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Originally Posted by Cinisajoy
You are right they don't. They get more than 30%. If a book is priced between $2.99 and $9.99, and the author chooses 70% then Amazon takes 30% + a small delivery fee.
If the book is .99 to 2.98 or higher than 9.99 then Amazon gets 65%. Or if the author has chosen the 35% royalty on the book then Amazon gets 65%.
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Your figures are accurate for independent authors (that is, authors who act as their own publishers and use Amazon for distribution and sales). They are completely off for trad-pub authors who typically get 15% of cover price (not sale price) royalty.
Then again, authors who act as their own publishers have to cover all of the publishing-related costs themselves: editing, layout, proofing, cover artwork, advertising, and so forth if they want a professional product. An independent author can expect to pay on the order of $5K out of pocket (or Kickstarter funds) to cover these costs for a full-length novel. That's not a number pulled out of my behind; that's what it cost Ryk E. Spoor to get
Polychrome (shameless plug: buy the book and read it--it's good) published.
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This is on ebooks and if I remember right, it is darn close to 30% on sales too.
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Do you have any references to back this claim? Because it flies in the face of Amazon's claims of selling at low margins like Walmart and my experience as an Amazon customer.