Most of the self-publishing success stories we hear revolve around selling books on Amazon, and for good reason: authors like and have used the platform to bring home six-figure salaries. But if you’re considering self-publishing, you should know there is another option: selling ebooks on your own site. If you’re able to carve out your own little corner of the Internet, this route, too, can be incredibly lucrative. Each method has its pros and cons, and that’s what I’d like to cover in today’s post. When does it make sense to sell your self-published book on Amazon, and when should you forego the giant and sell on your own website? Here’s what to consider when making this decision.

Sell on Amazon? Or on your own site? Your pricing strategy, and the type of books you write If you sell on Amazon, you’re expected to price ebooks like everyone else does, generally between $2.99 – $9.99.

How To Say It Business To Business Selling Pdf On Amazon How to Say It: Business to Business Selling: How to Say It: Business to Business Selling: How.

But if you sell on your own website, you can set your price however you like, from $2.99 all the way up to $59 or more, which can mean earning a lot more per ebook. Of course, you only want to sell at a high price point if potential buyers see that much value in your ebook. Often this depends on the type of ebook you write.

If you’re writing novels, as a lot of self-published authors do, you’re kind of cornered into that less-than-$9.99 window, because that’s what people expect to pay for fiction. But if you write non-fiction, especially how-to or advice-heavy guides (also known as ) readers will typically pay a much higher price. Because they’re accessing your brain, your experience and your guidance, all of which is worth more than a story. And while the help-you-make-money niche has earned a scammy reputation, if your ebook helps people make money, they’ll be even more willing to open their wallets to read it. My ebooks are a good example., the first ebook I ever wrote, sells for $24.

Sells for $59. And my other two informational ebooks are priced somewhere in between. I could never get away with pricing those ebooks beyond $10 if I sold on Amazon, because everyone prices their ebooks low on the platform. But readers get tremendous value from these resources, value that helps them quickly earn back what they spent on the guides. Because of that, it’s easy to justify the price when I sell them on my own website.

In addition to being able to charge more when I sell on my own site, I also profit more on each sale. When I sell an ebook on AlexisGrant.com, I keep almost 100 percent. My expenses are minimal: I pay $5 to each month to deliver my ebooks — and yes, that’s a static fee no matter how many ebooks I sell — and 2.9 percent plus 30 cents for each transaction to PayPal for collecting the funds (and slightly more for international purchases), which works out to about $1 for each $24 ebook. I also pay one of my team members to answer emails from potential buyers and anyone who has questions after reading the guides, which counts as another expense. Still, earnings from my ebook sales have an amazingly because they require so little maintenance after I publish. Now look at how much you profit if you sell on Amazon — I do have, so I’m speaking from first-hand experience.

If you price your ebook between $2.99- $9.99, you. If you price below $2.99, you earn only 35 percent royalties. If I were to sell even my lowest-price informational guide on Amazon, I’d probably need to price it at $9.99 to get any traction, and then I’d take home about $7 for each sale. Compare that to the $23 I earn on my own site for the same ebook!

It sounds like a no-brainer, right? Except there are other factors at hand too, and some of them favor Amazon. Your reach online If you’re going to make money from your self-published books, someone has to buy them. This is the tough part for a lot of new authors; they simply don’t know how to get the word out about their book.

That’s where Amazon comes in. If you self-publish on the platform, you can leverage the millions of people who shop there every month.

You have a world of potential buyers at your fingertips! A number of factors go into whether Amazon actually shows your book to those potential buyers, but if you learn how to optimize for the Amazon search engine and get good reviews, you’ll likely be able to reach readers outside of your friends and family. If you sell on your own website, however, it’s entirely up to you to drum up buys.

If no one reads your blog or visits your website, you’ll never sell a single book. Interestingly, most of the successful self-published authors we hear about use the same tactic to rally their reader base, regardless of whether they sell on Amazon or their own site: an email list. Is the best way to grow a loyal following that will buy your books. Amazon also gives you an advantage if you sell more than one book on the platform, as it recommends your subsequent books to buyers who already purchased an item with your byline. This referral engine is gold for cultivating a community of repeat buyers, and it’s one of the big appeals of selling on Amazon. You can replicate this in some ways on your own site, but likely not at the same scale.

