

Selling eBooks on Amazon - benackles
http://snook.ca/archives/writing/selling-ebook-on-amazon

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alanfalcon
I wrote a YA fiction novel, created the cover and eBook myself, and submitted
it to Amazon KDP and did basically no further promotion of substance. I've
been selling 40 copies a week at $3 each, at roughly $2 in royalties per sale.
Not amazing money, but enough that I'm happily working on my second novel—and
it took less time to create the novel[1] than to create the iPhone game I
made, and I've made significantly more in less time with the novel (AND
without the yearly developer fees).

The book bounces around the 10-30k sales rank for eBooks and has only four
reviews (all positive). The thing that most helped sales was making a POD
version of the book available through CreateSpace (also Amazon) which cost me
about $15 in printing and shipping fees for proof copies. Almost nobody buys
the print version, but just the existence of the option seems to make the $3
eBook appear to be a better values. I'd say the existence of the print book
resulted in a 3-4x increase in sales.

Clearly my case is different from that of the author of the linked article,
but I figure it could be of interest to anyone who clicks that link.

[1] [http://www.syncingdreams.com/2012/06/dragon-master-post-
mort...](http://www.syncingdreams.com/2012/06/dragon-master-post-mortem-
part-1.html)

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jseliger
>I wrote a YA fiction novel,

This is a pet peeve, but nonetheless I'll reiterate it: you don't have to call
it a "fiction novel." A "novel" is sufficient. This is the sort of thing that
will make a lot of readers simply stop.

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granfalloon
I really can't imagine anyone stopping after reading that.

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jseliger
I can. Take a look at Query Shark for an agent's perspective on this kind of
issue: <http://queryshark.blogspot.com/> . See, for example, this post:
<http://queryshark.blogspot.com/2010/05/159.html> .

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petercooper
Always great to see the numbers, but I think the key thing about Amazon is if
it's treated as merely a supplementary channel, you'll get supplementary
results. Those I know who've done well on the Kindle have really had to work
hard on building up Amazon as a channel.

It's a bit like if you have a video to promote. YouTube can drive crazy
numbers of views, but if you focus on self hosting it on your blog, get a few
HN and Reddit posts, etc, you'll have far more self hosted views than YouTube
views if you upload it to YouTube as a secondary channel. I suspect so it goes
with Amazon and the Kindle Store.

I guess what I'm getting at isn't that you can assume Amazon is a bad/small
market for a particular book, but that you can't assume it'll work without
putting in some dedicated effort to nurturing it.

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waterlesscloud
I think for technical non-fiction, the recommendations of the OP and the
article he links to are worth consideration. They may be the way to go, they
may not. Chances are your audience is highly specialized, and you may be able
to use that to draw them into your website and sell them the book while
they're there.

I think for fiction, Amazon and the other major sellers are a must. That's
just where e-book buyers go for fiction.

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petercooper
To your first paragraph, certainly. Also, I think a lot of technical buyers
have had bad experiences with programming books having horrifically formatted
source code and diagrams on the Kindle, so it's a harder sell.

I certainly didn't want to imply the OP is wrong, just that, as a marketplace,
Amazon does require special care to give special results.

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stevencorona
As someone that has only sold self-published ebooks (where I keep 98% of the
profit), I always forget how bad the split is on "real" platforms. The fact
that (in the publishing world) 35% is VERY VERY GOOD, blows my mind even more!
I can't imagine having a business model where I share >50% of my profit with a
company.

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johnrgrace
Actually in the traditional publishing world, almost no one gets 35% of
digital 25% is what you get unless you're a megastar. For in on dead trees 10%
is the norm.

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user24
that's what OP is saying. The fact that 35% is good blows his mind.

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dilipray
eBooks at some point is great, but don't you think there is piracy of the
eBook and if it's pretty popular it will be up on the internet within few
weeks.

i think amazon should be like a library or youtube for ebooks. So the user can
subscribe the books they want it should be something similar to
safaribookonline. [http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20104755-264/amazon-e-
book...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20104755-264/amazon-e-book-
subscription-publishers-should-join/)

Amazon has limited the capability of eBooks, eBooks can be like iBook(iOS App)
where the book has capability of videos and multimedia. What is the difference
between the book and device if it was just the text with picture.

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dilipray
This is what happens @ amazon <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4682392>

