Osborn Fiber Studio

Tuesday was a very special day. Not only did my husband come home after a 9-day trip, but he brought with him a special box.

A box I could have had a little sooner, but delayed so that husband could bring it back as one of his “bags” on this trip, saving me a portion of the exorbitant cost of shipping things up here…

… containing the author copies I ordered of Migraineur.

As a final behind-the-scenes extra in the making of my book, Migraineur, I’d like to address the reasoning behind using Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing service to make the book.

In the world of self-publishing, bottom-line problems tend to be problems of scale. As a brand-new designer without a publishing house behind me, I am not going to be selling a huge volume of books. I am entirely dependent on promoting the book my own self, and the word of mouth that you fine folks spread around. That in itself is fine; I don’t need to be ambitious for the sake of my own ego. However, if you don’t sell a huge volume, ordering a print run will make each copy much more expensive – an expense you have to either swallow or pass on to your customers. And, if you do that print run, regardless of the size and price point, as a new author you’re doing a lot of guessing and shouldering a lot of financial risk. That’s on top of the logistical hassle of handling the online storefront and global shipping on one’s own.

This is what makes print-on-demand services so appealing, especially for someone in such a remote location as myself. Getting the copies to me and then sending them to you would add time, expense, and fuel to every purchase.

There are a number of print-on-demand services available to me, and now that they know I’m self-publishing, they have all found their way into my algorithm. I’ve looked at a number of them, but we keep running into the same problems of scale. Since I may only sell a modest number of books, there’s just no way for me to make that book at the quality that I want, at a price point that seems fair to both you and me, that leaves any income for me at all.

Enter Amazon.

Now, I’m not going to make an argument here that Amazon is a great and blameless company. What I will say is that they are a very large company. With a service like Kindle Direct Publishing, they’ve pretty much solved all my problems of scale. Because they do this sort of thing at high volume all the time, I can go for the highest-quality paper and printing, charge you a price that seems fair to me, and still get a small cut myself. Because they have printing locations in different places around the world, my friends in Europe and Australia can get copies just as quickly and affordably as those in North America, using vastly less resources for shipping. Also, I was able to get a physical proof, which was essential in my learning how to grade for colour in print (I have much learning to do in this area, to my chagrin).

And I have to say, I’m very happy with the print quality of their premium colour paper. I like the matte cover option, and while I would have loved it to be just a little bit stiffer, I’m nitpicking.

If you really don’t want to give Amazon your money, I get it. You can buy the entire book digitally on Ravelry. You can also get a physical book by ordering one of these author copies directly from me. (Just reach out – osbornfiber@gmail.com.) I’ll have to charge you a little more for shipping, but I’ll also sign it for you. I get these author copies at cost from Amazon, meaning the additional profit that normally goes to Amazon goes to me (and Canada Post). I will be able to ship some cheaply from the US this summer, and if you’d like me to come to your local yarn store and sign a few copies, I’d love the opportunity to meet some readers in person!

In all, I’m really thankful that a service like Kindle Direct Publishing exists. For a designer like me, it has allowed me to achieve my dream of publishing a physical book at a quality I’m proud of at a price point I can conscience, without taking on a huge financial risk and the labour of distribution. If you’d like a physical copy of Migraineur, I hope you feel great about celebrating this with me!