How to Sell Books on Amazon

Authors realize that getting their books listed at Amazon is important for book sales. More and more readers are making Amazon their first place to go to buy books, and with Amazon's free shipping options and the convenience of shopping from home, that trend is not going to change. But Amazon offers alternative options to authors to sell their books, which can be both confusing and time-consuming to unravel. check out these simple ways to maneuver through that process. Amazon offers generally three methods to sell your book at its online store: 1) billing the book at Amazon and then shipping copies to Amazon, 2) having a seller's account, or 3) selling your book for Kindle. I will focus on just the first two options, which relate to printed rather than digital books. What are the differences between having Amazon sell your book and your creating a seller's account to sell your book yourself at Amazon? money and time. As an author, you will have to decide whether money or time is more important to you in working with Amazon, or you can balance out both ways at least until you decide which works best for you. Below are explanations for how to do both and the advantages and disadvantages of each. list Your Book for Amazon to Sell How: This requires creating an "Amazon Advantage" account, maybe aptly named because Amazon rather than the author receives most of the advantage. To join, you need copies of your book, an ISBN, and a bar code. Then visit Amazon Advantage. go along with the steps but read the fine print. Amazon charges an annual fee ($29.95 currently and nonrefundable whether or not any of your books sell) and its commission is 55% of your retail price. Amazon will notify you to send books and how many. You pay the shipping and have no say over the number you send. If Amazon wants fifty, you pay the shipping on fifty, even if the books don't sell. If Amazon only wants two at a time, you may find yourself making frequent little shipments which can be time consuming and more expensive than one large shipment if your book is selling steadily. Advantage: Once Amazon receives your books and starts selling them, it's not important to deal with mailing out individual orders. Disadvantages: Not only do you must pay an annual fee to be listed, but Amazon's 55% commission is rather high. For example, a book priced at $25.95 would mean a profit of $11.68 for the author. Remember you also want to figure in the cost of shipping the books to Amazon so your profit will be even lower. Be an Independent Seller Through Amazon How: You can't sell your book independently on Amazon until it is listed there, so regardless, your book needs an Amazon Advantage account. You can follow the steps above, become an Amazon Advantage business partner, and then later tell Amazon the book is no longer available, or if you are traditionally published, published by a subsidy press, or sign up with a distributor like Ingram, your publisher or distributor will create your Amazon Advantage account for you and pay the payments, just giving you the royalties you agreed on with the publisher or distributor. Today, many independent printers and book design firms will also list books at Amazon for self-published authors and simply charge a tiny flat one-time fee (occassionally around $50) to tally your book for you. The book can be listed as out of stock, meaning Amazon has no copies, and you don't need to send them any.