This is no exception when it comes to self-publishing. Amazon have a self-published authors’ package which allows those who have a book to sell to sign up for the Amazon Associates program and create an online publishing account which allows Amazon to treat you like any other publisher.
This means that they list your book. You have complete control over the description, publication dates and image that goes there and you get to sell your book through their extensive online marketing network. Amazon handles all the shipping and delivery for you and take 55% of the selling price. This means that if Amazon decide to discount your book they do so out of their cut and not yours. You get to ship to their warehouse whatever books they require and you can have, in return, your book listed on Amazon and all the kudos that entails.
It does mean you need to have some books printed and an inventory so you can supply the Amazon warehouse every time they place an order to you. If you do not want to have to deal with shipping at all and want as automated a way as possible when it comes to dealing with this you might want to consider one of the automated Print On Demand (POD) services that we regularly deal with. They tend to hold a digital file of your book on their servers and they print as many copies as are ordered and ship them for you. You never get to see or deal with anything beyond your royalty payments and a report on the orders that come in each month.
Whichever way you look at it there is a cost involved. If you print the book yourself you will have to store it and make sure you can ship to the Amazon warehouse. If you go for a POD service you will have less to worry about but a hassle-free existence still tends to cost some money as the POD service will charge to keep your book on file and take a cut from each book shipped.
The advantage of some of the POD services is that they will also supply bookshops and libraries directly so your book will have many more outlets than just Amazon’s website.
Learn how to market yourself
If you think that it will be a case of getting your book out there and they will read it, think again. A listing on Amazon may go a long way towards giving you authority but hard sales are still the direct result of your own marketing efforts.
You will have to learn how to market yourself with the production (or commission) of professionally written Press Releases, writing articles, online marketing promotions, online material, online and offline interviews, email campaigns sent to friends and relatives and every possible erg of publicity that you can think of.
Every book’s success is the direct result of the size of the marketing effort that goes on behind it. If you can successfully crack that (and you will need some luck as well as skill) you may well be able to produce the next online best-seller.
The Web Direct Studio company Blog is penned by a number of our in-house staff from our different areas of activity. They write anonymously in order to free their range of expression, particularly when it comes to criticizing their sector of activity or making observations about their job. They work under a simple edict: What you say must make sense and must fit in with the tone of our online business. Apart from that they are the ones who choose the topic they write about in each Blog post.
