Ordering author copies
At some point you stop looking at a PDF and want the book in your hands. That is an author copy: a copy of your own title, bought through the printer that makes it rather than through the retail store, generally at a reduced rate, and shipped to you.
Same machine, same paper, same file as the copy a stranger buys. What differs is the route, the price and who pays the postage.
Why you order them
- Signings and events. You cannot sign a book you do not have. A table with no stock is a table handing out bookmarks.
- Local bookshops and gift shops. Many independent shops will take a few copies on consignment from an author who walks in with them.
- Review copies for people who want paper. Some reviewers, and most local press and librarians, still prefer a physical book.
- Gifts and prizes. Family, beta readers, the person who let you use their house for a month — and a signed paperback is the standard prize if you run one: Giveaways, and what they are actually for.
- Your own shelf. Keep one pristine copy of every edition you publish. It is the reference when someone asks what changed between printings.
They are usually not sales
Author copies are generally not counted as sales. They do not move a chart position, do not feed a bestseller ranking, and do not produce a royalty, because you are buying at cost rather than selling at retail. Ordering fifty copies of your own book on release day does nothing to the numbers.
A rank comes from readers buying through the store. Stock comes from author copies. They are different actions with different effects, and confusing them costs money.
The reduced rate has edges
Three things to know before you build a plan around it:
- It applies to your own titles. The account holder's books, through the account that publishes them. It is not a discount on books in general.
- Shipping is charged, and it is heavy. Postage on a box of books is not a rounding error, and international shipping can quietly exceed the cost of the books inside the box. Price a full order, delivery included, before deciding how many you can afford.
- Rates, shipping and delivery windows vary by printer, country and the week you order. Do not plan against a number you read in a blog post, including this one. Put a real order in the basket, look at the total and the estimated date, and plan from that.
Order earlier than feels necessary
Copies take days to weeks to reach you. Print-on-demand means the book is manufactured after you order it, so the clock starts at the press, not at a warehouse shelf. Ordering the week of an event is how authors end up at a table with nothing to sign.
Work backward from the date, add a buffer for a second order if the batch arrives damaged, and order well before you think you need to. Events, signings and selling books in person covers how many to bring once they are in the house.
In the tools. Previews are free, unlimited and watermarked, so you can read the whole interior and see the full wrap at size before you spend anything on a physical copy — and the file that goes to the printer is cut to that printer's own geometry. Start your book → · about the tools
Check a copy from every batch
Do not assume a new box matches the last one. Each order is printed fresh, possibly on a different press, in a different plant, on a different continent from the one that made your proof. Trim can shift, ink density can sit heavier or lighter, and paper shade varies between mills. That is how distributed printing works.
So open the box and check one copy properly, every time:
- Spine placement. Is the spine text still centered, or has the wrap crept so the fold cuts into the front artwork?
- Trim and margins. Same page size, same inner and outer margins as the batch before.
- Ink and paper. Compare against the copy you kept. A noticeably darker cover or a different paper shade is worth knowing before you hand fifty of them out.
- Binding. Flex the spine gently. Check that pages are not loose and nothing is bound upside down.
Measuring your proof with a ruler is the same check with numbers attached, and it works just as well on a production batch.
Damaged copies
Some will arrive with a crushed corner, a scuffed cover or a crooked trim. That is normal in small quantities and not normal across a whole box.
Report faulty copies to the printer through their support channel, with photographs, before you do anything else with them, and keep the packaging until it is settled. Replacement and refund policies vary by company, so check the terms on your own account rather than assuming.
Copies that are only cosmetically marked are still useful: give them away, keep one as your working copy, or sell them in person as marked seconds. Do not send a scuffed book to a reviewer or a bookshop.
Store them properly
A box of books is stock, and stock that warps is stock you cannot sell.
- Flat, not on edge. Stacked in the box they came in, spines aligned. Books stored leaning develop a permanent curve.
- Dry, and off a concrete floor. Damp reaches paper through cardboard, and a slab wicks it upward. Use a shelf, a pallet or a plastic crate.
- Out of sunlight. A sunlit spine fades in weeks, and a faded book cannot be sold at full price.
- Room temperature, not an attic or a car. Heat cycling warps covers, laminated ones especially.
Once it is more than a box or two, or you start posting copies out yourself, holding stock becomes its own small operation: Holding stock, and shipping it yourself.
A proof and an author copy are the same object
The physical book is usually identical. What differs is the route you bought it through, and when.
The proof is the copy you order and check before you approve the book for sale — the one to read in daylight, cover to cover, with a pen. Once the title is live, the copies you order are author copies, and by then you are checking that the press matched the proof rather than checking the book itself — which it never quite does, for reasons worth knowing in advance: Why your proof and your production copies differ. Order the proof. Then read it in daylight comes first; The proof came back wrong. Now what? is what to do when it does not match.
Make your book
The tools are free to use: name your book, bring your manuscript or your artwork, and work as long as you like. You only pay when you want the files without the preview watermark.
Next: Events, signings and selling books in person · More: Order the proof. Then read it in daylight · Selling books directly to readers · Fixing a book that is already published