Aaron Shepard advocates in his book Aiming at Amazon, and I agree, directing all sales to Amazon in the long term will increase the total number of book sales for a self-publishing author. The more the book sells, the more the long tail of Amazon will engage and promote the book.
In addition to increased sales over time, as I mentioned in an earlier post, directing sales to Amazon benefits the self-publishing author as Amazon will:
- handle order fulfillment through the authors POD service (usually CreateSpace or Lightning Source)
- collect the funds from the sale
- handle the collection and payment of any state sales taxes
- handle all shipping
- provide the author with increased exposure for the book
If this is not enough to make you consider directing your sales to Amazon, consider the additional income that can be earned by becoming an Amazon Associate and earning commissions of up to 15% on the sale of your own book or other merchandise sold on Amazon. Of course that 15% commission is only on high ticket items, but my Associate sales for my books earn me 4% per sale and that number increases to 6% if two or more items are purchased. It might not sound like a lot, but it pays for the cost of my e-newsletter each month and as they say, every little bit helps!
Amazon will provide its Associates with product links or widgets to insert into a blog or website. Customers click on the link and are taken directly to the product page for the item. If the customer continues shopping on Amazon without leaving, the Associate is credited with a percentage of all the sales from that customer.
Shown below is an example of one of the links from the Associate program. Clicking on the link will take you directly to my second book on self-publishing, 301 Frequently Asked Questions About Self-Publishing.
I wish Amazon's affiliate program worked for ebook sales. I'm tempted to direct folks to Smashwords just because, as an author, I can set a nice affiliate commission for anyone willing to promote my ebooks for me. They don't have the name recognition of Amazon, but they're becoming more well known at least among ebook readers.
ReplyDeleteWhile Amazon Associates will allow anyone to earn commissions on the sale of any book Amazon sells on its website.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to encourage other ebook retailers who sell your book through the internet, simply have them obtain a link to your book.
Have you joined Amazon Associates yourself? It is easy and the entire process of obtaining product links to insert in your web store is a point and click process.
If you have any questions about this, please ask and I will be happy to answer.