For example, readers who purchase my guide on how to build a social media business get funneled onto an email list, where they receive several helpful follow-up emails via a MailChimp autoresponder. In one of those emails, I also let them know about another ebook they might be interested in, one that’s directly related to the guide they already bought: my ebook on how to create a social media strategy. I purposely created the second guide as a spin-off of the first, and beefed the strategy guide up to 90 pages so I could sell it for a higher price than the business guide. This allows readers to buy the $24 guide, see that I offer awesome information and gain trust in what I deliver before purchasing the higher-priced ebook. It took me a while to get that funnel in place; it’s not something I implemented right when the first guide launched. It was only when the first guide did well that I realized there was a need for more information, so I wrote the second, related ebook and set up the funnel to send buyers to it.

Now that I have this system in place — it’s all automatic! — most of the people who buy my social media business guide later purchase my strategy guide, too. (Another interesting note that might be helpful if you’re looking to sell via your own website: many of my sales come directly from search, from people who find my ebooks through Google.

This is the power of solid SEO, back-links and offering tons of free information through blog posts that show my expertise.) The bottom line: Even if you grow your email list to thousands of people, you’ll still have the potential to reach more people on Amazon. But if you have an engaged and loyal email list (my list for AlexisGrant.com, for example, is only 6,000 strong), and you sell your ebook on your own site at a higher price point, you can sell far fewer books and still make an awesome profit. Your technical know-how Some writers tell me they sell their ebooks on Amazon because it’s too complicated to sell them on their own site.

This might be true if you’ve never blogged before. But if you know how to blog in WordPress, you can easily set up your own shop on your website. Use a combination of e-junkie and PayPal like I do, or check out another platform that sells and delivers ebooks like. (I’ve heard excellent things about Gumroad, but the downside is they take 5 percent plus 25 cents per transaction, in addition to PayPal’s fees.) Because I have experience selling digital products, I find it’s much easier to get that set up than to figure out how to (though to be honest, this is something I’d outsource). On my own site, I typically only sell PDF versions, though I’ll probably introduce Kindle versions in the near future because so many people prefer to read ebooks that way. Whether you crave autonomy How important is it to you to have complete control over what you sell?

Amazon offers a lot of options for customizing not only your book itself, but the book’s sales page, too. But you still have far more control over the sales process if you sell on your own site. Mastering Arabic Rapidshare.

On your own site, you can see who’s buying, information that might help you make decisions on what to create and how to sell in the future. On Amazon, you have to make do with their limited metrics. On your own site, you can collect buyer’s email addresses and funnel them directly onto your newsletter list, then use those emails to offer another related product or other information that might turn that reader into a loyal fan. With Amazon, you don’t get access to any buyer information, so you have to hope readers will notice a inside your ebook and take the time to sign up for your list. I love being able to get my hands dirty in buyer details and metrics and use that information to improve my business. But if you’re not that kind of geek and would prefer to spend your time writing, Amazon might be a better choice for you.

(Although I’ll caution that as we discussed above, you’ll need to learn how to market your work to succeed on Amazon.) Questions to help you decide In summary, if you’re trying to choose where to sell your ebooks, here’s what you should think about: 1. What type of ebooks do you write? • Fiction or memoir: Amazon might be the better choice for you, though it depends on other answers below • How-to, informational guides: Sell ’em on your own site, and set the price high! Can you build your own loyal community of readers and buyers?

• Yes: Consider selling on your own site, though you’d likely find success on Amazon, too • No: Sell on Amazon. And start growing your community now, because you’ll still need it!

Do you understand the technical side of how to run a blog? • Yes: Consider selling on your own site, depending on your other answers here • No: Might be better off with Amazon (or hire someone to set up an online store for you) 4.

Do you care about autonomy? • Yes: Sell from your own real estate, where you have complete control • No: Don’t worry about handing everything over to the giant!

As you’ve probably gathered by now, I’m a fan of selling on my own site because it’s more lucrative for my advice-heavy ebooks and I appreciate the autonomy. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t wade deeper into Amazon waters for other types of ebooks or to gain access to a wider audience. There’s one other option here: You could sell both on your own site and Amazon. Amazon has some rules about when you can sell your work elsewhere, but so long as you adhere to those, you could give your community several options for getting their hands on your books. The pro here is you’ll earn more money for any books you sell from your own site, because you get to keep all the profits.

