Book Vault for the Win
After I listened to the recent Episode on Novel Marketing about Book Vault, I decided to take a closer look for myself at what Book Vault had to offer. Just for background, my wife and I ran our own online store in 2015-2017, so i’m familiar with Shopify, WooCommerce, and shipping platforms. I know the good, bad, and the ugly of trying to manage your own ecommence shop.
I did not know about PayHip until Thomas encouraged me to look more closely at it during a recent Patreon members’ call. More on that later.
I am a debut author. My first novel is now out through a strategically wide publishing strategy. My reader magnet is a novella is both an ebook and print book which I used to go to print in early 2024 to learn how all these printing platforms work and what sort of quality they offer.
My book - What It Takes to Kill a Bull Moose - is available on Amazon, B&N Press. It will be back on Apple once my 60 day Kindle Unlimited commitment is up (possibly).
I also ordered example prints from Amazon, B&N Press, and Lulu as I shopped for print providers. While the paperbacks from these three printers are nearly identical, the price for the Amazon KDP was far more competitive than the others.
In the hardcover category, Amazon leaves a lot to be desired. The printing of the cover directly on the boards instead of a dust jacket makes the book feel like a textbook, not a novel. I find this to be a turn off for me and to book lovers and so I continued to search for a better hardcover option.
Lulu’s cover template was wonky and when the example arrived, I was disappointed to see strange variations in the cover that had not shown up using the exact same files as I had sent to Amazon and B&N.
Barnes and Noble right now is quite simply a total mess. It’s been six weeks since I uploaded my final copy of the book and cover to B&N Press and the book is stuck in limbo. No final approval. No ability to get author prints. No ability to take the book over to Ingram since the ISBN is locked up within the B&N system, which Ingram is a supplier to. I’ve written some curt emails to B&N and all I get is excuses about backlogs.
So I went to BookVault and uploaded the text and cover. Within 30 minutes, I had my Title completely configured on their system and instantly I had approval to go to print. I sent for an author copy to review the quality. That copy is in the pictures below. It is beautiful and not only superior to what Amazon and Lulu could do, but it was more cost effective than both of them. I went for a cloth cover with some foil on the spine for stand-out value and I can’t believe this is a POD book. It looks and feels phenomenal.
It took a total of 10 days for the book to land in my mailbox from order to delivery. That’s because the book had to be printed in the UK (because of my cloth cover and length). The shipping cost for my book averages $13 a copy from the UK using a USPS partner with tracking and nonrush production. That remains the only major downside for this. Luckily I am exploring some solutions like discounts and codes to allow my most loyal readers to save some on the shipping.
Bottom line - I was extremely pleased with BookVault and have moved it to the top of my list for copies of my book that I prefer to have on hand to sell or give out in person.
The thought of printing my own books and running my own shop really excites me. It gives me more control over the customer experience and gives me 100% awareness which of my readers are buying, when, and what types of book (paperback or hardcover) they are after. The latest episode of NM about Connor Boyack confirmed for me that I had to explore Payhip more closely to figure out how to do it.
I was in the middle of learning how to configure a Zapier Zap to talk to PayHIp and then trigger an order on my BookVault account when suddenly BookVault launched its app integration with Payhip…. i literally cheered!
Within an hour, my brand new shop was live on PayHip. I was able to automatically import my products from BookVault onto my Payhip store and do some fancy configuring that allows me to use a subdomain on my website to point directly at payhip. Visitors don’t even know they are no longer on my website just like on BookFunnel or others that also have URL integrations.
There are a hundred reasons why this is a better solution than running WooCommerce on my website - shipping, taxes, checkout compliance just to name a few.
Payhip integrates directly with (Convert)Kit and allows me to put buyers into their own Automation (another win!). And Bookvault will include a custom packing slip with each order if I so desire.
BookVault’s integration with Payhip allows customers to see an accurate shipping estimate for their order at checkout. Payhip allows me to include other products on my store - such as cool stickers, t-shirts, coffee mugs, and the list goes on and on.
I would say that if you find that you are capable of managing your own WordPress site, configuring automations in your email CRM doesn’t confound you, and you are looking for a solution to sell DIRECT to your readers, BOOK VAULT connected to PayHip has many many many great reasons to give them a try for a POD author looking for high quality, cost effective books.
