Re: selling your book

**"* <b*@prodigy.net>**

As an author and an independent publisher, I sell books online in several
ways. My publishing biz is fairly small and every book sale helps.

The books I publish are all in the Amazon.com Advantage program, which is
for publishers only. They require that you give them a huge discount, but
sales are very good there and all I have to do is send Amazon boxes of books
from time to time. It is a consignment system. My wholesaler, Great Outdoors
Publishing, sells books from their site, and some of the books are carried
by retailers such as Powell's and Barnes and Noble. All these book sales
involve my giving the resellers a big discount. I have general links to
Amazon and Great Outdoors on my site, but not where I list the books. Many
people have more trust in Amazon than in me, not surprisingly.

I also sell books directly from my website, with users paying with PayPal. I
see that Ellen Zachos is doing this too for her CD and book. These books are
selling at full price, whether they are books which I wrote for another
publisher and am selling here, or they are the books by other authors which
I publish. I don't have all that much traffic at my website but it is
increasing all the time. There are sales often enough to keep me interested.
To help attract people to the website I have one page that gives free,
complete instructions on a quick way to make a trough, plus other useful
tips and info. Recently Marge Talt let me put up a nice email she wrote to
the list about making a new garden after a move to a home with an old one.
(Thanks, Marge!)

There is yet another way to sell books online through Amazon.com. Every book
listing has a click-through button that says, "I have one to sell." I use it
to sell damaged books that I publish, carefully describing the scuff marks
or whatever it is that is wrong. Often I receive more for a dented copy here
than I get after giving the normal discount to Amazon for the Advantage
program for a perfect copy. But the books must be handled one by one. I do
not sell my perfect books here in the "I have one to sell" area because I
don't think it is good for my image. Should I rethink this?

Back in 1991 I was the lead author for the Macmillan book, "The Gardener's
Home Companion." It has been through multiple printings and three different
editions. It is very expensive for me to buy copies of my own book. Same
with my other big publisher book, "Cutting Gardens." When I need books for
talks I sometimes buy them from Amazon through the "I have one to sell"
area, for just a few dollars apiece! There are just thousands of them
floating around out there.

My next adventure will be with Print on Demand (POD), which involves the
printer printing and shipping the books to the customers, whether wholesale
or retail, and sending me reports and checks. No warehousing or shipping for
me to do.  I'll keep you posted once I get a POD title out there, sometime
this year.

For more info on POD, check out www.BookSurge.com .

With best wishes,
Betty

Betty Mackey, Publisher
B. B. Mackey Books
P. O. Box 475
Wayne, PA 19087
bbmackey@prodigy.net
www.mackeybooks.com

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Marty Wingate" <martywin@earthlink.net>

> This question is for authors who have their own Web sites.
>
> Do you sell your own books on your Web site?  Do you provide a link to
> an online bookseller?  Or do you provide information about your books
> (perhaps the cover and a blurb) and encourage visitors to your site to
> go out and buy the books elsewhere?

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