8 ms·

Is it only me, or does anyone else think that the prevailing business practices of the likes of Amazon are an absolute rip-off when it comes to the low royaltie

Is it only me, or does anyone else think that the prevailing business practices of the likes of Amazon are an absolute rip-off when it comes to the low royalties? You go through all the work of writing, editing and producing a book and upload it. Amazon does nothing by the way of marketing & promition, so you end up marketing links to your book on social media yourself. If you want a decent price, you get 35% royalties, maybe another 5% for affiliate marketing. That means that Amazon gets more out of the project than you do, despite the fact that you're the one doing almost all the work (handling downloads & payments seems like a pretty commoditized thing these days). Compare that to selling music on bandcamp: They take 15%, the rest is yours to keep. It is absolutely beyond me, how self-publishing authors put up with that. I GUESS the difference between music and e-Books, to some extent, is how the channel influences perceptions of the quality of the product. People have got very used to low quality writing being available for free on the web. So if your ebook is just another piece of text on some website, many people will not be willing to pay for it, whereas being on amazon creates an expectation that the quality would be in line with properly published work (where, at least, there is a four-eyes principle at work, at shouldering financial risks around a book project etc.) Someone should do something about that and create an ebook marketplace that enforces certain quality standards and pays decent royalties.

djaychela 8y ago
I think it's because Amazon holds most of the cards, so if you don't like it, you can go hang.... My figures (quoted elsewhere in a separate post). Sell my £24.95 book on lulu.com - I get ~£11. Same book on Amazon, ~£4. I did another book which I sold on both platforms, and firstly I had to raise the RRP to £7.95 so I'd make more than £1 on an Amazon sale, and secondly, I didn't sell the ~3x as many as I'd need to to make the same money as selling on lulu.com - so I now only sell the second-latest version of any of my main book on Amazon so that people will hopefully see that there's a newer version on Lulu and buy it from there.
teekert 8y ago
Try publishing via Elsevier and see what you are left with, compared to that 30% is really nothing.
- 1337biz 8y ago
  I think there are different dimensions of publishing - publishing for profit or publishing for reputation.
  - teekert 8y ago
    You should not have to choose, Elsevier is taking advantage of you.
mynameishere 8y ago
That 35 percent is more than you'll get with a traditional publishing contract. There, it's not strange to get 10 percent of the profit.
hkon 8y ago
I agree with you, but what passes for a book these days is not what it used to be.
mockingbirdy 8y ago
A friend of mine did $120k completely passive with his book (+ audio book) on Amazon. Without Amazon, he would have to get the outreach. Outreach is the expensive and difficult part. When the customers are already there, it's just a matter of converting them. There are many people who make $25k/month completely passive on Amazon. I'm not a big fan of Amazon, either, but you're not signing a bad deal with them. Most publishers are worse (and don't deliver the outreach). edit: Another thing to consider: Don't limit yourself to selling books. Add value and place upsells in your books. And for fiction writers: Maybe add merch and other stuff. For non-fiction: Sell online courses or coaching for your expert topic. Usually the book is just the entry.
- djaychela 8y ago
  What was the book's subject? I've always managed to convince myself that the poor performance (relatively to values such as I see you have quoted) is because my market is somewhat niche, but it may not be the case, so any info on such self-published success would be useful for me.
  - mockingbirdy 8y ago
    I'm not gonna lie: Daytrading. It's the definition of a money topic. But I know that there are people who make a fortune with small cook books. I know some other very profitable niches, but I can't talk about them in detail - competition is already extreme. But trust me: There's a ton of money in most topics. OT: About daytrading (most people think it's basically a scam) - I know people who do daytrading on a daily basis (what a pun) and who live relatively comfortable investing $25-40k. I know a guy who went from 12k to 80k with one investment (was a 2-year investment, though). He's not gambling, he is a trading nerd reading the news and all company reports constantly. But yes, 99% of daytraders lose money because they start to become greedy or have no discipline.
    - stakhanov 8y ago
      ...well I guess the important question is whether or not you think you have a high chance of showing up at a high rank for search terms with enough traffic, whether you have a chance of being featured prominently by amazon's recommender engine etc etc. If you want to make that work for you, you probably have to play a game like being a demand-driven content farm gaming Amazon in a way akin to how SEO tries to game Google. Maybe there's money in it, but it's probably not the kind of content I would either want to produce or consume. For most authors, the point of departure is probably, more idealistically, some well written content, maybe with an audience that's a bit niche, and the desire to find a way to get remunerated fairly on the effort that went into producing the content. It sounds to me like that's not really what Amazon is offering.
davidgerard 8y ago
In practice, Amazon is where people who will actually pay money for your book are. e.g. Smashwords does a much better rate, but nobody gets much sales. Founding an ebook store is easy. The hard part is getting the readers who will pay money to come to it - Amazon's completely succeeded here.
mcguire 8y ago
Check out how much traditional publishers pay.
- oddevan 8y ago
  Traditional publishers do a LOT more than Amazon does for a self-published author.
perlgeek 8y ago
> Someone should do something about that and create an ebook marketplace that enforces certain quality standards and pays decent royalties. Leanpub doesn't enforce any quality standards (it's a self-service), but it does pay around 85% royalties. I really like their model of being able to buy and sell unfinished drafts, and getting updates as they come along.
josefresco 8y ago
>Compare that to selling music on bandcamp The first I've heard of bandcamp - that's probably the difference.
komon 8y ago
One thing that Amazon provides over others that you might find worth the hefty royalties is the "Also Bought" section. Book discovery can be a pain, and I often find myself picking books up that are suggested to me by Amazon. That engine can be pretty powerful.

