Hi Has anyone tried this method? I want to have a link for people to download a copy of my book but have no idea where to start. Can anyone help please? Thanks
Hi @Wendy2023, and welcome to the forum Sounds as if you are making a rod for your own back - not only do you want to write, edit, and format your work, you want to create your own distribution system as well? I should think it's hard enough to get people to want to buy your work without going through some Heath-Robinson PDF download. It's easy enough to create a file download link on your website, but taking money for it adds a new dimension. I should imagine that with very small volumes, the easiest thing would be to get them to send you the money in one way or another and then just email them the book. Out of curiosity, what is wrong with the existing methods of self-publishing?
I used Amazon KDP for my first book and netted 17p for every £5 Amazon made though I probably used the most expensive. I imagine that pdf book publishing systems are just as much of a rip off.
When you say Amazon are you talking about a print book or an ebook… with an ebook at 4.99 you should get a tad less than £3.50 in royalty ( if you’re talking print you need to charge more than £5 ) On point there are very few people willing to pay for a pdf if you want to sell from your own website I’d suggest selling as an epub and using book funnel to deliver to e-readers and pay hip or similar to take payment either way unless you have a following already you will need to spend a lot on advertising to drive traffic to your site just as you would if selling on Amazon or other market places except more so because your website won’t have organic traffic
Thanks so much for your help. Yes I perhaps have not charged enough for my amazon book, its a printed one. I will give that some thought, thanks.
Amazon has a large enough volume to get discounted rates for credit card processing. Credit card processing typical charges 3 to 5% of the sales price, if the transaction volume is sufficient. For small volume or occasional processing PayPal or something similar might be a better option for lower transaction fees. Which is just one of many issues that you need to consider if you are going to try to do all your own distribution.
3-5% is far too high. Stripe only charges 1.89%+20c (I think, in the US). But that takes a bit of integration if your site doesn't have a plugin for it.
Traditional business rates would be even lower. Unless the US is particularly expensive, credit card processing would cost around 1.4% maximum, for personal credit cards.
No, it's 3-5% for everything business in the US, though there is talk everyone is going to normalize at the 4% range as more businesses pass the processing fees onto the consumer.
Really? In the UK, we pay around 0.6% for debit cards and 0.9% for personal credit cards, with perhaps 0.4% on top of that for a cardholder not present transaction (e.g. an online purchase). Corporate credit cards are more expensive, but they come in at around 2.5%.
