For Authors Who Do/Want to Do Direct Digital Sales

[deirdre]

Please feel free to repost. Or, if you know of other, similar posts/threads, to link to them in comments.

If you’re an author doing direct digital sales from a web site you manage/control (meaning in addition to whatever you’re doing through Amazon, B&N, iTunes, Kobo, Smashwords, Direct2Digital—or whatever)…

Questions for Authors Already Selling Directly

1. What method are you using? Gumroad? Shopify? Easy Digital Downloads (plus WordPress)? WooCommerce? Sellfy? Some other?
2. How’s that working out for you, and why did you make the choice you did?
3. If you’re willing to share this information, what percentage of your total sales are direct sales?
4. Has it been worth the hassle for you?

Questions for Authors Considering Selling Directly

1. What programs have you looked into?
2. Do you have any questions about the process?

For those who wonder why one would do such a thing, there are two primary reasons:

1. If you have more than one thing to sell, you can offer custom discounts.
2. You can offer them subscriptions to your email list; third-party vendors are completely transparent to you.
3. Higher pay and faster payment.

For example, selling via EDD on my own site for a $3.99 book, I’d take home $3.52 today. If I sold the same book on Amazon, I’d receive $2.79 sixty days after the end of the sales month. For Nook, I’d receive $2.39 sixty days after the end of the sales month. For iTunes, $3.52 45 days after the end of the month. For Kobo, if the amount owing is > $150, then they pay monthly, otherwise every six months.

Obviously, $3.52 today sounds better, but it does require a savvy enough customer to sideload the book (drag to their reading application).

Originally published at deirdre.net. You can comment here or there.