Never Be a Best-Selling Author to Yourself

With all the challenges and do-it-yourself aspects of being an independent author these days, as a published author, it’s important to know all the cost-related facts that affect your profit margins. Remember, once you have gone through the stages of writing, editing, and publishing and hand your book to the chosen distributor/platform, the cost efficiency does not stop there. You may be missing a key detail when ordering your supply of physical books for in-person sales: the author copy element.

Distributors and selling platforms like Amazon, IngramSpark, Draft2Digital, and others offer two options for ordering books: wholesale and retail. What some authors may not realize or might easily overlook in the final stages of publishing is the importance of the relationship between them. Bottom line, you want to order wholesale. If you are ordering copies of your book to sell in person, at book signings and other events, you want to avoid cutting into your profits by being your own customer. And that’s before you’ve even sold your first copy to an actual consumer.

In the case of Amazon, for example, the option to order author copies (which are different from author proofs) is available in your KDP Bookshelf, located in the three-dot dropdown menu beside each of your book listings. After selecting “order author copies,” you will be prompted to select the quantity you want (up to 999 per order). Ordering “author copies” is important because you only pay the print & shipping charges. This could be a lot less than buying it at the retail price. In the long run, ordering a larger bulk amount also means saving on repeated shipping costs for smaller amounts. So, be sure to look for the author copy option through whichever distributor you use, and be cost-effective with how much you order.

You may ask yourself, why would Amazon KDP, or any distributor for that matter, offer this option? The answer is quite simple. There are more disadvantages to the author when ordering author copies than there are to the distributor. Your book is already listed on their platform. They are getting their share of each sale while you collect your royalty. In addition, you have access to sales reports and rankings on their platform, just like all the others. The drawback for you is not having your physical book sales recorded and appearing in those reports or counting towards your sales rankings. 

Remember, the essential factor here is the cost savings by ordering author copies. There is no real disadvantage for Amazon or any distributor because they are charging you to cover the printing and shipping costs (the wholesale rate).