Self Publishing on Amazon Pros and Cons

About this video

Dale weighs the pros and cons of self-publishing on Amazon in 2019. Pros he lists: KDP is free and fairly intuitive, with a free KDP Jumpstart course, and aggregators such as IngramSpark, Draft2Digital, Lulu and PublishDrive also feed Amazon; ebooks generally earn 70% inside the $2.99–$9.99 sweet spot; payouts arrive every 60 days, which he frames as predictable rather than a drawback; KDP Select’s lending program means borrows and page reads lift Best Sellers Rank; Amazon offers millions of ready-to-buy customers versus a cold audience on social media or your own site; ebook, print and audiobook editions share one product page, with MatchBook discounts; and free upload amounts to free advertising for an author brand — he suggests putting at least a strong ‘gateway’ book on Amazon and fulfilling the rest through your own site. Cons: the 35% royalty outside the sweet spot, ambiguous guidelines that get accounts suspended when scammers game the system, the fact that buyers remain Amazon’s customers rather than yours, genuine financial risk, and scammers using falsified page reads, keyword stuffing and review swaps. His verdict is that Amazon is overall a great platform, but never your only basket.

Key takeaways

• Amazon’s warm, wallet-ready audience is the core advantage over selling cold
• Never rely exclusively on Amazon — buyers are Amazon’s customers, not yours
• Ambiguous guidelines plus scammers create real account-termination risk for honest authors
• Use Amazon as free brand exposure, even if you fulfil other titles elsewhere
• 60-day payouts are predictable once you plan around the lag

Episode details: published March 5, 2019 · 13:55 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dale L. Roberts’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

← Previous: Best Free Online Grammar Checker: Grammarly Review Free Version · Next: CreateSpace Closed: The Fallout & What You Should Do →

All Dale L. Roberts videos · Dale L. Roberts profile · Dale L. Roberts on YouTube