djaychela 8y ago

I think it's because Amazon holds most of the cards, so if you don't like it, you can go hang.... My figures (quoted elsewhere in a separate post). Sell my £24.95 book on lulu.com - I get ~£11. Same book on Amazon, ~£4. I did another book which I sold on both platforms, and firstly I had to raise the RRP to £7.95 so I'd make more than £1 on an Amazon sale, and secondly, I didn't sell the ~3x as many as I'd need to to make the same money as selling on lulu.com - so I now only sell the second-latest version of any of my main book on Amazon so that people will hopefully see that there's a newer version on Lulu and buy it from there.

teekert 8y ago

Try publishing via Elsevier and see what you are left with, compared to that 30% is really nothing.

1337biz 8y ago
I think there are different dimensions of publishing - publishing for profit or publishing for reputation.
- teekert 8y ago
  You should not have to choose, Elsevier is taking advantage of you.

mynameishere 8y ago

That 35 percent is more than you'll get with a traditional publishing contract. There, it's not strange to get 10 percent of the profit.

hkon 8y ago

I agree with you, but what passes for a book these days is not what it used to be.

mockingbirdy 8y ago

A friend of mine did $120k completely passive with his book (+ audio book) on Amazon. Without Amazon, he would have to get the outreach. Outreach is the expensive and difficult part. When the customers are already there, it's just a matter of converting them. There are many people who make $25k/month completely passive on Amazon. I'm not a big fan of Amazon, either, but you're not signing a bad deal with them. Most publishers are worse (and don't deliver the outreach). edit: Another thing to consider: Don't limit yourself to selling books. Add value and place upsells in your books. And for fiction writers: Maybe add merch and other stuff. For non-fiction: Sell online courses or coaching for your expert topic. Usually the book is just the entry.

djaychela 8y ago
What was the book's subject? I've always managed to convince myself that the poor performance (relatively to values such as I see you have quoted) is because my market is somewhat niche, but it may not be the case, so any info on such self-published success would be useful for me.
- mockingbirdy 8y ago
  I'm not gonna lie: Daytrading. It's the definition of a money topic. But I know that there are people who make a fortune with small cook books. I know some other very profitable niches, but I can't talk about them in detail - competition is already extreme. But trust me: There's a ton of money in most topics. OT: About daytrading (most people think it's basically a scam) - I know people who do daytrading on a daily basis (what a pun) and who live relatively comfortable investing $25-40k. I know a guy who went from 12k to 80k with one investment (was a 2-year investment, though). He's not gambling, he is a trading nerd reading the news and all company reports constantly. But yes, 99% of daytraders lose money because they start to become greedy or have no discipline.
  - stakhanov 8y ago
    ...well I guess the important question is whether or not you think you have a high chance of showing up at a high rank for search terms with enough traffic, whether you have a chance of being featured prominently by amazon's recommender engine etc etc. If you want to make that work for you, you probably have to play a game like being a demand-driven content farm gaming Amazon in a way akin to how SEO tries to game Google. Maybe there's money in it, but it's probably not the kind of content I would either want to produce or consume. For most authors, the point of departure is probably, more idealistically, some well written content, maybe with an audience that's a bit niche, and the desire to find a way to get remunerated fairly on the effort that went into producing the content. It sounds to me like that's not really what Amazon is offering.

davidgerard 8y ago

In practice, Amazon is where people who will actually pay money for your book are. e.g. Smashwords does a much better rate, but nobody gets much sales. Founding an ebook store is easy. The hard part is getting the readers who will pay money to come to it - Amazon's completely succeeded here.

mcguire 8y ago

Check out how much traditional publishers pay.

oddevan 8y ago
Traditional publishers do a LOT more than Amazon does for a self-published author.

perlgeek 8y ago

> Someone should do something about that and create an ebook marketplace that enforces certain quality standards and pays decent royalties. Leanpub doesn't enforce any quality standards (it's a self-service), but it does pay around 85% royalties. I really like their model of being able to buy and sell unfinished drafts, and getting updates as they come along.

josefresco 8y ago

>Compare that to selling music on bandcamp The first I've heard of bandcamp - that's probably the difference.

komon 8y ago

One thing that Amazon provides over others that you might find worth the hefty royalties is the "Also Bought" section. Book discovery can be a pain, and I often find myself picking books up that are suggested to me by Amazon. That engine can be pretty powerful.