The reality of selling books on Amazon has hit home.

About two weeks ago, I received my first royalty payout from holiday sales of my paperback on Amazon (yes, shockingly, three months after the fact). I published my book with BookBaby, not ADP, so that’s a factor in the numbers I’m about to give you.

When you publish with ANY third-party publisher, not ADP, and you opt for expanded distribution, your royalty rate is 40% minus printing costs. In the case of BookBaby, they also tack on an “administrative fee” to send me that check, unbeknownst to me when I signed on with them.

So my $15.99 book nets me $1.43 when sold POD on Amazon.

The cold reality of that had me staring at my screen for quite a long time. Just as I was contemplating sinking some dollars into Amazon ads, potentially $5/day or $150/month, knowing I’d have to sell 105 books to break even for that ad has given me pause.

The only solution I can see is selling direct to customer, which will give me the highest royalty payout. I make $7 on each book I sell direct to customer.

I’ve teamed up with a few other local indie authors (we are in the Spokane, WA area) to actively sell our books. We first approached local bookstores to host book signing events, but got no response, so we moved on and got creative. In May, our local fine arts museum has agreed to host an educational forum on “Getting Started in Writing and Publishing.” Five of us authors will give presentations on our specialty genre and writing process, field a Q&A session, and then our books will be available for sale and signing.

In June, a local brewery has agreed to a book signing event, and I think we’ll do well there judging by the success of previous events held at wineries (there’s something about alcohol that puts people in a good mood and opens their wallets). I’m very much looking forward to both of these events.

We also participated in holiday craft fairs last year — just before Thanksgiving and Christmas. Full disclosure: my colleagues’ books sold better than mine; theirs were novels and children’s books and mine is a memoir focusing on trauma and recovery — a harder sell at a gift show. But still, these events attract customers with their wallets open, ready to spend for themselves or as gifts for others. Spring craft fairs are just now getting into gear.

To be fully prepared to sell at a craft fair, you must have all the props: good signage, bookmarks, business cards, signup sheets for your mailing list, drawings for a free book if you want to do that. Lots of YouTube tutorials are available if you’ve never done this.

And this is foundational: every author should try to sell directly off their author website. I set up my shopping cart from the get-go when my book launched last September, and to date I’ve sold more books directly than I have through Amazon. All the reviews on my Amazon page (4.9 out of 5 stars!) are the result of my website book sales, not from Amazon sales, and I think that’s saying something.

We have to take this bull by the horns. Amazon is not our friend.