Selling Direct is the New Craze but Don’t Give Up on the ‘Zon or D2D

So, if you haven’t been living under a rock as an indie author or hybrid author like me (I publish traditionally and indie), then you know how important selling direct to the consumer has become. It’s all a part of what insiders call the “network society” of like-minded writers, journalists, fiction writers, filmmakers, musicians, and more, who have become fed up with the establishment which not only places strict rules and constraints on creation, but that forces you into the woke and DEI mindset (I believe both these things to be destructive if not evil concepts created by power-hungry radicals who wish to control and frighten you, but I’ll save that for another post).

Because selling direct has become so popular, new platforms like Shopify and Payhip are presently booming. Or, if they already existed, they are only now realizing an economic boon. That’s a good thing. By selling directly, you gain some advantages you might not otherwise enjoy by relying on the big aggregate platforms for publishing your indie books.

Here are just a few of them:

Safety

The big platforms are not safe. What do I mean by that? At any moment, your account can be canceled which, for those authors who are not prepared with a backup plan, can spell doom for your bottom line. In other words, you can easily wake up one morning and find that your account has been terminated by Draft2Digital or the ‘Zon. While this nightmare scenario is still relatively rare, it nonetheless exists. It means you should always be in compliance with platform rules, or else risk losing it all.

I recall having been banned from Amazon KU for a period of a year because I had several titles published at Google Play and at the ‘Zons’ KU program at the same time. That’s a major no-no. I had no idea the books were published elsewhere which led to me being kicked out of the program for a year. That is, I was supposed to be kicked out. Luckily my friends at Thomas & Mercer came to my rescue and my account was reinstated. But not everyone would be so lucky.

More Money

Amazon and D2D will pay you about 70 percent of the retail price of your book minus a small transaction fee of a few pennies. The ‘Zon plays with the payout if you price your book $0.99 or under, and if you price it at $10.00 or higher, but since most eBooks are priced in that sweet spot of 3.99 to 6.99 we’ll go with the 70 percent.

Take it from who knows, this is an excellent payout and crushes the traditional competition whereby you maybe make 25 to 35 percent per eBook sold, minus your agent’s 15 percent take. It’s because of this that you need to sell four to five times as many eBooks in traditional world to make the same money in indie world. You still with me here?

Now if you begin to sell directly to your consumer (reader), guess what happens? 70 percent becomes 100 percent. Now you need to sell about six or seven books in traditional land to equal one direct sale. See how that works?

If you combine both the D2D aggregate platforms and direct sales, you will annihilate any traditional offer your agent can gin up for you, unless it’s a mid-six-figure deal for one book—a deal which, in the mid-2020s, if virtually unheard of. Traditional publishing is not an expanding industry after all. In a word, much like the mainstream media, it is on life support. Which leads me too…

A Dying Mainstream Media

If you’ve turned on MSNBC or CNN or FOX and you have half a brain (like me…haha), you’ll notice right away that all these mainstream cable news networks are biased. So biased that the first two act as left wing propagandists and activists while the latter is far more in tune with the interests of the right.

This is why people who live in the 54 years of age and under demographic have entirely abandoned the mainstream news since they cannot be trusted to deliver you the journalistic truth. Let’s face it, is Morning Joe a real journalist? Is Rachael Maddow?

So how is this demographic getting its news? They have shifted to indie networks they can find on YouTube, Spotify, Rumble, and other online outlets. While some people might say journalism is dead, nothing can be further from the truth. Yes, traditional newspapers, magazines, and cable TV network news are indeed breathing their last. But the network society of citizen journalists springing up on places like Substack, Medium, X, and YouTube, are thriving. The professionals at Breaking Points are indeed seasoned journalists, for instance. Matt Taibi who once wrote for Rolling Stone, is an ward winning seasoned journalist.  

Remember when you used to see satellite news trucks pull up to a bad accident to do an on-the-spot report? Now, the average Joe or Jane can get the scoop before they do with their smartphone and blog about it before the trucks even arrive. In a word, the mainstream can no longer keep up with the indies.

The same thing has happened in fiction. Mainstream or traditional publishing cannot keep up with the output of prolific writers like me, and therefore, they must rely on writers who are willing to wait upwards of two years to see their book in print. And by the way, by the time two years passes, all sorts of things can happen. Your editor might leave, or the publishing company might go belly up, or the company, which was enthusiastic about your book once upon a time, could now care less.

This is why it’s important to write an indie book quickly, cleanly, and as well as you can. Have it professionally edited and hire a professional to design a stunning cover. Get the book out to the public on all aggregate platforms, and now, on your direct publishing platform of choice. Or heck, publish the book on multiple direct publishing platforms. Rince and repeat.

When you do this, you will see something very interesting happening. The relatively small amounts you earn on all platforms will add up to a very nice monthly payday. I can guarantee you that once you get your show up and running with 20 or 30 books, you will see almost the equivalent every month of what a traditional publisher might pay you every two years as an advance. Oh, and did I tell you that traditional publishers almost always make certain you do not earn out your advance?

But I’ll save that for next time.

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