The con is that Amazon’s referral engine works best when you send as much traffic and buys to it as possible, so encouraging some readers to buy from your site might hurt your book’s Amazon rankings in the long run, which means less reach on that channel. Self-publishing success stories So you can see these points in action, here are a few self-published authors who are doing well selling books, either on their own site or via Amazon. You’ll notice that in every case, the author has made an effort to market their work via a blog and online community. Steve Scott: I mention him first because not only has he been successful selling ebooks on Amazon, he shares lessons for doing so, as well as insightful income reports. His advice is highly valuable. Ali Luke: She sells high-quality informational ebooks on her own site, including a guide to. Her ebooks usually sell for $29 each, but it looks like they’re on sale while she’s on maternity leave. Chris Guillebeau: He offers a number of guides on his own site, including the.

His guides typically come with additional resources as well, which allows him to use a tiered pricing structure — a smart move for the reasons. James Chartrand: This writer offers a number of ebooks through her own site, including one called. Joanna Penn: She used to rely on a hybrid model, selling some ebooks through her website and others on Amazon.

Now it looks like she’s as she transitions to writing fiction. Joanna’s site is a wealth of information on how to market your work and grow an online community. Update: Joanna got in touch to say she’s multi-platform (also sells on other platforms besides Amazon), but is no longer selling direct in part because of the new, which affects online entrepreneurs. Kim Dinan: I haven’t read her ebook on, but I thought it was cool that this travel writer makes it available both on her own website and on Amazon. My ebooks: You can browse the. You’ll notice that while most of my ebooks are available only through my website, You Deserve to Love Your Job is exclusively on Amazon. Hungry for more information?

If you want to create and sell your first ebook through your own website, I offer a free webinar on that topic.. Great post, Alexis. I chose to self-publish my novels via Amazon (and Smashwords) and sell my nonfiction writing book via both Amazon AND my own website. I’m hopeful that, as you said, the more my website is visited the more sales I will make via the site itself.

I use Gumroad and LOVE it, despite the higher fees. Formatting an ebook can be so easily outsourced to a responsible professional who knows what they are doing (and saves the author lots of nervously nibbled fingernails or pulled out hair) and book covers can be found for a good rate, too. Did you find with nonfiction books that when you hit a certain number sales tended to go up more quickly? I know with fiction the magic number seems to be five (according to Joanna Penn and others). I wonder if it’s the same with nonfiction–having that magic number.

You brought up some fantastic points in this post, and they all explain why I plan to sell my info book through my site instead of the almighty Amazon. But as much as I love your ideas here, there’s one thing I just can’t let go: You said that our “brain, experience, and guidance” are all “worth more than a story.” No offense, but I think you’re wrong.

Fiction authors are trapped in a lower-priced selling model, I’ll give you that, but it doesn’t mean that the stories they create are worth less than an info product. In many cases they’re even worth more. A fiction writer DOES put their brain, experience, and guidance into their work—they just do so in a different format. A good story is a vehicle for delivering truth and practical life lessons in a way that’s much more fun and easily digestible than just another “self-help how-to” guide. The power of a story extends far beyond that of an info book. And—dare I say it—I’m willing to bet most fiction authors put twice as many hours into their books as info book authors, especially when you consider that many fiction authors also have education and experiences that informs their writing.

From a purely numbers-based standpoint, you’re right: info books can sell at a much higher price point than a novel. But to say that an info book is worth more than a story is dead wrong. *Steps off soap box.* Anyway, this WAS a great post overall... I just couldn’t let that comment slide. 🙂 Ashley Brooks recently posted. I don’t think self-publishing should be a question of either on your site or Amazon; the two can co-exist.

