A Chat with Charles

“The Challenge Of Marketing” Part 4

Navigating Amazon – The Publishing Behemoth

In 2020 more than 1.5 Million new titles were released on Amazon. That retail behemoth now carries so many different products that they also maintain an incredible fleet of vehicles that they use to deliver those products. In my drives up to Atlanta from Florida, I believe I see more semis with “Another truckload of products for Prime.” Now as a “Prime” subscriber ($139 per year), I can often order products today and receive them tomorrow or the day after.

A great question would be how much do you spend annually on Amazon? The reality for me is that it is now in the thousands of dollars. Just this year I bought new tires for my dolly, new blades for our robotic floor cleaner, flash drives to make copies of my audiobooks, and any number of Scribbler Authors books, and just yesterday I ordered Rye Flour for the bread I make, as our local grocery stores no longer carry it. (This does not include everything I ordered for my day job or for my bee business. ) I probably spend more time on Amazon.com now than I spend in actual stores. And then there are all the movies I can watch as a Prime member. How about you? What is your experience with this retail giant?

Well for us as authors, there is a whole other side to Amazon as well. Last year over 70% of all the books sold in the US were sold on Amazon. And five or so years ago they started Audible, the audio side of authors' writing. They also own Kindle, the world’s largest digital platform for books. These facts are simply amazing. There is a reason all of the brick-and-mortar bookstores are in trouble. Many of the bookstores are turning into a mix of books, gifts, and coffee shops as they try to figure out how to stay open and profitable as their base business slides away to Amazon.

And Amazon is rapidly becoming the place you go to find titles even in the “used” market as well. It was fascinating to see copies of my books appear in the “used” section. (Even some that I had signed are available. ) And the prices of some of those books are shocking with the price on both ends of the spectrum, with some at $5.00 or less and others at $50 or more. Wouldn’t we all like to have received the royalty on the $50 purchase?

Literally, every facet of the publishing world is touched by Amazon. Amazon offers “On Demand” printing, meaning that the barrier to entry is so low, that everyone can get their books up on Amazon and out there for sale. Amazon even offers to get you the ISBN number and the Bar Code for your book.

So what have we learned about Amazon, and how we as authors should interact with and navigate through this retail giant?

First, you should get your book on Amazon simply because it appears to be the world’s biggest retail site. You do need to know there are two different ways to get your book on Amazon.

When I finally “self-published” my fourth book, ( Homecoming )and did not have the backing of a publisher, I called Amazon about getting my book onto the Amazon site. ( I was tired of paying the fees associated with getting one of the Indie publishers to publish my book and decided to see if I could navigate the self-publish world.) It was then that I was exposed to the two methods available to me as the author to get the books into Amazon.

Because I had so many books printed of the fourth book I wanted to get those books to Amazon for them to sell. The royalty I would receive on those sales was much higher than the royalty I would receive from the other method which was sending the digital file and allowing Amazon to print and ship the books as sales came in.

I learned very quickly though of the downside of putting books I had printed into the Amazon supply chain. They would only order one or two books at a time for their warehouse and the shipping cost of getting those books to Amazon dwarfed the royalty I was getting paid. I called Amazon about this issue and learned quickly that getting more books into their warehouse came with the additional risk that if the books were not selling at a fast clip then I might need to pay to get them returned or see them thrown out. I tried the first method for almost a year, and in a year sold a dozen or so books. I also realized I was actually paying for the sales that were occurring. My royalty never covered the shipping cost of getting the books to Amazon and the printing costs of getting the books printed in the first place.

It was with that realization that when I approached my fifth book I decided to try something different.

I formed Scribblers Press, went through the process of setting it up as a publisher with a publishing imprint, and registered it with the Library of Congress as well. I made the decision to still get 100 books printed by one of our resources (Trinity Press or A&C Printing) but then uploaded my digital files with my Scribblers Press Imprint, ISBN Number, and Bar Code and with the Library of Congress Control number that I got under Scribblers Press. Even the books that I had printed through Trinity Press used the same digital files that I gave to Amazon for their fulfillment. The difference was that I allowed Amazon to use their on-demand print service to create the books that would fulfill the orders that occurred on Amazon. Suddenly I discover I had the best of both worlds, I had really good books for me to sell at the shows and through our Scribblers bookstore, and I actually started making some money from the sales occurring on Amazon.

