Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
For the Amazon model an author gets 35% not 3%. Actually not so bad, since it gives you instant access to millions of eyeballs. Honestly, if I was an author I would be happy that such an opportunity is available. And once a writer has achieved some notoriety he can switch. A simple business decision, better to sell 1000 books and get 35% than 5 books and get 90%. You pay Amazon for the shelf space.
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Yes, 35% of the list price, from which you get to pay for printing, ISBN numbers, business registrations, tax preparation, your bookmaker/typesetter/graphic designer, taxes, and probably lots of other things I cannot readily think about.
After everything is said and done--assuming you are pricing the book sanely--your actual profit might well (under unideal circumstances) be as little as 3% and even under more ideal circumstances could easily enough be no more than 10%... assuming after all is said and done you sell enough copies to make a profit at all.
Unlike an author with a publisher who either gets money even before publishing, or starts getting money from the first copy sold (even if with a great delay, on account of the positively retarded depression era practices of the North American publishing/book selling industry)... without having to spend any money on the book up-front (assuming the publisher is credible and decent).
Oh... and getting listed on Amazon doesn't give you access to millions of eyeballs. Not only does it not do so instantly, but it may never do so even over the full life of your book being in print. Hell... give it the wrong title, and it may literally never show up in any Amazon.com searches *ever* unless somebody specifically links to it, or through purchase patterns it gets linked up with another book. And given the right title, your book may still fail to rank sufficiently well for Amazon to send a meaningful number of customers your way automatically.
Am I wrong, as per your own experiences with publishing and self-publishing?
- Ahi