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Some online options for selling books
If you are trying to sell your book and you want to do so through Amazon,
it’s worth bearing these points in mind:
 | Remember that there are lots of Amazons. (.com .co.uk .co.jp .fr .de .ca) They
may look and sound the same but they are separate operations, so you need to
target each one. They do share book information but don’t count on it. |
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Remember too that there are lots of other online bookselling companies which
offer services to writers to help them sell their books. |
| The motive for linking to an online provider is to earn money. If you are
selling other people’s books you need to shift a lot of product to make
significant money. But if you are selling your own book there is a much stronger
motivation. And if you have published it yourself then the business of selling
over the Internet begins to make financial sense. |
There are a number of options:
Marketplace in Amazon
You can very quickly set up a 'store'.
· All you need is to say who you are and provide a password.
· If you look down the left hand margin you will find a box titled ‘Browse’
· Click ‘Your About You Area’ (don’t blame me for the syntax – That’s what it
says)
People can browse your other lists and recommendations by clicking on the name
or nickname at the top of your list. This will take them to your About You Area.
They will only be able to see the personal information you've chosen to make
public, so if you want to stay anonymous, leave your personal preferences as
they are.
Associates
This is the next level if you run your own website. The Amazon Associates
Programme lets you place links on your website which will give you some credit
if the click through leads to a sale. There are tools that will generate the
link information for you.
AStore
In late 2006 Amazon released its Astore which makes a part of your website a
bookstore. This moves the model along since Amazon actually builds the site with
book covers rather than you having to do it. This works well for small
bookstores.
The Advantage programme
This really does make you into an online bookshop yourself. You keep Amazon stocked with
books and they sell them. There is a membership fee and the cost of maintaining
stock. But do the sums carefully to see if there will be any margin left for
you.
Web services
The clever thing about websites is that they can all be seamlessly linked
together. You can build a shopfront but all the stock can be with Amazon. You
need to know a bit about XML or the SOAP interface to access the structured data
you want to display. This is the virtual world of bookshops.
Website owners can also update Amazon about their products, sell Amazon products
on their websites and there is plenty of scope for dynamic adverts. This is for
serious web developers.
Sending material
to Amazon
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Does your book deserve the attentions of a
professional
copy editor?
Writers Services offers a full
range of editorial services.
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