Episode 13: Selling Your E-books Directly

All Freelance Writing Podcast Episode 13 - Selling Your E-books Directly

In this episode, I'm joined again by guest co-host Princess Jones, and we discuss selling your e-books and books directly on your author website. (If you missed it, check out our previous discussion about authors attacking book reviewers).

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In This Episode

Princess and I discuss:

  • Benefits of selling your books and e-books on your own website
  • Our favorite e-commerce tools for selling e-books directly
  • What to consider when deciding if direct sales is for you
  • What to consider when picking an e-commerce / payment / distribution tool or service

Benefits of Selling Your Books on Your Site

  1. You can easily bundle not only e-books, but also print books and ancillary products.
  2. You can offer coupon codes or use pay-what-you-want pricing options (depending on the service).
  3. You can control and track downloads.
  4. You can set your prices and not have to wait around for updates to slowly roll out across different sites.
  5. You can easily make multiple file types available, even in a single download.

One thing we didn't discuss that's a big reason to consider direct sales is the fact that you have direct access to your customers and can build your email list (very important for later sales, especially for nonfiction authors).

Our Favorite E-commerce Tools

Here are the tools we love:

  1. Princess uses the WooCommerce WordPress plugin and PayPal.
  2. I use E-junkie (which also integrates with PayPal).

Things to Consider

Here are some of the things to consider when deciding on an e-commerce solution:

  • Costs -- plugins vs monthly fees vs per-transaction charges
  • File security (are your files protected in any way by your delivery system?)
  • Whether or not you can afford to lose the algorithmic benefits of focusing on third parties like Amazon
  • Local tax issues -- you might need a sales tax license
  • Specific sales and promotional features you want (such as coupon code availability)
  • Whether or not you're prepared to take on the business side of handling your own direct sales (delivery, customer service, refunds, etc.)

Get Your Writing Questions Answered

The All Freelance Writing Podcast regularly features community Q&As. So I'd love to hear your questions about freelance writing, blogging, or indie publishing. If you'd like me to consider answering your question in a future podcast episode, you can contact me in three different ways:

  1. Email me at jenn@allfreelancewriting.com.  Include the phrase "Podcast Question" in your subject line to make sure the email is filtered correctly so I don't miss it.
  2. Submit your question through the contact form on this page.
  3. Leave me a voicemail by calling 484-575-1345. You'll be directly connected to voicemail. Please note that if you leave a question via voicemail, I might play that voicemail during a future episode if I'm able to answer your question.

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