As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog post, different people have different takes on the Harlequin Horizons venue. The following is from a bookseller, Laura H., who has given me permission to repost here.

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I’ve approached HHorizons strictly as the bookseller I am (and identifying myself as so), asking for clarification about their “channel distribution to 25K booksellers…”

I’ve asked specific but simple questions and so far, the folks at HHorizons have been dancing around the answers. But long story short, they said the books will be listed on Ingram, that the 25k are the number of booksellers who have Ingram accounts. Because I do have an Ingram account, I know this means booksellers like me will have access to the database that will include HHorizon books among the 44,000 other titles they carry that come up under a keyword search for “Romance.” (43778 as of this writing)

(Ingram Distribution Channel is defined by Ingram as–”Using the distribution strength of our parent company, Ingram Book Company, your book always appears in stock and available to all Ingram customers. With over 30,000 wholesalers, retailers and booksellers in over 100 countries your titles will gain the maximum exposure in the market today.” http://www.lightningsource.com/print_to_order.aspx)

If the author wants the book to be returnable (an expectation of a bookseller so that they don’t have to sink unrecoverable money into stock that doesn’t sell) then the author must purchase that program YEARLY for another $839.
(http://www.harlequinhorizons.com/Servicestore/ServiceDetail.aspx?ServiceId=BS-6116)

Instead of giving a straight answer about their wholesale terms, HHOrizons said the wholesale discount will depend…on what packages they author chooses–i.e. ON WHAT THE WRITER IS WILLING TO PAY. They don’t mention this online or detail what packages will result in more attractive wholesale discounting.

Basically, if you’re writing to sell books, you need a product that is roughly equal in quality and retail pricing to a traditionally published book to meet the expectations of readers. To meet the expectation of booksellers, you need an attractive wholesale discount, inclusion in Ingram or Baker&Taylor and returnability.

So in order to get an attractively priced, copy-edited book, available to bookstores for a standard 40% discount, with full returnability with the copyright registered, an ISBN provided…and all the physical elements of a standard paperback book–cover copy, cover art, etc, it will cost you $4539 at HHorizons. ($1600 package plus edit fee of $0.035 per word for 60k word manuscript plus cost of bookseller return package.)
(http://www.harlequinhorizons.com/Servicestore/ServiceDetail.aspx?ServiceId=BS-6158)

Hmm…you can either spend $4500 with no guarantee of ANY distribution [via Harlequin Horizons] =or= GET PAID $4000 in advances against royalties with guaranteed distribution [via a traditional publisher].

To me, there’s no choice.

– Laura H.