Most people are successful on Amazon because they have a funnel, whether that’s a fiction series or a non-fiction book that leads readers to your site for other services. (And I think “ebooks” sold on sites tend to hold way more multimedia and interactive activities than ebooks you download to your ereader. So a book on Amazon could easily be a pared down version of the ebook on your site, and a good CTA in the back of your ebook could lead your Amazon readers to your site for more info.) And as long as you don’t go KDP Select, you can (and probably should) put your book in other stores, like Kobo (for international readers, since Amazon really only dominates the US/UK market) or Apple (who, I’ve heard, also has a great search engine). Amazon does have the majority of the market, but they’re not the only players. If you use Scrivener to write your ebook, you shouldn’t have to outsource formatting for Kindle.

With the compile option, it’s super easy. Javier Quinones. Free Download Mp3 Remix For Dance.

I think you’re a great example of someone who makes selling on her own site work. Your site is very appealing and chock full of very useful info. I happened upon your site a few weeks ago when looking for the type of info you offer in one of your books. I read a couple of your blog posts and was convinced right then and there that your book would be worth my money. I think one has to assume that on a personal site the testimonials displayed aren’t going to include any lukewarm ones, which is an area where Amazon wins. But honestly, it was the rest of your site that convinced me.

I don’t know if reviews would have made a difference when really all I care about is that the info you offer will be relevant to ME. Your post ensured me I made the right decision to have my own website.

My website is not yet operational but in the works in sandbox environment. I just found out I couldn’t get a PayPal Payments Standard account. That means I can’t offer my buyers of my ebook (geared toward Chinese buyers) the choice of paying by credit card through PayPal if they did not want to pay with a PayPal account.

My ebook’s price is $49. I thought of perhaps re-directing buyers using credit cards to Gumroad but they probably don’t have their website available in Chinese. Maybe I can still do well enough with just Chinese using their PayPal account and later qualify to have PayPal Standard. Andrew Drury.

Is it possible to sell your first eBook on Amazon and then sell any follow ups on your own website? – I am writing a series of how to books on all my crafts, I am also writing a series of Adventure stories for children, working on a five year plan. I need all the help and advice I can get as I am completely self taught in all I do, I never even attended regular school. I am taking a mentor ship course at the moment with a leading publisher to help with my spelling and grammar. Hopefully next year I will be Ready to release something, I do not have a lot of money, So I am soaking up all the free help I can get. Thank you for that which has been given here.

Hi Misty I’m just starting out. It seems to me that to sell from your own site you need to steer your own traffic to that site. So if you had a link at the end of your how to books (sold on Amazon) to point readers to your site then those who liked your book would follow that link. But then you’re only getting a percentage of your Amazon readers finding your site.

Maybe sell your series of how to books on Amazon but link to your site for the ‘plus’ projects that are fun and appealing – these would be thin books with a big margin of profit. As for the series of adventures, I hate reading one book then finding out the sequel is five times the price. But if the sequels were on your site, a little thinner but same price, you would still take the higher profit. Same thing put your site at the end of your ebook. That’s your free advice From someone with no credentials! Ryan BigPictureSmallSteps.com.

I joined a publishing start up in China by the name of Fiberead. They handle everything including translation, promotion, listing on all the various sites, keep check of of sales and for free ( the royalty split heavily in their favour ) It can be a bit of a slow burner from uploading your original manuscript through to the final translation being completed but you will get there in the end, it was an overall quicker process on my 2nd book that I uploaded compared to the 1st attempt. The royalty split is normally 70/30 in their favour, but I think I would have never sold any books in China without their help so in my humble opinion, 30% is better than zero”¦ Shane. Hi Alexis, Great article, but I had a question about something you wrote: “When I sell an ebook on AlexisGrant.com, I keep almost 100 percent. My expenses are minimal: I pay $5 to e-junkie each month to deliver my ebooks “” and yes, that’s a static fee no matter how many ebooks I sell “” and 2.9 percent plus 30 cents for each transaction to PayPal for collecting the funds” Why do you use e-junkie as well as Paypal?

I have very limited exposure to either so please correct me if I’m wrong or missing something, but having both seems redundant. Don’t they both provide shopping cart services? So you would need one or other other, not both? Also there are other fees as well beyond what you mentioned like bank transaction fees?

