thread: 2011-03-17 : My First-time Publishing Advice
On 2011-04-08, Vincent wrote:
Oh, I wouldn't say that! I know only one or two people who like to ship their own books. Practically everyone finds it a gigantic pain and ordeal.
If all you're looking for is fulfillment, though, you don't need IPR, you can just hire a fulfillment service. A fulfillment service will charge a flat fee per book fulfilled, plus often an ongoing warehousing fee. I pay my fulfillment service $1.00 per book fulfilled (plus the real packaging and shipping costs, of course), and I gather from asking around that $1.00 is a common per-book fee.
IPR isn't a fulfillment service. It is, as Simon says, a sales channel. That's why you pay IPR a percentage of your cover price instead of a flat fee. I personally haven't found IPR's additional services to be worth their additional cut, especially on their terrible quarterly consignment terms, even as a well-established publisher. If you're just starting out, damn, seriously, hiring IPR means that your game supports them before it grows itself. 28% of cover is your next print run.
