The POD Diary – July 4th, 2008

July 4th: Happy Independence Day, Everyone! I woke up this morning, checked email, and there it was. An email from Amazon with the title, “Sold! Ship Now!” I sold my first copy of STEALING WISHES on my own. It was one of those free copies which I listed, undercutting all of the other third party marketplace sellers. So here’s a good example of how this works.

I listed the book for $10.00. The good thing about Amazon is it’s free to list, and the listing stays live for 60 days, and even if the book doesn’t sell it still doesn’t cost you anything. Amazon offers a shipping credit of $3.99 for standard shipping, and $6.99 for expedited. My customer chose standard so they paid $13.99 for my book. This is where Amazon hits you: They take a commission from each sale which usually eats up their shipping credit right away, if not more.

My fee for this transaction was $3.84. That leaves me with $10.15 which will be deposited into my checking account in about a week. Now, I shipped a free copy to someone yesterday at the post office and via Media Mail, it costs me around $2.34. Minus shipping gives me a profit of $7.81. That’s about $1.36 less than my cost of a copy from Lulu. That’s $6.19 less than the cover price, but remember I listed the free copies that Lulu sent me so the $7.81 after shipping is a profit for me. Not much, but it’s a profit.

But here’s the kicker! No matter how you ship the book, you need to ship in a timely manner or the person can claim non-receipt. If they do that, they almost always win and get their money back, and likely end up getting the book anyway. So, I highly advise you to pay for delivery confirmation. I think that’s about .75 cents.

Yep, you can mark your book way up to make up for the shipping, but we all know customers are more likely to take the cheapest route. I have signed “collectible” copies listed on Amazon for $20.00, which would leave me getting around $14.00 (the cover price) after all is said or done, but I may never sell that copy as long as other people have their copies listed cheaper than mine. Heck, I have two more of my free copies listed for 10 bucks. So, it’s a game you play. Amazon pretty much screws you on the shipping expense when you are the seller, so just be aware of that if you decide to list your own copies. I’ll re-tally my investment after I’ve shipped this copy.

Also, I just added some more candid pics of me and my book to the Amazon page. Supposedly, this adds interest to your book’s page. Amazon has a new feature where you can highlight areas of the photo and add comments to it if you want, so that when customers roll over the photo with their mouse they can read the notes you’ve made. I opted not to do it this time.

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