When most think of selling on Amazon, what comes to mind is big businesses selling products by the thousands being shipped from fulfillment centers worldwide. Yes, it can be overwhelming! However, Amazon can also be a fantastic platform for small business owners who are just beginning to dabble in online sales. The opportunities for are growing, and with the right strategies, there are big opportunities for those that venture into sales on this dynamic ecommerce site. Here are a few guidelines from successful Amazon sellers to get you started. How to Sell on Amazon: Start Small If you ever explored what it takes to develop your own ecommerce website, you know that it can be both technically complex and expensive.

When you’re just starting out, tackling a project like this isn’t always a good idea. You also have products to source, marketing strategies to develop, and customers to provide service to. Of course, building your own ecommerce website doesn’t mean you’ll have online traffic! With Amazon, you get to leverage the benefits of working with one of the top online sites on the Internet. This means being able to take advantage of their advanced site and their traffic.

And, the good news is that you can start selling on Amazon with just one product! From there, you can slowly build an online business and grow it as big as you envision. How to Sell Products on Amazon Think about What People Want and What Others Can’t Offer This seems simple enough, but interestingly, many sellers on Amazon make the mistake of selling products that dozens of others are selling, too. This is a recipe for disaster. Amazon creates one page for each product available on its site. This means that all sellers that sell the same produce are lumped into the same page.

If you are selling a product which 50 others sellers are selling, you’re going to have a hard time differentiating yourself unless you’re willing to be the one with the lowest price. Amazon sellers are all competing for the top spot, called the “Buy Box, on a product page. The seller with the best price and history gets this coveted spot, which is an automatic sale when someone clicks on “Add to Cart.” All other sellers get listed off to the side of the page or even on a secondary page. This isn’t where you want to be! Don’t want to be the lowest price seller?

Then, you need to either make your own unique product or resell something unique that someone else makes. The goal is to minimize your competition on the Amazon product page. Many Amazon sales that you will typically have more luck by avoiding media-related products like DVDs, music, and books. Other than that, the product possibilities are practically endless. Consider How Your Products will Ship Packing and shipping your products is fairly straightforward when it’s just a few each day. But, what happens when the volume of your sales increases, and you now have dozens of orders on a daily basis? Yes, this does happen, and especially around the holidays when you might be dealing with hundreds of orders per day.

This challenge can turn into a real business headache when you also factor in returns, undeliverable shipments, and tight deadlines. This is where Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) comes in very handy. Fulfillment by Amazon means: You will ship product in bulk to one of Amazon’s warehouses. Amazon will ship customers’ orders for you. Amazon manages customer service and returns. In some cases, Amazon customers will be able to take advantage of free shipping on your items. The advantages of are vast.

Here are a few of the reasons why: Orders can be packed and ship 24/7. You won’t have to deal with returns so that you can stay focused on other aspects of your business Your customers will prefer the fast and free shipping. The Amazon Fulfillment Center can also be used to ship out orders from eBay or even your own website. You won’t have to invest in hiring staff to help with shipping. Your business won’t be limited by your ability to ship out products. Learn How to Sell on Amazon Support Selling on Amazon with Content Small business Amazon sellers can amp up the success of their businesses by utilizing the same content marketing strategies that large-scale enterprises do. You can spread the word about your online business through social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and YouTube.

It’s easy to reach out to your Facebook community and share with them a product you’re selling on Amazon by providing a link to the product page. Tweeting information about your presence on Amazon can increase views, and product videos with interesting content may be shared or even go viral. Many Amazon sellers promote their products by publishing content on blogs – both their own and by guest blogging. Writing details about your products, discussing interesting facts about your business, or even sharing helpful tips for others within your industry can help spread the word about what you’re selling. Don’t Put All of Your Eggs in One e-Commerce Basket Some online business owners believe that if they’re selling on Amazon that they can’t sell elsewhere.

This is simply untrue. In fact, there can be distinct advantages to selling on multiple sites such as eBay or Etsy. The more you can expose your products to potential customers, the more likely you’ll be successful.

Of course, this requires you to be able to have enough inventory to supply customers once they start buying. And, this requires having enough capital to pay for your inventory. Obtaining a bank loan is one option. Borrowing money from friends or family is another. And, now there is a new option that is working for a growing number of Amazon online business owners.

It’s Kabbage – a quick for online businesses. If you’re considering selling on Amazon, you may want to check out Kabbage and how it can help provide funds to help you grow.