Q&A: Should I sell my own book on Amazon Marketplace?

QUESTION: I would rather not give Amazon a 55 percent discount to participate in Amazon Advantage. Instead, my idea is to sell my book on Amazon myself using a Marketplace selling account. That way, I pay Amazon a commission of only 15 percent.

Why do I hear so little about this option?

ANSWER: There are some serious drawbacks with your strategy. For one, many Amazon buyers are uncomfortable buying from a third-party seller. So you can assume some buyers will eliminate your book from consideration if Amazon doesn't sell it directly to consumers.

Then there's the matter of fulfillment. Do you really want to be in the business of filling orders for individual customers and handling the resulting customer service issues?

Even more important: Without distribution, you're locking yourself out of Amazon's recommendation system. Recommendations are the second-largest driver of sales on Amazon after keyword searches.

I'll give an example from my own observation. I know of a niche book that Amazon sells about 350 copies of each month. Another publisher has a directly competing title, but this publisher sells the book himself, using a Marketplace account. The competing title sells only about 10 copies a month.

Why does the second publisher sell only one-tenth as many books? There are many factors involved, but most important for our discussion is recommendations.

If the second publisher had distribution through Amazon, his book would appear in the Amazon shopping cart when a buyer purchased a copy of the faster-selling title. Amazon would display his book, along with two others, with the heading "Customers who bought (book X) also bought...: I know the book would appear in the cart because there are only a few titles that sell in this niche. But Amazon does not give this sort of placement to books unless the title is sold directly by Amazon.

I estimate that at least 30 percent of shoppers would buy the slower-selling competing book -- if they were exposed to it this way.

And you'll be giving up your chance at this type of exposure on Amazon if you decide to be the sole seller of your book.