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Originally Posted by ratinox
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.
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.
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Excuse me but an independent author can spend anywhere from $0 to more than $10,000 on a book. Ryk Brown spends way more than $5k on his books. He is great too. Joe Nobody and Russell Blake are also very committed to their books. (If we are recommending great authors.) Oops almost forgot J A Konrath, Blake Crouch and Hugh Howey. Sorry guys, still love yall.
But that has nothing to do with Amazon.
And Amazon sells many more independent authors than trad. So if you want to get technical, Amazon makes more than 30%. Truth be told Amazon makes way more off the 99 cent books than the higher priced books. They also sell more of them unless it is new release week.
This is well proven by Hugh's and Data Guy's author earning report.
As to the second part, go look at becoming a seller on Amazon. It has all the figures.
That is where I get my figures.