1. What do you believe is the most effective method. 2. I know there is a 30% royalty fee on Amazon for my Ebook and I could get 100% for website. 3. I'm thinking about going the Amazon route and just using the new Amazon Merchant button directly for my website. I just don't feel like there is a large enough of a Affiliate % on Amazon for my Book? Thoughts?
I guess that depends on how much traffic you're getting to your site. I have one eBook on Amazon and am definitely interested in using the new Amazon Merchant button. Thanks for the link.
Just my take on this, but what I would do is sell through Amazon. Also, use your site to push traffic to the book through an Amazon Associates link. That way, you'll make commission off of more than just your book.
It's 70% for Kindle ebooks in a certain price range. I tried selling two ebooks I wrote directly (well, via affiliate platform), but only succeeded selling them on Amazon. Not sure if that goes as a general rule, but my experience is just that: hundreds of downloads from Amazon, zero directly from website.
Here is how the royalty work on Amazon: From $0.99 to $2.98 , you will get 30%, from $2.99 to $9.99 you will get 70% I recommend you to sell your books on Amazon and enroll in KDP. KDP allows you to have 5 free days promo every 90 days and the countdown deals. Here is how you should do it: You start by doing the free promo for your book...during that free promo you get as many downloads and verified reviews as you can, then when the free promo is done you price your book at $2.99. Remember this: The Amazon algorithm works in a way that the more people DOWNLOAD your book, the more your rankings improve and the more people see your book. The more people see your book the more people will buy it. The algorithm works in a way that the more Verified reviews that you have, the better your rankings will be also. So the stategy is to do the free promo, get a lot of downloads, then price your book at a higher price point. Amazon is amazing when you know how to use it. I have over 100 books on Amazon and i'm doing great. After only a few months I was making more money than I was making in Finance so I quit my job.
Your own individual website will outplay Amazon sooner or later. With the unexpected changes of Amazon here and there it can get quite exhausting to keep on track with it, though it is still the most profitable platform of all the big ones. I just had this discussion with a friend of mine who currently makes 9.850€ a month by Amazon-publishing and he thinks he will ultimately take all of his products to his own website sooner or later. It's just the way to go, also if you want to get rid of all the competition. (Unbelievable what kind of bad moves his competitors play on him there in his niches.)
The main mistake people make with informative books Thinking only of the sales, books are best used to build up authority and act as a lead magnet. Think of it as a high end business card. Imagine you had a choice between two consultants. Some guy that charges £100 has no book or proof, yet says they can do it. Or another guy who charges £100 yet he has a book out on the market on the subject and loads of proof. I would choose the guy who literally wrote the book on the subject. Have you noticed how a lot of guests on webinars etc are book authors. So how about you look at becoming a best selling author on Amazon and using that to build up your own authority? With Amazon they have tons of traffic which you can leverage. Remember “fast growth comes from leveraging others platforms” in this case Amazons. Take advantage of the KDP free days where you can ‘sell’ your book for ‘free’ use these days to boost your ‘sales’ this will help you in attempting to become a best selling author on kindle. (A simple pricing exploit you can have is a more expensive hardcover copy next to the cheaper kindle copy. This uses anchoring. They see the high price point and see the cheap price and are more likely to buy your kindle version.) Make sure to market very very heavily during the free days using social media your list, any contacts you have etc. Promoting the fact your paid book is currently free. Your main aim here should be to become a best seller in some related category. If you become a best seller the book will have a badge which will act as big social proof. Benefits: Trustworthy reviews on Amazon Traffic from Amazon to you Best seller status can help you land PR (webinar guests etc) Easier to upsell to a more expensive product such as a course Build authority in your subject How to make more money from your book You can include links to your website in your E-book just make sure they help the reader and are not sales related. Such as further information on a subject (Amazon does not like ‘salesy’ promotion)This traffic you can attempt to capture as your own. With your book you can convert each chapter into a module for a course, or the subject of a webinar, even add audio and make it an audio book etc. Which is more realistic: £200 book or a £200 course As mentioned above you can re-purpose the book to make a course as well. killing two birds with one stone
As people stated above, it really depends on what your traffic stats are. But, even if you have a good amount of traffic you should also consider selling the ebook both on your website and on Amazon. The more places where you sell the book, the more access to the market you have. Take my company for example: It`s a pretty big one, and it has tons of traffic on the sell page, but that doesn`t keep us from also selling on Amazon. (there are even months when the sales from Amazon rivalries with the sales from our own website)
The advantage to selling on Amazon's publishing platform as opposed to your website is they already have a buyers traffic coming to their website. And it is only fair that they take a cut. On your own website however, you will have to shell out the marketing dollars to achieve the same results that you can get with Amazon. But hey, there is nothing wrong with doing both ways.