PublishDrive’s Product Updates amid COVID-19
Everything is changing. What doesn’t change is our mission to help authors and publishers sell more books.
COVID-19 has affected communities of every size and function; from large institutions to small businesses. There can be lots to worry about, but uncertain times can also mean new opportunities, aka new book sales for you.
During this time people want more at-home entertainment, prioritizing digital means to get them. Things like movie-streaming services, video games, and of course books are seeing a significant boom. On PublishDrive, online book sales increased by more than 20% per month. Read more about updates here.
Our team is working hard to help indies take advantage of this period. Just within the last month, we’ve launched several product updates and new opportunities listed below. Before telling you about them, know that we’re prepared for the long-haul by focusing on 1) enabling publishers to easily sell to more markets online, 2) giving more marketing support, and 3) sharing resources on how to navigate your business amid a global pandemic. Onward.
1. Print and audio distribution, even in Cchina
We’ve added print-on-demand and audiobook distribution to PublishDrive where you can reach potential customers even in China. Quick benefits about these lucrative formats: 1) reach more than 160 million print readers and 2) engage listeners wherever they go and earn more royalties with audio.
2. New stores
Our distribution network has been expanded with China’s largest retailer JD, leading ebook/audio subscription service Storytel, and new stores in Germany, Hungary, and other parts of the world. Stayed tuned as we have more in the pipeline coming to you soon.
3. Promo opportunities with stores
As we continuously seek out new stores, we’re also ramping up on offering exclusive promotions. We landed a sweet partnership with Written Word Media, where you can run four different types of price promos. Most recently, we launched price promo opportunities with Chinese JD and DangDang stores where users get a minimum of 25% off for 6 months to promote in China.
4. Faster sales data
Especially now, money management is key (see our top 10 tips for authors). You can already view your stores’ realtime sales data via the PublishDrive dashboard, but not all. So we worked with retailers in getting quicker sales updates. Now, access faster sales data for more stores with sales charts and other analytics functions.
5. Transparent and quicker payments
It’s alarming how services do not transparently communicate about royalties and payments. We made our process crystal clear with open payment overviews and quicker payments (or higher royalties!) for some stores.
6. Import options in Abacus
Know about PublishDrive’s royalty-splitting and collaboration tool, right? If not, see our case study on how PD Abacus saves publishers hours of work. We added two new options, Kobo Writing Life and D2D, giving users a convenient way to import sales reports from these stores and calculate royalty splitting.
In this together
We hope this pandemic ends soon, but we’re also ready for however long this lasts. A question for you: are there further opportunities you see where PublishDrive can help out with the challenges authors and publishers may be dealing with? Let us know.