Amazon listings for books – two ways to get yourself online!
Amazon seems to have become the place to buy books online, and with most self-published authors focussing more on online methods of reaching their readers, getting your book listed there is of prime importance.
The good news is there is more than one way to do this! One is to list with Amazon as a seller yourself, the other is to take advantage of the fantastic Honeybee Books print-on-demand option, which guarantees your books for sale on Amazon ( and lots of other online places too!)
Let’s look at becoming an Amazon seller first. To do this you need to print your book, set yourself up as an Amazon seller, and post the books out yourself when someone orders. This is a good way to work if you don’t anticipate huge sales volumes, or if you really want to keep tabs on all your books.
The problem is that the seller fees Amazon charges are by no means simple. You’ll need to account for:
– An item fee – this is set at £0.75 for anything you list
– A ‘referral fee’ – for books this is 15% of your retail price.
– A ‘closing fee’ – this is set at £0.90 for books
For example, a book that costs £8.99 will cost you a total of £2.99 to list. You then need to account for packaging (padded envelope at around £0.50) and postage (roughly £1.20 for a large letter size). So the price comes up to about £4.70 as the total for your listing (not including your trip to the post office).
Granted there is the standard £2.80 postage fee which has become pretty much ubiquitous for Amazon books, but it is still a complicated way to work things out!
The second way you can list is through Honeybee Books’ print-on-demand option. Working in partnership with our printers, we offer to list your book online at a flat fee of £15 for the year. When an order happens it goes straight to the printers, the book is printed, bound, and dispatched to the reader within 7 days. The online retailer takes a 35% cut of the retail price (which you have complete control over setting), but other than that your only other expense is the print cost. No stocking books in your back room, no trips to the post office, no missing orders when you’re on holiday, or finding you have run out of envelopes! There are more details on our print-on-demand page, so have a read if you want to find out more details.
All in all our print-on-demand option is the simplest and most cost effective way to list your book. So if you want to get your book on Amazon, as well as having a professionally designed beautiful book, you know where to come!