Release day is coming on April 5th, except SOMEBODY missed the memo that the date had changed. Oh well, my own fault for changing it. I’ve been getting myself as ready as I can for everything, but it feels at times like a full-time job unto itself. I never deluded myself into thinking that publishing a book or owning a business would be easy, but the deadlines really don’t help. At least I’ve been able to do one thing I’m kind of good at, and that’s building a website.
See, retailers like Amazon or B&N, and even independent bookstores, get a pretty significant discount on a printed book, and that’s what allows them to stay in business. You’re allowed to offer whatever discount you want, but they’re also allowed to not carry your publication if it’s too low. This is where self-selling comes in. If you buy your prints from the printer at cost and sell them at cover price, everything else is your profit. So, even though it’s a lot harder to sell it yourself, the math makes sense. Now comes the hard part: selling!
If you’ve set yourself up as a proper imprint business, as I have with Maximum Cat Press, you can really dive into this deep. Though it’s probably several days away from going live, the MCP website will be my eCommerce portal to sell the paperbacks myself. Of course, it doesn’t do everything for you, but when I started my career in IT, eCommerce websites were monstrous beasts that the average layperson couldn’t fathom. It’s practically turn-key now, and available through menus. I was startled at how much you get directly out of the box.
Before I get to the sneak preview of MCP, let me call out a couple of the tools I used that made things super easy. Again, these are not sponsored or affiliate links, and I get no compensation for my promotions. I just like these tools!
- WooCommerce: Here’s the key you turn in turn-key. It’s free+, meaning that the account and basic service are free, but there are countless paid add-ons that can help you sell in various ways. The most popular add-ons, like shipping and tax calculations, are also free. It connects to Stripe Express for payment and I’ve been very impressed so far. The integration is so tight, you can manage your inventory in your WordPress console.
- Beaver Builder: My chosen WP theme, WP Astra, provided some starter templates that allowed me to use BB as the editor. WOW this thing is powerful. It can be confusing at first, but literally every setting you could think of is right there for you. There were others I considered, but have not tried, like Elementor or SeedProd, but this one makes sense to me. I may pay for the higher featured one at some point, but free works for me for now.
- Novo Bank: Everything you need, nothing you don’t. If you don’t need a branch and you don’t like fees, you might be a fan of this. Another big thing, if you’re a primarily online business, is that they integrate with nearly everything and give you some discounts on connected services to boot.
In the brave new world, making the complex simple is the name of the game. Democratizing the web, making it approachable for the small business, cottage industry, or budding influencer is a major step forward. But you don’t want to hear my speeches. Here’s a look at what should be going live during this week, if I can find the time:
