One trend in the last five years has been for authors and indie publishers to sell directly to their audience. That has meant setting up a Shopify or Woocommerce store, registering for payment platforms, paying taxes and sometimes shipping directly. It’s been a HUGE amount of work and not recommended for everyone.
Two major POD companies are trying to make it much easier through direct-buy links. These are links to the POD company to process an order, ship, pay taxes, and take care of the transaction. Immediately, you can think of many use cases: Instagram posts, emails about a new book, QR code for handouts to teachers, and more.
Let’s look at the details, because the choices are all in the details!
Why Use a Direct Sell Button?
If you’re in direct contact with your audience a direct sell button is stellar. With one click the book is added to a shopping cart and you’ll have an immediate sell. You’ve removed all the friction of asking a customer to go to your website, find the right page, and click Add to Cart. Instead, with one click, customers are ready to complete their information and buy the book.
The questions detailed below for each will relate to fees, international sales, who owns customer information, and the details of your POD printing options.
IngramSpark - Share and Sell Program
Ingram’s Share and Sell Button Program is a simple setup if you’re already an IngramSpark customer. You set up your book as normal and then on the left-hand menu, click on Ecommerce to access the Share and Sell option. You’ll be allowed to create a URL for direct selling. They include a URL, QR code and HTML embedding into a website (for example, your blog).
Here’s Ingram’s example of setting a price for a book (see what is taken out and what is your profit).
Fees. IngramSpark’s Share and Sell Program will charge you a fulfillment fee ($3.50 in the US; £3.00 in the UK; 5.50 AUD in Australia). The reader pays the shipping and sales tax for your book.
International Sales. As of this writing, you can create Share and Sell links for the US, AU, and UK. Each of these is a different link which directs the order to the printer in that country. So, Australian orders are printed and shipped from an Australian printer.
Customer Information. You will not have access to the customer information.
POD choices. Check out IngramSpark’s pricing calculator here. Notice that they have 70# paper and you can choose premium printing or Standard70.
Lulu Buy Direct Button Program
Lulu Buy Direct Button Program is another simple setup if you’re already a Lulu customer, with one extra setup step. You’ll choose Lulu Direct for distribution. To sell with the Direct Button Program, you’ll need to set up a Stripe channel. Stripe is the payment processing program used widely across the internet. For each place you receive income, Stripe asks you to set up a channel. I use Stripe here on my Substack for when you become a paid subscriber. That means, I would need to set up a new Stripe channel for Lulu payments; you can’t use a channel you already have set up. It’s a simple process, especially if you already have a Stripe account, to connect your banking information. But it is an extra step.
They include a URL and Html embedding. If you want a QR code, you’ll have to generate that yourself. For example, Canva has a free QR code generator.
Here’s Lulu’s example of setting pricing for a book (see what is taken out and what is your profit).
Fees. You’ll have a Stripe payment processing fee (depends on your account, that is typically 2.9% + $0.30/transaction. Lulu Fulfillment Fees run USD1.75, GBP1.55, EUR1.75, AUD2.75, CAD2.45. Lulu’s fulfillment fees are the same if you order one book or ten books.
International sales. Lulu’s Knowledge Base says, “We have print facilities located in Australia, Canada, France, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Lulu’s order routing system is automated and it will attempt to send the order to an available print facility closest to the destination address.”
This means you don’t need a special link for international customers. Instead, the customer’s address determines the print facility. It’s One Link to Rule Them All (ha!)
Customer information. You own the customer information! Lulu says, “Access customer names, emails, shipping addresses, order history, and marketing opt-in status. Use order data for customer support and to build a dedicated list of buyers for future marketing efforts.”
For most of you, this will be the game changer. If you have access to your order history and customer information, and can build a mailing list through this method.
POD Choices. Lulu’s pricing information shows the print options available. Like IngramSpark, there are Standard and Premium print options. But for me, the difference for years has been Lulu’s lovely 80#-coated paper, which creates lovely picture books, even with Standard printing.
Discussion - Which Direct Buy Button Should You Use?
For me, two issues stand out. Lulu says customer information belongs to the publisher; IngramSpark doesn’t share customer information because they belong to IngramSpark. With Lulu, you can build a customer base by using opt-in marketing. With IngramSpark, you can’t.
Second, Lulu’s 80#-coated paper continues to be the best option for my picture books. The printing is lovely, whether you choose Standard or Premium printing. IngramSpark is out of touch with today’s market with their 70# paper.
Third, of less importance, but still something to consider, Lulu’s fulfillment fees are lower. They charge $1.75 USD, while IngramSpark charges twice as much at $3.50.
The one hesitation for Lulu is setting up that extra Stripe channel. I’m off to do that right now!
Will you take advantage of either of these Direct Sell programs?
I'm in Canada so everything is longer for us. We really need an option here.
Great article, Darcy!
Do you know if either of these companies functions as the Metchant of Record and handles tax compliance (worldwide, not just the US).
That would be the game changer for me.