Another Amazon Question, This Time About Kindle

[user48675]

Thinking of publishing my book on Amazon later this year. I plan to have a professional cover and copy edit completed in the forthcoming months. I have no idea how this works. Print on demand? Is this the best way forward if you plan to self publish?

But my other question is about kindle. Would an author make less profit if they were to sell via kindle (as well as paperback)? Are returns smaller with kindle?

Also, my book may well appeal to an American market. There is Amazon.com and Amazon UK - are they interconnected - do you have to publish on one or both? Completely confused and needing some direction about all of this, any tips gratefully received.

Anyone?

I'm not sure about parts of your post, OP. When you say 'Are the returns smaller with Kindle' - smaller returns than what?

Regarding some of your questions you may know already but Kindle is an ebook publishing format. Some self-published authors only publish ebooks - no printing costs. Some others also publish paper copies. As you say, there are print on demand services for these paper copies as well as batch printing and third party printing and fulfillment. When you add these costs onto the cover and editing you mentioned, you risk spending more than you might earn - I understand 'average' sales are low but outlier authors can make £100,000s.

Kindle direct publishing makes your ebook available in the UK, US and some other markets at the same time - kdp.amazon.com/en_US/

You may know there is also a service called kindle unlimited. Once a reader signs up, they read any book published on the kindle unlimited service and Amazon fund a pot that is shared amongst authors who choose to sign their book up depending on the number of books that are read a certain amount. This is, I suppose, a way of earning a share of the pot and building readers who might then buy other books by the author. Earnings per book read/'sold' are less than kindle directs up to 70% of the cover price.
www.amazon.co.uk/kindle-dbs/hz/subscribe/ku?shoppingPortalEnabled=true&tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Here's a third party explanation of Kindle Unlimited in case that's something that might interest you.

www.writtenwordmedia.com/amazon-kdp-kindle-unlimited/

Good luck.

You said your story might appeal more to the American market.

I forgot to mention that although the KDP service covers sales across USA, UK, Canada and some other markets, I understand some American readers may expect American English spelling and grammar although some authors do publish British-English books in America.

Hopefully, other authors will post presently with their experience.

Good luck.

Thank you Zilla, this is very useful. The smaller returns thing was in relation to selling paperbacks as opposed to e-books (unsure of the cost to produce paperback books) but I would certainly like to hold a paperback version in my hand at some point. I've already come to terms with the fact that I am likely to spend more than I earn, but I have a limit in mind and don't really want to go above this.

I'm interested to know how people have gone about this - print on demand/batch printing etc? I suppose it depends if you want to try and sell your books via a retail outlet also - perhaps small independent bookshops, though I suspect the local branch of Waterstones might also sell local authors if approached - I'm guessing, I don't know and I'm hoping someone will come along and be able to share their selling experience and how they went about it.

I've been in a similar position and got a lot of answers from theopenauthor.com - really helpful guy who has walked the walk as well as talking the (Irish-accented) talk!

Hi blueskys, which route did you end up taking? Please p.m me if you are able to.