Amazon wrinkle, workaround self-published authors should know
THIS BELONGS IN EVERY BUSINESS LIBRARY!
Regular readers know I help authors go from Idea to Manuscript to Marketplace™.
An essential piece of that process is getting onto Amazon.
Most authors want physical copies of their book to sell or give away. To accommodate this, Amazon sells its own books at wholesale prices.
Only novice authors should know that Amazon’s offer to sell you up to 999 copies at the author’s cost IS NOT TRUE!
Say you’re looking to keep a couple of dozen copies in your car trunk. You go to your Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) account, order 24 copies, provide your credit card and shipping information, and get your order rejected.
This has absolutely nothing to do with your credit card, your book files, or your shipping address. It’s because you’re an individual.
Nobody at Amazon will tell you on the record that you must be a business to order 999 copies of your book. Individual authors can’t access this feature. Period.
Furthermore, this faceless corporation makes it extremely difficult to communicate with a person, which is why you might want to scream into your pillow with frustration.
Been there, done that.
Ask about this issue and you’re told to order your copies individually. Want 24 copies? Place the order 24 times.
If that’s not a ridiculous solution, it’ll do until the real thing comes along.
And isn’t it a fantastic coincidence that Amazon makes significantly more money on shipping and handling with all those individual orders?
We won’t even mention the additional waste generated by the extra packaging of those multiple-unit sales.
Several of my clients have run into this situation. That’s how I determined that any author can order 10 copies of their book at one time. Not 11, mind you, but 10. It’s not an elegant solution, but ordering three batches of 8 for your trunk has to be better than ordering 24 copies of one.
Admittedly, there are alternatives to publishing with Amazon. However, the reality is that they own this part of the marketplace. And assuming lots of authors are encountering this frustration, I’m doing what my mother always taught me to do: I’m sharing.
Because some businesses forget they need to solve customer problems rather than be the source of them. Amazon, apparently, is one of them.
With that said, I wish you a week of successful writing.
Get more free book advice at www.writeawaybooks.com.