RSS, also known as Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication, has been used for years by online visitors. However, it has only recently begun to gain popularity among webmasters as a means of providing visitors with constantly refreshed content. These feeds were originally developed to deliver updated news more quickly, but they have since evolved to allow for nearly instantaneous updates of many types of information.

Growing websites can benefit from RSS feeds since they allow for fresh copy to be updated regularly online. Once RSS feeds are inserted into web pages, they provide a steady stream of syndicated content updated continuously. Most RSS feeds consist of a headline, content summary, and a link to actual online article. They are typically composed in XML, a markup language similar to HTML, to allow webmasters to manipulate and integrate new copy into their existing site pages.

The increased popularity of these RSS feeds have benefited online sites as they have helped to drive increased traffic and search engine ranking results. The fact that syndicated content is changing constantly in RSS feeds means that search engine spiders are likely to visit and index your website pages more often. RSS feeds also keep webmasters from having to worry about updating their content, and visitors can rely on fresh articles being available to read whenever they want. Articles are also easy to locate on RSS feeds, as they can be categorized for easy navigation. This increases chances of receiving visitors from other sites.

Retail margin is basically difference between your book’s wholesale price and your book’s retail price. For example, a book with a cover price of $10 and a wholesale price of $5 has a 50% retail margin.

Wholesale price is cost of your book to a retailer. To use same rudimentary example, a book with a cover price of $10 and a retail margin of 50% will be sold to a retailer for $5.

Retail price is same as cover price or selling price. This is cost of book to end consumer (the reader). The retail price is typically printed on cover of book and also “embedded” within barcode on back. For example, a book with a wholesale price of $5 and a retail margin of 50% will have a retail price of $10.

As you can see, retail margin, wholesale price, and retail price are interconnected. By having two figures, third can be calculated.

The fourth definition to be aware of is trade discount, which is percentage off retail price that a wholesaler or distributor pays for your book. Since retail margin is a portion of trade discount, trade discount always exceeds retail margin. Distributors typically expect between 50% - 70% in order to provide an acceptable margin to retailer.

MAKING DISTRIBUTION WORK FOR YOU

It should come as no surprise that amount of distribution your book enjoys rests largely upon its trade discount. Generally, higher discount, greater distribution.

Think about it - distributors want to make money, too. So do retailers.

While your book's trade discount is but a piece of your pie (albeit a big piece), it is entire cake for distributors and retailers, who together must split take. The greater number, greater incentive they have to distribute your book, sell your book, and market your book, etc.