Help! I'm losing money on every book I sell!
Hello.
I am trying to sell my self-published book here on Amazon and I need some help, please.
I am not familiar with the seller services here. The Amazon shop was set up by the printing company, and the books were all sent directly to them as I’d have no space to store them at home.
I don’t know if there are any other alternatives to the current arrangement, but Amazon is taking more than 50% of the selling proceeds! Is that normal?
If I take into account the printing costs I’m losing a couple of pounds on every single book I sell!
My book cover price: £6.99
Summary of Charges:
Referral fee: -£1.05
Other fees: -£1.25
FBA rates: -£1.62
Fee discounts: £0.00
Taxes: -£0.78
Estimated net proceeds (excluding VAT): £2.291
My print costs were about £3.90/unit. Which means, even before factoring in Amazon storage fees, I’m currently at a £1.6 LOSS for every book I sell!
What shall I do about this? Contact Amazon and ask for a better deal? Reduce the price to reduce the fees? Increase the price? Destroy the books?
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
Leo
25 replies
Seller_y7wlA8Npjq1Or
Simply put your price up or Dispatch yourself with cheaper delivery service.
Or trim costs on production.
One or all those should edge you towards profit.
Seller_aM6EyM3iNnXkL
Hi @Leo
Your only option may be to fulfil the orders yourself, but this will obviously take up time in your day which is fine if you have the time to pack, arrange postage and dispatch, but I would personally look at simply increasing the book rrp first off to see if customers will happily pay an increased price via FBA.
There may be ways of lowering your FBA fees that I am not aware of as I have only ever been FBM. If there is then I’m sure someone will be along to offer experienced FBA advice…
All the best
Lee 
Seller_BeDCXFnol2weV
Destroy the books and write another (how to go bankrupt selling on Amazon)
Seller_esvgLzKXw2YAl
You can’t really change the Amazon fees, so your only real option is to up the price to cover the cost.
Obviously if you want to get the ranking first, then to sell at a loss is a feasible option, to gain a higher ranking and then increase the price.
Your only other alternative, is to withdraw the books you have at Amazon and then sell them yourself.
Obviously you need to consider the cost of P&P to do this, along with the 60p per item fee to return them to you.
Maybe you should be looking at Kindle books instead?
Seller_Rkf2znCXtSZpI
Use this. Play with the numbers until you have an acceptable margin and selling price.
https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/hz/fba/profitabilitycalculator/index?lang=en_GB
Seller_72Sy9T6sEfmjl
You may have been better off going with KDP which is Amazon’s print on demand service for books.
At 6.99 retail I’m guessing that your book is paperback rather than glossy hardback.
Using KDP Amazon will print your book to order in paperback and also publish it as a kindle ebook
Seller_nJIsCxkWkBGlh
My publishing experience is limited entirely to literary fiction, so depending on your niche what follows may not be relevant but…
Why is your cover price £6.99? That’s too cheap for a new book. Even B-Format MMPs go at £8.99 or more. £6.99 is a promo price at best.
If you can’t put the price up, you need to get these books back before you start to rack up storage fees. Then you need to decide whether you can fulfill orders yourself. If not, keep the physical copies to sell in-person at author events, festivals etc… and go PoD for online sales. In the meantime, join the Society of Authors and make full use of the (free) legal and commercial advice they offer. That at least will give you a fighting chance of coming up with a business model that actually works.
Seller_HmpsAdC1oyXIC
Why would you not research all of the amazon costs before selling? So many people do this, but I just don’t understand why lol.
Seller_O72qPNKYYtVvS
We self publish, you might consider wholesaling them to Bertram books (who would then supply Amazon on your behalf). Bertrams will usually take 55% of the cover price. Just an idea.
