

I was given a self published book for DD at New Year. The book is great so I've asked the author (who lives overseas) if I could print and sell it in this country.

She would rather arrange for it to be printed in this country herself to retain control (paid for by me), charge me X per copy as her cut and arrange for the books to be sent to me directly for me to sell on as I see fit.

Does this sound reasonable and what should she be charging me per book as her cut.

I don't have a problem with this proposal, it would save me a lot of hassle with having to pay her a slice every month or so but I am inclined to pay her a little less than I would've done because it's all up front.

I was thinking of an initial print run of 500 to sell online.

Finally, what's the difference between a booklet and a book?

What have I missed, got wrong, don't know about etc.?

Many thanks

[Punkatheart]

Um...I am being very dim but I really don't get this. Why on earth doesn't she sell them herself? Also - have you thought about postage costs of sending out books and also if you get stuck with them? Also, you think the book is great but you really, really need a second opinion. A booklet is not a book of course - are we talking about a tiny book?

I would be very happy to look at it and give my honest opinion but to be honest, this sounds like a risk.

[fishybits]

A reply!

She's in another country and isn't interested in selling them herself and I've been looking for a way to make some pin money as we move every 18 months which makes getting a job tricky.

I've spent 6 months asking all sorts of people for opinions from book sellers to Mums to nurseries to teachers etc. Without exception the response was positive. I've got an idea of what people would pay for the book, the colouring book and for individual prints of the pictures.

The reason for the book vs booklet question is because it's only got 16 colour pages and the price between getting a book printed vs a booklet printed seems to be vast. I wanted to get a relatively small number of each printed and see how I get on selling them via ebay, notonthehighstreet and directly before getting loads printed. I've got x put by for something like this so won't go into debt but the book vs booklet price thing is fairly key.

Thank you for any words of advice/wisdom you've got.

[MooncupGoddess]

How will you market it? It's very hard to stand out on Amazon and booksellers may not take it as a one-off.

Have you decided what paper etc to use, and checked the colour images are properly set up?

Have you bought an ISBN?

[MysteriousHamster]

Selling someone else's book sounds nuts to me.

I know you've said she doesn't want to do it, but most self-publishing is done through the ebook market these days, no one really needs a third-party helping them unless they're paying for an editor/designer/etc (or using a traditional publisher).

If you were selling them for her, you'd be her actual publisher or distributor. It just sounds like a headache. You'd need a proper literary contract. There must be a million other things you could do for the money. I just don't see how you'd make much.

I don't mean to sound this miserable- I know this is very negative - but I have worked in publishing and bookselling and it's incredibly hard to sell books and harder still to sell anything self-published. It would have to be very very very special.