Expert: Peter Gabany - 12/6/2005

Question
Aloha,

I self-published a book, called Aloha Mannequins, that's available through Amazon.com and Lulu.com (my Print On Demand service).

The price is the same on both sites.

When a person buys the book from Lulu.com, I get a royalty of $3.00.

But when a person purchases a book from Amazon, my royalty is only 75 cents! (Due to their bite from the sale).

Should I remove my book from Amazon and heavily promote Lulu.com, the POD provider? Or should I stay on Amazon and use its popularity to my advantage? Or maybe do both?

Please advise, and thank you so much for your time!

Mahalo,
Raym

Answer
Raym,

Thank you for your question. My first instinct would be to remain on Amazon. The book sales aid in additional promotion and while the returns are low - consider it a cost of promotion - it is low price to pay for added promotion. But use it to your benefit.

If another 1,000 books sell through Amazon it helps you near the best seller list and you can report - over X books sold.

Taking the $2.75 or $2,750/1000 books will NOT do a lot to drive sales of the site.

UNLESS

The above was thinking of using traditional media and PR methods only.

Actually, a solid PR program should garner you additional traffic to your site. Send media releases to everyone - but ensure that they are newsworthy.

Send to Letterman, Oprah, Connan, USA Today, the National Enquirer - everyone. Look for journals on writing and send news releases there as well. Tell your story! And do it as often as you have news - be relentless.

Next take a small budget - start with $100/month and initiate a Pay Per Click campaign to drive the type of people that you are trying to target to your site. You will need to invest in a key phrase analysis - about $500 us but with this simple tool you will be able to appreciate fare more credible traffic to your site.

Hoping this helps. If you need additional info, please don't hesitate to write.

Pete