Let me tell you something about the publishing business that nobody tells you before you get into it: Amazon is not, in fact, running a charity on your behalf.
I know, I know. Shocking stuff. But here’s the actual math, because I did it so you don’t have to. Say I sell a paperback for $9. Before I see a dime, Amazon takes its printing fee off the top — because paper, ink, and glue apparently cost a lot more than you’d think. Then, of what’s left, I get half. Half. So on a $9 book, I clear a little over two dollars. Two dollars! That’s about 22% of the sale price.
Kindle isn’t much better, by the way. There are download fees baked in before my cut even shows up, which always struck me as funny for a product that is, technically, just information moving through the air.
No matter — that’s the deal everybody signs up for when they go the traditional route, and I signed up too, eyes wide open, because that’s how you get your book in front of people who are already there shopping. Fine. It went the way of most compromises: I accepted it and grumbled about it privately, mostly to Rita, who has heard this speech more times than any spouse should have to.
But my recent defection to a new website host yielded an unexpected benefit. It provided me with the tools to quickly and easily set up my own little distribution center.
Introducing: my own store. Actual PDF copies of my books, sold directly to you, at prices that don’t put more money in Jeff Bezos’ pocket. You’ll find it eleven of my publications at shop.jimsantosbooks.com, and by the end of this month, everything I’ve written will be up there.
Here’s why this works better for both of us. Since I’m only paying a small payment processing fee instead of splitting everything with a multi-billionaire, I can actually price the PDFs lower than the paperback — and still come out ahead. That’s not a marketing trick. That’s just what happens when you cut out the middleman who was taking the biggest bite.
And there’s a bonus nobody asked for but everybody seems to like: color. The paperbacks are printed in grayscale, because color printing costs a fortune (see: Amazon fees, again). But the PDFs are full color, all the way through. If you’ve picked up Wherever We May Roam: Finding Your Travel Style, you know that book is loaded with photos — and in the PDF version, you actually get to see them the way they were meant to be seen, instead of forty shades of gray that all sort of look like the DC universe.
The whole process is about as painless as I could make it. Pick the books you want, drop them in your cart, and pay with a credit card, debit card, or PayPal. You’ll get an email almost immediately — we’re talking minutes, not “check back next week” — with a download link. From there, read it on any PDF viewer, or send it straight to a Kindle device or app if that’s more your speed (Amazon actually has decent instructions for that at https://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle, of all the ironic places to send you).
So that’s the pitch. Support an author directly, pay less than you would on the big river-named website, and get the version with all the pictures in it. Everybody wins except, arguably, ol’ Jeff, but I’ve made my peace with that.
Check it out at shop.jimsantosbooks.com.
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