Cheap Self-Publishing

Amazon vs. Your Own Website: Which is cheaper?

This is the answer to a question that I received and have received before. It goes something like this:

"If I want to publish as cheaply as possible, why should I have my own website? I can just put my books up on Amazon."

This is indeed true. If you are solely looking for what is the cheapest possible way to publish a book, using CreateSpace*  and getting your book up on Amazon is definitely inexpensive.

But, and here's my question for you, do you plan on selling books?

There are many reasons why a person might self-publish a book (and, in a future post, I will discuss those). If it's not about the sales and about the money, then your plan is good. You get the book up on Amazon and you point all of your friends and relatives to the site and they buy it. Done deal.

However, if the goal is to sell books, I would suggest that you definitely need your own website. Why, you may ask? Because you need a platform from which to market your books. Now, perhaps you have a blog that gets signficant traffic, and that may work as your platform. For the rest of us, though, it's best to have a place from which to showcase all of your writings.

Just because I am saying that you need your own website, don't think that your books shouldn't also be up on Amazon. I certainly sell many more books on Amazon than I do on my website. 

Do you know why bookstores are going out of business? Because many people come in, browse for books, open them, read some of it, and put it back on the shelf. And walk out of the store and to the nearest computer to purchase it from Amazon. Not the only reason, but certainly one of them.

Think of your publishing company website as your bookstore. People come, take a look, and go buy it on Amazon. I am more than fine with that. Notice the key part where they end up buying my book. Yes, I make more money if they buy it from my website, but I still make money from that Amazon purchase. Importantly, when I put up my publishing company website, my Amazon sales grew. Each time I add a product, I notice an uptick in traffic and sales (on Amazon).

So here is a good example where I am telling you that you need to spend a little money on a website. In a forthcoming article, I will tell you about a number of different ways that you can build a book publishing website cheaply.

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Cheap Self-Publishing Gone Wrong, Part 1

Should I buy more than one domain?

Things just got interesting

What does one sale mean on Amazon?

Thoughts On Amazon's KDP Select Program (aka my own personal experience with it)

Cheap Self-Publishing Gone Wrong, Part 1

Early on in my publishing venture, I made most all of the mistakes that someone could make. Everyone makes mistakes when they first begin self-publishing. The difference is that I am willing to confess my sins. In this series of articles, I will point out those mistakes and tell you what I should have done (and what I have done).

When I first got started, I knew that I was interested in publishing more than one book. I thought then and think now that they best plan for publishing is to produce a significant number of books. At the time, I was thinking mostly about print books.

Therefore, I needed a website. A website where I could showcase dozens of books. Some of mine and some of other writers. Big dreams.

Now, and this is important, I had no books written.* While there is nothing inherently evil about having big dreams, it's also important to get some things down on paper. 

So, because I desperately needed a website for those non-existent books, I had one designed (by someone I found on eLance). I paid too much for it relative to its use. I did use it a little, but not much. Waste of money for the most part.

If you go to my publishing company website now, you would discover a site that has some books as well as clearly a plan for forthcoming works (both print and digital). I paid a very reasonable price, but, importantly, before it was developed, I already had content for it with a plan to develop further content. 

So what am I saying? 

Don't fall in love with the idea of being your own publishing company to the exclusion of making good business decisions. First, be the writer. Yes, you will most definitely need a publishing website and, yes, it will need to happen before you publish your book (even if most of your sales will be through Amazon), but best not to put carts before horses. There will be time.

This was my first mistake. Spending money that didn't need to be spent for that website. Trust me, there have been others. Stay tuned for my next big cheap self-publishing mistake!

******
*I should clarify that, prior to this, I had authored or co-authored three books with a mid-sized publisher, Ten Speed Press, in Berkeley, CA.

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New Cheap Self-Publishing Twitter

And just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, I have created a new twitter account for Cheap Self-Publishing. I encourage you to follow me. Also, I would greatly appreciate any re-tweets. Thanks!

Cheap Self-Publishing?

Since a couple readers have asked about that Cheap Self-Publishing newsletter invitation above. You are seeing what is the beginnings of the morphing of this site toward a new purpose. Eventually, the entire blog will move to its own domain (and, yes, I do own the CheapSelfPublishing.com domain).

So, as in my post below, why should you sign up? Not only will it allow you to know when the new website is up and running, but I will also give you a heads-up when the book is available this summer.

So sign up already!

Why should I sign up?

So, Tom, why should I sign up for your newsletter?

I encourage you to sign up for the newsletter because I think that you will want to know when my book, Cheap Self-Publishing: Produce a quality book for less, is released later this year.

