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As an author, I barely get any money from Amazon. In some cases, with the cut Amazon and the publisher take, I make a few pennies on a $30 book. If you buy my
by InsideOutSanta 2y ago
As an author, I barely get any money from Amazon. In some cases, with the cut Amazon and the publisher take, I make a few pennies on a $30 book.
If you buy my book directly from my publisher's website, I'm extremely grateful. I get a fair amount for that. If you buy it from a local bookstore, at least they benefit.
But if you buy it from Amazon, you might as well just get it from Anna's Archive. At least you're not supporting the jungle.
- Flimm 2y agoI would love to buy ebooks directly from publishers, but publishers generally sell ebooks with DRM just as bad as Amazon's DRM, if not worse. If publishers insist on vendor lock-in, then I might as well stick with Kindle where most of my ebook collection already is.
- GolfPopper 2y agoYou can buy a copy of the ebook from the publisher (or whatever source the author tells you is the best for them), and then acquire a useable copy by other means. You get an ebook, the author (and publisher) gets a sale.
- Marsymars 2y agoCan you clarify if you're talking about physical and/or ebooks?
- InsideOutSanta 2y agoBoth.
- llm_trw 2y agoI contacted a well known author about the shit latex rendering of his ebooks on Amazon. He said sorry and send me the a pdf copy he build with my name on all the pages. I really like the fact that I have a book dedicated to me by the author, but why the fuck do we need Amazon in this interaction?
- ipaddr 2y agoIn fairness you are the reason for needing Amazon. If you purchased it elsewhere Amazon would cease to exist.
- jasdi 2y agoLot of people have asked that question ever since Amazon (Platform Economy[0]) emerged. But the answer is not simple. This is why experiments like ONDC[1] (being pushed by the Indian Govt) are interesting. They want an alternative path between producer and consumer with out a middleman (Platform). Similar to how email works based on open protocols. Or UPI which has reduced dependence on Mastercard/Visa. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_economy [1] https://ondc.org/learn-about-ondc/ https://ondc.org/learn-about-ondc/
- bumby 2y agoWhat’s an authors perspective on libraries, including ebooks from apps like Libby?
- odysseus 2y agoLibraries buy ebooks with your property tax dollars. The more patrons read, the more copies they buy. Authors and publishers like this.
- themadturk 2y agoAuthors love libraries, because libraries create readers. Publishers don't so much, because though libraries have to buy books, a lot of individuals read a specific copy of a book, which means they aren't buying the book. I have no idea how publishers feel about used book stores.
- InsideOutSanta 2y agoI'm only speaking for myself, not other authors. As with most authors who write books on technology, I don't depend on my income from writing, so it might be different for professional authors whose primary income is from writing. But personally, when I went to a local library, saw that they had two copies of my first book, and both were checked out, I was incredibly proud. I love libraries. I guess overall, I would make more money if everybody who checked out my book at the library bought it instead, but I don't care.
- carlosjobim 2y agoThen why do you sell on Amazon?
- InsideOutSanta 2y agoPublishers decide where to sell, not authors.
- wenc 2y agoI know you probably don't have the option since it's part of the publishing contract, but if you could, would you opt out of being listed on Amazon and just sell direct from the publisher's site?
- InsideOutSanta 2y agoThis is something that regularly comes up in discussions between authors and my publisher, but the reality is that not being on Amazon hurts books. Amazon has essentially a monopoly on book sales. If you're not on Amazon, it hurts your reviews on other sites like Goodreads, which in turn decreases sales on the few other outlets that still exist. What my publisher does is sell books on Amazon, and then put a page in it to tell people to please buy the next book directly on the publisher's site. They believe that this is overall the least bad option.
- carlosjobim 2y agoIs that true? I see book shops in every town. As for e-books, distribution of these small files cannot be too much of a technical challenge. I think it wouldn't be too difficult to make a system for authors to sell their e-books and physical books themselves on their own websites, but the problem is that authors would rage with fury for paying an upfront cost or paying 10% for such a system, and instead stay with the publishers to rip them off instead. You see this in every industry.
- LexGray 2y agoDo authors not have agents any more? If an agent is that bad at negotiating residuals why even have them.
- Aeolun 2y agoBecause your own ability is even lower, and nobody else gets any more?
- InsideOutSanta 2y agoThis is not about residuals, it's about Amazon being a monopoly that can dictate terms to publishers.
- Finnucane 2y agohuh, the publisher i work for pays 25 perecent of net receipts on ebook sales. and we’re an academic nonprofit org.
- InsideOutSanta 2y agoTBH, I haven't looked into exact numbers in a while, but the way I recall it is that for a Kindle book, you get 35% royalties. So in your case, if a book sold for $30, you'd get $2.6 for that book, which is already not great. If you factor in publisher expenses, taxes, maybe advances, etc., you may end up with a very low amount, depending on how exactly your publisher calculates these. Tech books tend to not sell very high numbers (a book on a niche programming language is considered quite successful if it sells 10k copies), so it's important to make a good amount of money on each individual sale. So for me personally, Kindle sales in particular are essentially worthless. Let's say I end up making 2 bucks on a Kindle sale (which is more than I make on average). If I sold 10k Kindle books, that would be 20k income for me, which is simply nowhere near enough to justify the effort of writing a book.
- Finnucane 2y agowell, if you haven’t earned out your advance, and you encourage people to pirate, you’ll never earn out your advance. i don’t recall exactly offhand, but our net on an Amazon ebook sale is about 70% of list.
- InsideOutSanta 2y agoI'll never earn out my advance on Amazon sales, period. The 70% royalty is only available to books below $10, and also incurs other costs from Amazon. Which makes the calculation even worse, because now you're forced to sell at a lower cost, and you pay additional flat fees to Amazon for each sale. In your case, if you sell the book for $10, you get about $6 ($7 minus fees), of which you get 25%, so you also only end up with about $1.50 per sale.
- 2y ago