self publishing and selling your book as an ebook

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by doreenjoy

As a consumer, I can't imagine giving my credit card info to a random site. And not all buyers want to use PayPal.

So, I guess you only buy products from sellers like Amazon, B&N, etc? Or do you actually use PayPal yourself?

I've occasionally heard about personal consumer issues with PayPal not accepting credit cards, or transactions from certain countries, but I've never had the opportunity to find out how widespread these problems are. I've also gotten the impression much of the dislike of PayPal comes from its being an American company, and so was distrusted by citizens of some other countries. Similarly, I've heard the same distrust of PayPal-analogues in other countries by Americans, and have to conclude that some of these reactions are nationalistic prejudices, and not all caused by actual problems or issues with consumers.

Money-handling trust can be hard to come by these days, and a seller has to balance their trust in a money-handling system against the desires of their customers. I am satisfied with using PayPal on my site, but I also sell my books through Amazon, B&N, Smashwords (and eventually others), to give consumers more distribution choices that work for them.

[Tony_A20]

One of the big problems selling on Amazon and other American web publishers, is getting your hands on the 30% of your royalties withheld for tax purposes. If you are not a resident American author, and your country has a Tax Treaty with the US exempting you from withholding tax, you may apply for an exemption.

Have a read of this thread on the Amazon DTP forum to see the problems:

http://forums.digitaltextplatform.co...art=0&tstart=0

Another facet is that if you earn any money at all on Amazon or other American web publishers, and you don't have a withholding tax exemption, you MUST file a US Income tax return. If you don't, you are breaking US Law, and while the IRS may not knock on your door in a non-US country, heaven help you if you ever set foot on US soil anywhere in the world because you may be arrested as a tax dodger and end up in jail.

The IRS will get your 30% withholding tax, whether you file a return or not, and the only way to get your money back is to file a US Tax Return and claim a refund. Even if you blow it off, and let the IRS keep your withholding tax money, you MUST still file a US Tax Return or face the consequences. Oh, and if you do file a US Tax Return, the IRS will bury you in red-tape and you will end up paying US tax, as well as your home country tax, on your earnings. Isn't that nice?

Just another reason to sell on your own website.

Tony

[Lori Devoti]

I'm a member of an author co-op that does this--Book View Cafe. There is a similar group called A Writer's Work. I'm not a member of it, but I know people who are.

I think most of the members also have there stuff for sale at Amazon, etc. though. I do.

Lori

[SimonKewin]

Tony_A20,

Fascinating stuff. I must admit I've kind of buried my head in the sand as regards all that. It's a bureacratic nightmare so far as I can see. Having just ploughed through the thread you mention I'm really none the wiser. So, yes, definitely a plus-point for direct selling if one can get the traffic.

[sportourer1]

Have to sell everywhere you can, so many books to choose from and so few customers for new writers you cannot afford to be choosy.

[Russell Brooks]

An acquaintance of mine told me that whether you self-publish or if you're traditionally published, if you have poor distribution then you have poor sales.

[sportourer1]

eBook sales figures seem to be a bit of a state secret. Has anyone seen any figures on reader sales? I do not know anyone who has one!

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Yes, reader sales are hard to come by... but don't forget, that's just a part of the picture. A significant number of people read ebooks on multi-use devices, like computers and laptops, iPads and other tablets, smartphones and Blackberries.

Figures of ebook sales are much more significant than the sales of a single segment of reading devices.

[Kemp]

Originally Posted by Tony_A20

One of the big problems selling on Amazon and other American web publishers, is getting your hands on the 30% of your royalties withheld for tax purposes. If you are not a resident American author, and your country has a Tax Treaty with the US exempting you from withholding tax, you may apply for an exemption.

Have a read of this thread on the Amazon DTP forum to see the problems:

http://forums.digitaltextplatform.co...art=0&tstart=0

Another facet is that if you earn any money at all on Amazon or other American web publishers, and you don't have a withholding tax exemption, you MUST file a US Income tax return. If you don't, you are breaking US Law, and while the IRS may not knock on your door in a non-US country, heaven help you if you ever set foot on US soil anywhere in the world because you may be arrested as a tax dodger and end up in jail.

The IRS will get your 30% withholding tax, whether you file a return or not, and the only way to get your money back is to file a US Tax Return and claim a refund. Even if you blow it off, and let the IRS keep your withholding tax money, you MUST still file a US Tax Return or face the consequences. Oh, and if you do file a US Tax Return, the IRS will bury you in red-tape and you will end up paying US tax, as well as your home country tax, on your earnings. Isn't that nice?

Just another reason to sell on your own website.

Tony

Without splitting hairs or arguing points, I'd believe that this situation, from your standpoint, sucks big time, and, as a dual-citizen living the US, I unfortunately can't really relate.

However, even after factoring in royalty cuts, taxes, and maybe even giving the damn thing away for free, finding and informing the proper market with a high traffic value trumps it all. Having a personal website is a triple-burden: #1: Driving users to the site, comparatively unknown even when stacked against something like Smashwords. #2: Establishing trust enough that users won't be wary of viruses, phishing scams, and so on. The site has to be safe for people to use it. #3: Convincing users that the material, the book, is worthy of a purchase and/or download, at least enough to overcome #2.

Even so, a lot of users going to the site are likely to be the ones seeking the author and material out. It completely nixes the window-shopping element, which is going to account for a primary amount of extra sales and the potential for more word of mouth exposure.

But it all depends upon what the author is going for, in either case. I'd even go so far as to say (minus the IRS-related headache) it'd be better to sell the book for cheap on Amazon than to give away elsewhere. If the right audience notices it, it'll probably sell pretty decently. But again, it depends upon what the author is looking to accomplish.

Someone else mentioned it before, but the author still would have to worry about site design and maintenance. If that gets lumped in to the inevitable jumble of marketing, editing, and everything else, then the actual amount of writing gets smaller yet.

[sportourer1]

eBooks are possibly just useful as loss leaders to begin to spark interest in a writer and their work. I am not convinced enough people have readers to generate any significant sales yet

[mr ploppy]

Konrath seems to do okay with ebook sales, judging by the figures he publishes. Most of his new books seem to be ebook only at the moment.

[ebusinesstutor]

I think more and more authors will move to self publishing by both ebook and print on demand in the future. The current process to try to get your work noticed by one of the few publishing houses is a bottleneck where only a few authors get through and only books that fit their preconceived "best seller" formulas.

This will result in a lot of back books online but does have some great potential for authors. Unfortunately, given two authors of similar writing ability, the one who succeeds will be the one who markets the best. For authors who love to write and have no interest in marketing, this will make it tough.

Authors co-ops might help with this, but for non-marketer authors, they will need to either learn or hire outside help with marketing.

[bookmark]

Originally Posted by sportourer1

eBooks are possibly just useful as loss leaders to begin to spark interest in a writer and their work. I am not convinced enough people have readers to generate any significant sales yet

Here's some interesting stats for you: http://www.mediabistro.com/ebooknews...eptember_b3406

"eBook sales increased by 158 percent in September compared to the same period last year–totaling $39.9 million in sales for the month."