Amazon Source Program

Are You Still Selling Books Only Via Amazon?

Find-Readers

Amazon’s new priorities: books don’t belong to daily necessities. Therefore, suppliers of products that are a lower priority should expect both: reduced purchase orders and extended delivery windows for existing purchase orders.

Amazon once started with books. According to Amazon, books are neither everyday commodities nor are they in particularly high demand. During the Corona crisis, the shipper doesn’t even carry some bestsellers in stock anymore.

Successful titles whose sale could strengthen the balance sheet of a publishing house – which are important for the so-called mixed calculation.  The profit made with bestsellers finances less promising book projects – is now lying around in piles, even though there are buyers and readers. And the situation is even more difficult for self-publishing authors.

And, of course, not only the publishers but also the authors are losing a lot of money.  They are usually paid according to the number of copies sold.  Every single author suffers from this, every single writer, who also has to forego the income from their canceled reading trips this spring.

If the slogan of these weeks “stay at home” brings something good with it besides protecting health, it is the extra reading time it gives readers.  But how does a reader get a newly published novel in these times?  All bookstores had to close, that’s painful enough.

So it would be convenient and obvious to switch to Amazon because the digital world department store can still deliver its goods.  But at Amazon, where everything once began with the shipping of books, a decision was made in mid-March: “We are temporarily prioritizing the receipt of goods for daily use, medical consumables and other products with high demand in our logistics centers.

 

How Can You Avoid This Trap?  As Reader and as Writer:

Readers should order their books (print and digital) from these online retailer websites: Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, Scribd, etc.  In Europe, one can order books online from Thalia, Hugendubel, Buecher.de, and Buecher.ch, 24Symbols, Waterstones or Baker&Taylor, just to name a few.
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And Authors or Publishers?

Why sell books only to one company?   For almost ten years now I am encouraging in my blogs to “Put Your Eggs in More Than One Basket!”.  With “eggs” I mean books.   What would you think if a business sells its products only through one retailer?  Economic suicide!  Isn’t it? And it is not even selling, it is a kind of consignment…  Because they don’t pay author-publishers upfront, only when the book is sold, will you get money!

Here is a list of online book stores:
http://www.infoagepub.com/iap-ebook-retailers.html

Get even more online book retailers worldwide:
http://www.the-ebook-reader.com/ebooks.html
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Aggregators/Distributors
The largest online retailers Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, Scribd, or in Europe, Thalia, Hugendubel, Buecher.de and Buecher.ch, 24Symbols, or Baker&Taylor all work with aggregators.  If you don’t want to upload your book yourself, get help from an aggregator.

Aggregators handle distribution, sales, accepting payments, and are managing the account for you.  Not everyone has a Kindle, many folks are die-hard Apple iBook fans or still use a Nook, or order from Kobo.  Why forego these sales?

One of the most recommendable aggregators is Draft2Digital.  They distribute to all the major retailers online, libraries, wholesale, and hundreds of storefronts worldwide.  With the check of a box, you can choose which digital storefronts you want to submit your books.  On top of that, Draft2Digital offers automated ebook conversion and layout templates to give your book a professional layout that fits your style.  All easy to use, and all for free!
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e-Commerce
Last but not least: add an e-commerce template to your author or publisher website and sell all your books from there. It works best for audio- and ebooks as there is no work or additional costs involved. Print books can be distributed via a fulfillment warehouse or you can ship them DIY.

For many retail shops, it was the only way to survive the lock-downs during the Corona crisis.  They frantically opened new online stores to sell their wares during the time they had to close their brick&mortar shops.  Some of them already had an online presence and they were glad they started selling online long before.
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The Benefits of Selling From Your Own Website: 

  • You Are Going to Have Higher Revenues
    Directly selling means you earn around 85% to 95% from your retail price
  • You Get Paid Faster
    You get paid before your customers download your audiobooks. 
  • You Get to Know Your Listeners/Readers
    Selling your audiobook solely at online retailers, you will never know who orders, listens or reads your books – no matter how many are sold.

E-commerce is a trillion-dollar industry. In the United States alone, online sales are expected to reach $523 billion by 2020. Read here how to set up your online store:
https://www.savvybookwriters.com/selling-audiobooks-ebooks-from-your-own-website/

 

Now, after realizing all these possibilities:
Why would anyone sell their books only via Amazon?

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Bookstores to Sell Kindle and Amazon Books???

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My first thought was: A joke!  But no, Amazon offers bookstores to sell Kindle e-Readers and to participate in e-book sales – copying Kobo’s entry into the Indie book store market. Amazon calls it: “The Best of Both Worlds: Now your customers don’t have to choose between e-books and their favorite book store.” Jeremy Greenfield, wrote: “Today, Amazon has offered an olive branch in the form of a business opportunity to indie booksellers.”  Read his story at Forbes.com.
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Alter-Buecherladen

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Harsh Words Came from BusinessInsider.com
“Amazon Has A Plan To Get Indie Bookstores To Kill Themselves” – which they explained: “Once a customer is on the Kindle platform, odds are they’re going to buy fewer physical books, thus killing the Indie bookstore. In essence, Amazon is telling these companies to on-board customers to a digital platform that will destroy their business. We suppose 10% of revenue is better than nothing, but this seems like a suicide mission for any bookstore that signs up.”
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TechCrunch.com writes: “Amazon has not been seen as a fast friend of the brick-and-mortar bookstore business….” and Tim Carmody, writer at Kottke.org mused: “I have often wondered if an independent bookstore could sell their usual selection of paper books but also sell Kindle books to those who wanted them.”  And my own first reaction was: Most bookstores refused to carry author-published books – and now authors come into bookstores through the “back door” thanks to Amazon?
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Amazon’s Press Release

“Independent Bookstores Can Now Sell Kindles and Earn 10% from Future Kindle Books Sold
Amazon Source makes it easy for independent bookstores and small retailers to earn additional revenue by selling Kindles.

Booksellers can receive 10% of the price of Kindle books purchased from the devices they sell. The first order is worry-free for retailers—Amazon will buy back the inventory for up to six months after the first order, no questions and no penalties.

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Nov. 6, 2013– (NASDAQ:AMZN)—Amazon.com today introduced Amazon Source, a new program that enables independent bookstores and other retailers to sell Kindle devices and accessories, and earn money while doing so. In addition to a discount on purchasing Kindles and Kindle accessories for resale, retailers will have the option of receiving 10% of every Kindle book purchased on Kindle devices sold by the bookstore for the first two years after a customer buys a device. Learn more at http://source.amazon.com.”

What are YOUR thoughts on this?

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Tagged: Amazon contracts with bookstores, Amazon Source Program, Bookstores to Sell Kindle and Amazon Books?, http://source.amazon.com, independent bookstores, Jeremy Greenfield