Why We’re Moving to an Exclusive Launch Model
In the future, books will be available for download first in the Lightspress Principia shop. They’ll appear in other shops and storefronts, both print and digital, four weeks later. It’s not an uncommon model for a small publisher, and there are a lot of reasons for it, so in the interest of clarity and transparency, let’s dig into them.
Creative Control
It’s been a month since we dropped out of a major venue; we’ve written about it elsewhere, so we won’t go into detail, but what platforms favor shapes what you create. That flattens everything, discourages creativity, and absolutely nerfs discovery. They categorize what sells, and promote categories that sell best, so anything that doesn’t fit standardized categorization can’t be promoted. You start creating more of the same, which gets boring for everyone.
Selling here first means we can avoid all of that. You know us, so you know what to expect. We don’t have to check someone else’s boxes, and you know where to find our books. It means we get to keep making what we want, the way we want to make it, without having to think about what the platform rewards with attention, and what they’ve programmed their customers to expect.
Money and Traffic
Not to be crass, but there’s a greater benefit to us as a small creator if you buy direct. We get all of the money minus a transaction fee from the payment processor, as opposed to up to 45% taken by other venues. The money is in our bank account within three days, instead of at least a month. The other platforms are valued partners, of course, and are great for increasing discovery and offering you options to shop at places you’re familiar with. But we’d obviously prefer it if you shop with us.
We also want to build a community, and that happens here. Not some corporation’s site. Yes, we’re looking to utilize the tools available from places like Patreon and Substack, but those are outposts; this is home base. Everything needs to start here and fan outward.
Quality Control and Logistics
Launching here first takes a lot of the strain out of the distribution process. We can still get PDF and EPUB versions out quickly, then navigate the randomness and variability of launching on other venues. Approval processes flatten, so the wider launch can happen simultaneously rather than watching this venue sitting on it for a week, this one for two days, this one for hours, and so on. 28 days is plenty of time to deal with printers, storefronts, and other logistical partners. It also gives us breathing room to find the typo that inevitably ends up in some releases, no matter how many playtesters, beta readers, and editors have read it. Then we can correct it before it goes wide and into print.
The Bottom Line
Everything going forward will be released on Lightspress.com first in PDF and EPUB. Every other venue, and print versions will be released 28 days later.