One of the issues I discovered early on with Amazon On Demand printing is the quality of the books varies dramatically. I quickly learned that for any book with significant illustrations, like most children’s books, the quality of the printed books from our resource printers (Trinity and A&C Printing) was far superior in quality than those I would see coming from Amazon. However, if you are going to sell on Amazon, you will never make any money if you plan on supplying the books they will fulfill with.

So, my recommendation is that you accept the lower-quality for the books being fulfilled through Amazon. That does not mean that all of the Amazon books are noticeably lower quality, but the ones with illustrations are. And the binding “glue” used by Amazon is not of the quality used by our resource printer on the standard 6 x 9 format of the majority of the books we produce through Scribblers. But most books get read once or twice and then either go into a bookcase or get passed to other friends and family or make their way back into the used book market. So the Amazon quality is good enough for the first sale through their site.

I also learned that authors can buy books from Amazon at their printing cost+. So on my latest book, (My children’s book: Bernice and Harriet: The Busy Honey Bees-https://www.amazon.com/dp/1950308421) my cost from one of the resource printers was just under $6.00 per book while the cost of the author copy books coming from Amazon was almost half the price. But there was no question, the books printed by our resource printer were far superior to the books being produced by Amazon. I made the decision to pay the extra to have really good books for show sales and my personal sales. It just meant I would make less on those sales, but with Amazon only paying a royalty of between 40-60% on their sales, I still was making more from my personal sales even if the cost of the higher quality books were twice the cost of the Amazon books.

So if you want to get your books into Amazon, let me recommend that you talk with us about using Scribblers Press to help you get your book up on Amazon. Through Scribblers Christian Writers Group the authors that join the group get access to the benefits of Scribblers Press as well, if you desire. The big benefits are getting the ISBN #, Bar Codes, and Library of Congress filings close to cost, and you get the Scribblers Press Imprint which makes it easier for you to get your books into libraries if that is something you want to do.

Also, you have access to all of the other resources that are working with our writers’ group. Unlike other Indie publishers, you actually are working directly with the illustrators, editors, printers, and other resources, and Scribblers Press is not taking a “cut” of the fees. That means you are getting the services you need as an author and paying less for them. Again the goal for our group is to get as many Christian author works published as possible for the lowest cost possible.

So now your book is almost up on Amazon…now what else do you need to know? I’ll sum it up this way: Know your genre, pick your listing carefully, plan your release date and plan how to drive sales quickly from their site, to see if you can get top ten even for one day. Understand your different options related to your royalty levels, and the various markets you can list your book in through Amazon. (Did you know that Amazon has eight different markets with expanded distribution?) But once your book is on Amazon then what?

If you have ever bought anything on Amazon, you know the experience of seeing Amazon saying “people who bought this bought ….” Your drive needs to get that Amazon algorithm to start pushing your book as another sales opportunity.



Next month I will be tackling everything else we have learned about Amazon and what you need to know about what you should do to get the Amazon marketing algorithm to begin pushing your book. And once again we have learned the benefit of belonging to a writers' group, like Scribblers Christian Writers Group.

Until then.

Grace to you all, 

Charles de Andrade 

Scribblers Christian Writers Group

"We All Have A Story To Tell, To The Glory of God" on www.scribblersweb.com (http://www.scribblersweb.com)

Susan Rhoden Deremer was born in Atlanta, Georgia in1959 and raised in its suburbs. She published her first book, an illustrated history of Atlanta, in 1998. After graduating from high school in 1977, she spent a year in Brazil on a scholarship to study art. Then she furthered her education at the University Of Georgia, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in1982. She enjoyed a successful career as a freelance graphic artist until she married Randy Deremer in1990. Soon after that she began marketing her skills as a portrait artist. She was pleased with her progress until September 1, 2014, when she had a massive stroke and discovered that portrait painting was no longer an option. This book is the result of her recovery and new found purpose.

Susan and Randy live in The Villages, Florida where there is an abundance of golf for Randy and Susan is surrounded by caring neighbors and Bible study friends. Susan is busy reinventing herself as a writer and public speaker.

Susan loves to be contemplative. Discovering “light bulb moments” of inspiration that have the potential to make life better is her greatest joy. You can expect to read the results here in this book and in books to follow.

Cluckie's Chicken Pox

We all have heard about Chicken Pox and many have endured those nasty red bumps. Poor Cluckie had to experience it first hand when he was out picking corn. He saw a distraught worm that needed his help. See what Cluckie did and how he faired with helping his green worm friend.

From writing alone, to writing with friends, pen a Scribbler's journey from beginning to The End.

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