Anyone sold an ebook on Amazon?

[technodup]

I've written one. Just looked on Amazon to sell it and apart from it still being a fking mess of a site (I don't know how anyone bothers with it) I've just had to pick myself up off the floor at their prices.

70% fee if your ebook is over £10?

Fortunately I have other ways of selling it but fk me. 70%?

[anonymous-user]

Have you read the terms right?

I get 70% for my titles from Amazon. As with eBay, Amazon gives you great reach, ideally you need to sell your ebook direct, and use the channels as appropriate. Maybe do an interactive version for the Apple store where you can charge a bit more.


Royalty Calculations
If you select the 35% royalty option, your royalty will be 35% of your list price without VAT for each unit sold.

If you select the 70% royalty option, your royalty will be 70% of your list price without VAT, less delivery costs (average delivery costs are $0.06 per unit sold, and vary by file size), for each eligible book sold to customers in the 70% territories listed below, and 35% of the list price for each unit sold to customers residing outside the 70% territories.

If we sell your digital book at a price below your list price without VAT in order to match price with a third party selling any digital or physical edition of the book, or to match Amazon’s price for a physical edition of the book, you will receive 70% of our sale price for each eligible book sold to customers in the 70% territories, less delivery costs, and less any applicable VAT. For additional details, see the Pricing Page and Terms and Conditions.

[technodup]

Vandenberg said:

Have you read the terms right?

I get 70% for my titles from Amazon.

Maybe not then. I find an absolutely hellish site to use and navigate.

I saw 35%/70% dependent upon the retail price. Over $9.99 and it was 70% which I took to be their cut rather than mine. Am I wrong? Even at 30/35% I'd still not exactly be happy.

[singlecoil]

technodup said:

Am I wrong? Even at 30/35% I'd still not exactly be happy.

Their answer would be that you are welcome to find your own customers, I expect.

Producing product is one thing, selling it to the end user is quite another, and most organisations that can do that will be looking for a healthy slice of the action. Art galleries, for instance, tend to work on 50%.

[steveatesh]

technodup said:

Vandenberg said:

Have you read the terms right?

I get 70% for my titles from Amazon.

Maybe not then. I find an absolutely hellish site to use and navigate.

I saw 35%/70% dependent upon the retail price. Over $9.99 and it was 70% which I took to be their cut rather than mine. Am I wrong? Even at 30/35% I'd still not exactly be happy.

That's how I interpreted it too, they keep 70% if more than £9.99

I compared Apple and Amazon as an outlet after the way I had been selling my eBook since 2008 went bust. I was using Dnl DRM (Desktop Author) which was simply an activation key I could send by email, the key cost me under £1 a time.

I have decided to go for Apple as they seem the cheaper option by far for the number of books I can expect to sell.

Sorting out the USA tax number has been the most taxing things to date (SWIDT? )

[Sheetmaself]

My thought on this though is that i had no idea Apple sold books.

And whilst not a fanboy i do have a lot of Apple products.

I know a chap who does sell ebooks through Amazon i can ask him if still not clear?

[stuart-b]

technodup said:

aybe not then. I find an absolutely hellish site to use and navigate.

I saw 35%/70% dependent upon the retail price. Over $9.99 and it was 70% which I took to be their cut rather than mine. Am I wrong? Even at 30/35% I'd still not exactly be happy.

Why do you think 30-35% is unreasonable? Did you build the company, website, delivery platform, accounting system, payment gateway integration, card fees, bank fees, hosting infrastructure, marketing .... the list goes on really.

Standard reseller in software is anything from 20-40%.

So for 35% you have no risk, no fees up front, no commitment, no need to do marketing, sales, promotion, printing, distribution, charge back handling, and again the list goes on.

Hope this helps.

[technodup]

stuart-b said:

Why do you think 30-35% is unreasonable?

So for 35% you have no risk, no fees up front, no commitment, no need to do marketing, sales, promotion, printing, distribution, charge back handling, and again the list goes on.

Hope this helps.

Because I've sold on various other suites through the years at around 10% fees. Not a digital product granted, but still.

And I'd still need to market the thing anyway, I wouldn't leave it in a wee corner of Amazon for nobody to find.

I think Amazon is a mess anyway. I don't use it as buyer, and I'll not be using it as a seller. I'll do the marketing myself and keep the lot. Amazon can bite me.

[anonymous-user]

technodup said:

aybe not then. I find an absolutely hellish site to use and navigate.

I saw 35%/70% dependent upon the retail price. Over $9.99 and it was 70% which I took to be their cut rather than mine. Am I wrong? Even at 30/35% I'd still not exactly be happy.

Other way round. Just to give another angle to Amazon, I once attended a meeting At Amazon, representing a large STM publisher, who normally could bully suppliers into a great deal, Amazon basically said to us, Its our playground, our rules and we don't need you, you need us. Which was true, all the publishers hate Amazon, but its their own fault that they didn't see their business models being changed by disruptive technology. I can never forget my MDs face when I told him that our entire Front list and back list was available on Pirate sites.

For my customers I would usually suggest using multiple ebook channels, which does mean creating 2-4 file formats to work on all the systems, but thats dirty cheap to get the conversion done these days. I normally use: Apple Ibooks, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Google Play, and a few more but they are for STM titles only. As well as selling direct via customers own site etc.

[stuart-b]

technodup said:

ecause I've sold on various other suites through the years at around 10% fees. Not a digital product granted, but still.

And I'd still need to market the thing anyway, I wouldn't leave it in a wee corner of Amazon for nobody to find.

I think Amazon is a mess anyway. I don't use it as buyer, and I'll not be using it as a seller. I'll do the marketing myself and keep the lot. Amazon can bite me.

What about their DRM protection and review platform which helps push you up? If you go down the DRM route yourself it is very expensive and resource intensive.

As an alternative, if you were to employ a salesman in your own company it still works out about the same.

What about your own costs of self marketing? You could argue that your time is better spent writing more content and letting other people do their job. If you are a one-trick-pony then perhaps the model is different.

Good luck !