Amazon is NOT the Answer for Selling Your Ebooks

Pros and cons of using Amazon’s Digital Text Platform (DTP) to sell your ebooks.

Pros

Joining is free. They take care of all payment processing. You need not reside in the USA and can have checks sent to wherever you are in the world. Their market is massive. Even if your book is completely unknown – like most of mine are, you will sell some books. There’s SOMEONE out there looking for a book like yours.
Cons of using Amazon to sell your digital books

The first major con is that you don’t even get to set your own price for your book. They give you the illusion of setting your own price, but then they change it at will. I chose $9.99 for some of my books. They jacked it up to $11.99. What this means is that my books are not as attractive as all the $9.99 books. WTF? The percentage I make is 35%. Not of the actual price of the book though! I make 35% of the price I chose for the book! I make $3.50 per book that sells for $11.99.

WHAT THE F?

Oh wait, I almost forgot the best part… they make you promise in the terms and conditions that you cannot sell your book for LESS THAN WHAT THEY ARE SELLING IT FOR! Ha! So- if you tell them to sell your book at $9.99. They ignore you and sell it at $11.99. YOU CANNOT SELL YOUR BOOK FOR LESS THAN THAT ON YOUR OWN SITE!

The second major con is that Amazon keeps all the buyer data. You sell a book for $3.50 and don’t get any of the data about the buyer. You don’t know what site they came from. You don’t know what else they bought. You don’t know their age, sex, location in the world, nothing. You don’t know their email address. In short you DON’T KNOW JACK about the buyer of your book. You don’t even know – was it bought at Amazon or an Amazon partner site? WTF?

At the beginning of your professional writing career you may choose to list your books at Amazon – like I have. The owner of my books makes a pittance from it – but, it takes just about that much to live in Thailand.

Is there a Point to Life?

I became interested in this question about a dozen years ago. During that time I spent hundreds of hours reading eastern philosophy, zen, Theravada Buddhism, meditation, and general philosophy books from the west.

Answers to, “What is the point of life?” – in my best estimation, come in two flavors.

1. What is the point of my own life – what am I living for, and what am I focused on here?

2. What is the existential point of life – why were we created, and what was the purpose of mankind’s creation? If we were created at all. This I don’t focus on in the book – but I’m teasing myself with the idea of creating this book too.

In 2007 I wrote a piece at Aim for Awesome entitled, “What is the Point of Life?” that has become the number one visited article on that site for the past year, and now has surpassed all other posts in popularity. There are 140+ comments and there’s amazing insight in the comments section. If you read the post you must read through at least some of the comments as well – just brilliant!

It’s an interesting topic and one I won’t tire of anytime soon. So I just began the book… “What is the Point of Life? ebook”

You can contribute to it if you like – anytime, there is no time limit since it’s an ebook on PDF format and I can easily edit it as I get a fresh batch of contributions from readers like you that want to add your couple sentences or even paragraph or page to it.

It will be a collection of ideas from all over the world about the point of life.

Go on – click the link just above and see how to add your opinion to the ebook. Publishing will be in April 2010, but as I said – no limit as to when you submit your contribution to it.

Cheers!

Thailand Ebooks – Books

Here are some Thailand ebooks you can either download for free or pay a small fee to download and own.

LOS Tots Network: Secret Crimes? Secret Retribution. – Author Mike Fook’s groundbreaking vigilante fiction novel about a secret group in Patong Beach, Phuket, Thailand that is destroying childrens’ lives. Full length novel with outstanding reviews.

link – LOS Tots Network