Selling your book on your own website question.

Cliff,

There are good reasons to sell your book on Amazon and BN.com and other e-retailers, but that doesn't mean you can't sell it on your website, too.

A few notes in reply to your questions:

--you only need an ISBN if you're selling through a retailer, like Amazon. If you are only selling on your website, you don't neeed one.
--the payment processor you choose will have fees. Probably the simplest solution is to use Paypal as a payment processor, and they charge a percentage of the sale, so you might want to think about that before setting your price.
--you don't have to pay to have your site "listed" by Google, you can actually submit the site for nothing and you should also have your web designer make sure you install Google Analytics (another free service) on the site so you can track your traffic, etc. A web designer will also know how to submit a sitemap to Google.

I think you might find it's actually a lot easier to have "third parties" do all this stuff, since they are set up to do it. For instance, do you want to do customer service, handle shipping and returns and collect tax? I don't, so I don't sell physical books on my site since all the eretailers will take care of that stuff for you in exchange for a discount on your book.

Good luck!

My book is listed on Amazon but at one time I was also selling from my website. I would have the customer pay through PayPal. It's fast and simple and has protection for both the buyer and myself. I charged a 3.00 shipping fee that was included in the price I had listed for the book. Hope this helps.

I wrote and illustrated a picture book and published through createspace.com. They list my book on amazon.com but I am also in the process of building a website with free coloring pages, articles, as well as for selling my book. I did a lot of research and decided to go through volusion.com because they have all of the shopping cart software built in and all you have to do is customize. For my payment processing I am using paypal which charges something like a %2.7 fee I think. I am just waiting my domain name to be transferred over from godaddy.com before my site will go live. Hope this helps!

I speak from no experience here, however, from a theory point of view it makes absolute sense to sell from your own site IF you have people coming there anyway.

For example if you have 20,000 hits a month and an email list of 5,000 it would be crazy to not sell from within your own site. Even if it's just via pre sales.

If you sell from within then your royalities is 100%, which as i'm sure you agree is massive

This does have a cost though such as paypal payments, a web store fee, and making it secure (so big these days)

If you only sell a few then it's not worth it, but if you have the following then it will make big money sense, in theory anyways

Saying that, Amazon et al bring new readers and traffic, so it still needs to be part of your plan in my opinion. Unless you're JK in which case you need no help at all

Matt (Turndog Millionaire)

As for the question of selling from a free hoster: This shouldn't be a problem. But check your hoster's TOS just in case, and if they do prohibit commercial activities, change the hoster.

Also, some listing services prohibit you from selloing anywhere else. So if you go the route of selling both on your site and some ebook hub, check their TOS, too. I know Lulu is fine with it, and I'm pretty sure somebody up-thread would have mentioned it if Amazon had rules like that, but even they may have different rules in Australia.

And, yes, you pay your taxes in Australia because that's where you sell the books. To be on the safe side, you can specify that in your own TOS.

Something to think about: Every sale at Amazon puts you in a bracket among other books like the "customers who also bought". And if you sell enough, you get a list on the "best sellers" for each genre, which shows up on nearly every page of books in that category.

Self publisher needs advice on Internet Marketing

I have an order form question from my self publishing company. The question is 1. To which web address do I want customers to be directed. When customers click on my listing, they will be directed to this URL to either purchase or learn more about my book. The choices I have are as follows: My website, My publisher's bookstore, Online Retailer: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders?

frosteeman said:

I have an order form question from my self publishing company. The question is 1. To which web address do I want customers to be directed. When customers click on my listing, they will be directed to this URL to either purchase or learn more about my book. The choices I have are as follows: My website, My publisher's bookstore, Online Retailer: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders?

Click to expand...

You want to direct them back to the site where you hope to sell the bulk of your titles. That may be your own website or it may be Amazon.

Since they are initially ordering from your own website, it would make sense for them to be returned to your website.

If you want more sales to come from Amazon, as an example, you'd want the URL to direct them to your Amazon author page, which should have all your books listed, if you have an author page set up (easy to do!).

Merri.

Just wanted to say thanks for your input. It really helped.

frosteeman said:

Just wanted to say thanks for your input. It really helped.

Click to expand...

My pleasure. Any time.

Cliff Face said:

Okay, so I've been reading the threads in here, and I've gotten so angsty that I'm thinking about just avoiding places like Amazon entirely, and just selling my book on my own website, so I can have total control over it.

Click to expand...

I actually considered that as part of my long term plan myself. And I decided when I got ready, I'd look into how Holly Lisle set hers up. Hers is here http://shop.hollylisle.com/index.php?crn=211

Cliff Face said:

What do you need to pay for, exactly? Do you give a commission to whichever payment processor you're using? Do you have to buy an ISBN? Any other expenses?

Click to expand...

I'm afraid my research is sketchy, but maybe what I can remember will help you. I imagine you need some form of payment collector method--Paypal or something. I also think you need a shopping cart software. Some websites offer their own. You may need to shop around. I think it gets trickier when you have to deal with downloads versus actual products.

Don't know about the ISBN. I think its more helpful for certain stores and the like. If it's only on your site, then I wouldn't think you'd need one, but don't quote me on that.

Cliff Face said:

What about the website itself? Are you allowed to make money on a free website? Like, livejournal or whatever offer free sites. Can you make money there? I really don't know.

Click to expand...

Most free sites will not allow it. They make money off of people signing up for a professional page so the user can sell things. Look at the terms of service and the like. But for the most part, I think you need your own site and such.

I hope that helps some.

Jodi