Sources of permaculture books for building a site for online sales

Hi, this might be a bit random, but I am wondering if anyone out there knows a good source for permaculture books that provides a dropshipping service (i.e., you link your site to theirs and they do the shipping when someone orders from you)? I am thinking about the viability of setting up an online permaculture (and more general gardening, sustainable living, etc.) bookstore to raise funds for ecological regeneration projects in the Global South. I don't really know it the market would be big enough, if people would be attracted to buying from the site knowing that a large proportion of the funds would be going to such projects, and if I can source the books easily (they can be both physical products and also in e-book format). Is it a crazy idea? Building the site is not difficult, but I am not sure if the market would be large enough and if I could source the books for this purpose. Thoughts and comments very welcome!

Hi, Helen

You might talk with Chelsea Green Publishing.  They have an affiliate program and might sell wholesale.

https://www.chelseagreen.com/about/affiliate-program/


Also you might enjoy some of the posts on this thread regarding setting up websites and using Amazon's FBA   (fulfillment by amazon aka amazon prime, to house and ship your items. )


https://permies.com/t/85250/store-brand-shop#702993

The challenge for me is that when I buy a good book I actually want the author to get as much of the money as possible. I want them to feel like they want to get right on writing another excellent book, pronto.

For me, I don't see how your idea would help me achieve that. It feels like the author would get a smaller cut or the cost of the book would be higher. Maybe you've got a way to make it work and I just can't see it. Best of luck to you.

Maybe Helen should contact the authors directly to see if an arrangement could be worked out?

It would seem to me that the author made a deal with a publishing company and has to abide by his/her contracts?  So the author is only going to get so much no matter how the book was sold.

Thanks so much for these replies. No, the author shouldn't be getting any less from the sale of their book. I have been thinking about the idea of building an online bookstore that is permaculture books, which I would like to use to raise money for land regeneration projects. I have access to a very good website resource for this, but don't have suppliers of these types of books. Dropshippers sell at wholesale prices and also do all the shipping for you. On my site, the books are at their "normal retail" prices. It is not really like using an affiliate program and there would be too many titles to contact individual publishers. I am still learning on all of this. I have seen a few permaculture books on one dropshipper's site where they had a gardening section, but I would like to have a fairly large selection. It's just an idea I have been playing with and I would need to market/advertise it well. I just thought that it would be a great way to raise money for such projects and to have a place where people could go to to source these books all in one place (and probably a wider range than Chelsea Green).