If you have ever thought about publishing a book, but don't think that you can afford the cost, this will be the book for you.

Okay. You've sold me. How do I sign up?

If you look above this post, all the way to the top, you will see a box in which to put your email address.

Sounds easy, but are you going to sell my email address to the world?

No, definitely not. The only thing that I will use that email address for will be the newsletter and announcement of the book. Guaranteed.

Good deal! I'll go sign up now!

Should I buy more than one domain?

I have written about domains before. I own a bunch; a little over 160 actually. Most of them are set up in some way to make money. Some are much more successful than others. Many of them are centered around a similar topic (which is online schools). Lately, I have been considering what I should do with so many domains that truthfully are costing me more each year than they pay out. Still not sure.

That being said, I readily admit to an illness with regard to purchasing domains. Most of you have no need to do what I have done.

So, to the point of this post, how many domains should you, as a publisher of one or more books, have?

At the very least, you should have:

1. Your publishing company domain.
2. Your own name.

Yes, I own both Degree Press and Thomas Nixon. If you own both of those, you are in a very good place. You have likely spent a grand total of $30 to do so. Don't go cheap here; don't use other sorts of websites and domain names that you do not own.

At the very least, even if you don't create websites for those, you can set them up to forward to wherever you might like. For a number of years, Degree Press pointed toward my Amazon Associates bookstore. It now, of course, points to itself.

How goes the sales?

A short while back, I wrote about the new publishing site. Since that time, I have received some emails as to how well I have been doing with book sales.

As a reminder, I only sell digital products there. Anything print is sold through Amazon. This has worked rather well (particularly since Amazon began discounting the book).

I should note that I also sell the digital products on Amazon as well. So why, you ask, is that important?

While sales have been slow on the new website, I have recently been experiencing a noticeable bump in sales at Amazon. I don't do any marketing right now towards Amazon. Everything is really pushed toward Degree Press.

And yet, a significant bump in sales.

My guess? People find the product on Degree Press and go buy it on Amazon.

And I'm fine with that. However I get the sale works for me.

Right now, the eBooks sell for the same price on both sites. If I sell it on Degree Press, I do make more money. That being said, I never turn down sales.

Here's a good one, though. This appears to be driving up sales of the print book even though I don't even sell that on the site.

Works for me.

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Things just got interesting

If you read the previous post, you will know that I am now back blogging here and, as I said, things just got interesting.

If you followed that link, you will have discovered one of those interesting things; Degree Press, my publishing company, now has a permanent home. I have had a website developed to sell multiple products. I already have four with more coming shortly.

One thing that readers will notice is that I only sell eBooks from that website. There are a several reasons for why this is so:

• Most of what I intend on selling will be digital. You want print? I do that for a small number of books, but I only sell those via CreateSpace and Amazon.
• Part of my business plan includes selling a significant number of shorter eBooks. If you do go over to Degree Press, you will discover that, of the four current products, three of them are less than 70 pages. That is not accidental.
• I believe that the number of people who purchase the digital versions of my books will only grow because I believe that is a trend for all books.
• Importantly, I sell the books on that website for the same price that I sell them for on Amazon, but I make more if someone buys one from there.
• Finally, I am not planning on shipping books. There are people, like CreateSpace and Amazon who do that so much better than I do.

Forthcoming are a number of new books. These include books about online schools, about alternative ways to attend college, and, one of these days, even a book on self-publishing inexpensively.

I hope that you will stay around. The plan now is to post here a couple of times a week. I believe that I have something to offer you that will speed you along your self-publishing journey.

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Easy Ebook Publishing

Welcome back

When last I wrote here, the second edition of Complete Guide to Online High Schools had just come out. That was in the fall of 2012. You will have noticed that post have been noticeably missing since that time.

All that being said, I'm back! And not only am I back, but I have a number of things to share with you. Over the last month or so, things have begun to come together in ways that I could not have imagined a year ago. Over the next few posts, I am going to be writing about new products, new websites, and a new vision.

I hope that you will jump back in with me. Things just got interesting!

What does one sale mean on Amazon?

As most of you are aware, my most recent book is now for sale on Amazon.com. For the most part, any after-publication marketing is waiting until a few other things happen first.

Quite by accident, though, I actually sold a copy. It's always interesting to see what that does to ranking. Remember that until someone actually purchases a copy, there is no ranking. 

So, if you look at the data below, you will see that it only took one sale  to get it to rank in the 200,000s and it is now #42 in Distance Learning books. Doesn't take much to get it to move up.

What this tells me is that there are many, many books on Amazon that never sell any copies. By comparison, the first edition of this book (which is now no longer available from the publisher) is in the 7,000,000 range.