All self publishing authors are thrilled to see their book on Amazon for the first time, especially after putting months and sometimes years of hard work into polishing each sentence, crafting a dynamic cover, and toiling over the various publishing options available online. Sure it’s impressive to tell your readers they can order your book from Amazon.com, but just remember, you’ll be earning a lower royalty than if the customer had ordered your book directly from your book publishing company.
In addition, a few weeks after your book arrives from Amazon and your customer has had a chance to start reading it, Amazon is likely to send a notice or email to the customer offering to buy the book back so they can resell the book as a used book through Amazon’s used book program.
Amazon’s Buy Back Offer will continue to affect the royalties you could potentially earn because in addition to receiving a lower royalty in the first place, when Amazon resells your used book, there’s no royalty paid to you—there’s just additional profit for Amazon.com. Plus, if a customer is buying your used book from Amazon, there’s one less customer who might have ordered a new copy of your book.
As a self publishing author or book publisher, there’s nothing you can do about this situation except to continue to encourage potential readers interested in ordering your books to order directly from your book publishing company. Amazon.com’s reviews feature can be a beneficial tool in promoting your book so it’s important to keep Amazon involved in your book marketing efforts, but remember to promote your direct-buy internet retailer as well.
Learn more about how Author Royalties are calculated.
Filed under: Book Distribution | Tagged: Amazon.com, book publishers, Book Publishing, book publishing companies, publishing a book, self publish a book, self publishers, self publishing, self publishing companies
