Help me get Amazon to play along

January 13, 2011 9:16 AM

Amazon --my sister self-published a book. She has an interest in selling it on amazon. Neither of us is interested in the pro-level of $40/month. Is there an option I'm overlooking? Alternatively can we do the $40 one month, get the book in and then drop back to the 99c/sale level?
posted by notned to Work & Money (4 answers total)

Who did she publish it with, notned? I published my novel with Lulu as as far as I know it was listed automatically on Amazon; I may have had to send the ISBN details etc, but I wasn't charged for the listing. I thought Amazon made their money by adding a few quid/dollars to the sale price set by the author? (They certainly inflated my democratically-decided cover price!)

Hopefully someone else will be able to give you a better answer about Amazon, but in the meantime I'd ask your sister to check with her publisher or ISBN distributor and see if Amazon listing is included with that. She may possibly also be able to publish a 'book distribution service' with a company like Lulu, which will list the book for her - it might cost a bit at first but she should get other promo materials as well as the listing.
posted by mudkicker at 9:36 AM on January 13, 2011

Response by poster: She didn't do this the way that I would have. She is the publisher. The local yearbook people were the printers. They did a good job but there's no publisher support there.

I put her into the books in print list.

I'll check into lulu.
posted by notned at 10:03 AM on January 13, 2011

Amazon Advantage is an option.

It's 29.95 per year, they take a 55% cut of your cover price, and you have to ship the books to the Amazon warehouse. Also, you have to get a working barcode with valid ISBN.

Never tried myself, but I heard some people saying they're happy about the exposure (not necessarily with the $!)
posted by TheGoodBlood at 10:27 AM on January 13, 2011

I have done Advantage with micropress projects in the past, and it worked fine. Yes, it's a giant cut off your cover price, but it's the same as you'd give a bookstore for consignment.
posted by Sidhedevil at 2:14 PM on January 13, 2011