Self-publishing on Amazon is the most cost-effective way for nonfiction authors like yourself to make your book available to a global audience.

This article will showcase the main benefits you’ll enjoy by using this powerful distribution, marketing and sales channel to bring your nonfiction book to market.

5 Amazing Amazon Benefits for Self-Publishing Nonfiction Authors

Amazon has truly changed the book market in ways that were unthinkable only a few years ago.

Below you’ll find the 5 most amazing benefits that will allow your self-published nonfiction title to compete head to head with the most popular books in the genre:

Benefit 1: Worldwide Reach

The global ubiquity of the Amazon brand has truly leveled the playing field for nonfiction self-publishers.

In short, Amazon managed to change the shopping behavior of buyers from offline-bookstore discovery, where shelf space is highly coveted and tightly guarded, to online discovery, where shelf space is virtually unlimited.

With gatekeepers gone, publishers of any size – including single-book publishers like yourself – can share the same shelf space, and with some digital marketing savvy (which you can learn or hire for) you can even become as discoverable.

What this bookselling revolution has achieved for nonfiction self-publishers is something that just twenty years ago was nearly impossible: reaching a global audience.

Up until the late nineties, if you wanted your book to cross borders you would have had to engage an international rights agent, and if you were lucky enough to land one you then had to deal with reams of complex legal contracts.

And even then, there was no guarantee that your book would appear on bookshelves in international markets.

Nowadays, more and more nonfiction self-publishers are fielding business inquiries for services from places as far away as South East Asia and South America as a result of their book appearing on Amazon.

Benefit 2: Worldwide Book Printing

As if global reach wasn’t enough, Amazon also implemented distributed on-demand printing technology to make it possible to print one book at a time cost-effectively and ship it locally soon after an order arrives.

This game-changing development allowed Amazon to free up large amounts of space from their warehouses by not having to inventory the majority of titles they carry, while eliminating costly shipping expenses.

With several plants serving North America, Europe and Australasia, your nonfiction book is now printed upon the arrival of a paid order and shipped to the end user at low domestic rates (or free depending on their level of service).

This means that you no longer have to invest in costly inventory before any books get sold, plus it allows you to make quick changes to your book’s content at any time (e.g. fixing typos) without having to throw away misprinted books.

With this new distribution paradigm, you get to receive payment for every book sold on Amazon without ever having to write a check to cover costs.

Upon receipt of payment, Amazon will take 40% from the top as their commission (this amount is taken off your list price), they’ll then deduct their printing cost and pay you the balance as a royalty.

Benefit 3: World’s Biggest Book Search Engine

But the story keeps getting better. On top of the above two amazing benefits, Amazon also happens to operate the largest dedicated book search engine in the world.

In fact, as of late 2018, Amazon surpassed Google in the number of product searches conducted globally every year (including books), and they haven’t looked back since. This is another game changer in the industry.

Before Amazon, readers had to visit a physical bookstore and browse the aisles in order to discover a new title, with premium shelf space being restricted to titles that had a history of moving product for the bookseller.

Now, all readers have to do is to enter a search into Amazon about a problem they want to solve, an area of interest, or simply a question like “how do I lose 10 pounds in 10 days” and Amazon will oblige with the titles that most closely address the user’s search.

And unlike the past, you can’t pay your way into this virtual shelf.

All publishers large and small have to do the exactly the same work: conduct keyword research on their target audience to find the keywords that match the most searches in their niche.

Even if you don’t really know how to do this (you probably won’t), you can always hire a book-marketing professional for a few hours to help you find the best set of keywords for your book.

But here’s the best part, the vast majority of self-publishers choose the keywords themselves without doing the proper research. So, just by doing this work right you’ll be creating a tremendous competitive advantage over your peers.

Benefit 4: Low Self-Publishing Cost

All of the above benefits can be achieved at a very low cost. As a matter of fact, the creation and set-up of a new self-publishing account is actually free of charge.

It’s just mind blowing to have free access to the untold millions of dollars that Amazon has spent over the years developing the largest online bookstore and the largest dedicated book search engine in the world plus a global network of on-demand printing facilities. This was completely unthinkable before Amazon.

Having said that, you have to consider that if you want your book to be successful in the marketplace, you’ll have to incur expenses above the free self-publishing setup.

At the low end, you’ll have to purchase an ISBN for your title ($125 for a single number or $295 for a block of ten). In addition, you’ll have to hire a book-marketing professional to properly set up your book in your Amazon account.

But beyond that, you’ll have to hire one or more editors, a book designer and a cover designer. These costs are a must for nonfiction authors (think of it as an investment, because you’ll obtain a return from these expenses).

There’s no point in launching a new nonfiction title on Amazon if you can’t complete on quality with traditionally published titles, which are all designed and edited by professionals.

How much will all of this work cost you? Depending on the level of experience of the professionals you hire, between $5,700 and $11,500.

Now, this may sound like a lot of money on the surface, but consider that your business or you career will truly get to a new level by leveraging the “expert” status you’ll gain by publishing a top-notch nonfiction book.

For example, many nonfiction authors have turned their books into magnets to land lucrative contracts worth tens of thousands of dollars that would be very difficult to land without the cachet of being a published nonfiction author.

Many others have launched highly profitable public speaking careers because of their books, regularly attracting fees anywhere between $5,000 and $20,000 per talk (depending on the scale of the event and their public-speaking experience).

And most report increasing the size of the businesses as their books become profitable prospect-conversion machines.

Benefit 5: Lower Barriers to Entry for Bestseller Lists

The final benefit is another game-changing feature offered by Amazon for the benefit of self-publishers: lower barriers to entry into bestseller lists.

Amazon’s massive library of nonfiction titles is organized into a tree of categories, sub-categories, sub-sub-categories, etc. As of right now, there are over 3,000 different nonfiction categories available on Amazon.

Each of these “tree branches” has its own bestseller list. Now, top-level categories will naturally always be highly competitive, requiring a large volume of sales in order to qualify for entry.

But lower-level branches require a much lower number of sales to be considered a bestseller. So, if you choose the right tree branch for your nonfiction book, you’ll be able to be included in its bestseller list at a relatively low volume of sales.

Once you do, you’ll get full bragging rights as an Amazon bestseller, which is marketing gold regardless of the category!

This new bestseller status will, among other things, attract media attention, command higher public speaking fees and increase demand for your business or professional services.

How do you find out what the best categories are among the over 3,000 tree branches, in order to maximize the chances of your book being included in a bestseller list?

This can be quite complex and may require that you hire the services of a book marketing professional (which you’ll be needing already in order to select your book’s search keywords as stated in Benefit 3).

But the investment of a few hours of time from an expert will make a huge difference in the ultimate success of your nonfiction book.

If you’d like to familiarize yourself with the basics of this work, you can read my companion article: “How to Promote Your Nonfiction Book to Rank High on Amazon.”

In Conclusion

Amazon has completely reinvented the way books are distributed and sold by disrupting and reinventing the book industry. This has leveled the plaiting field for nonfiction self-publishers in ways unimaginable in the not-too-distant past.

As a result, the only thing stopping your book from reaching a global marketplace is no longer a multiplicity of gatekeepers, but your own passion and drive.

Now, I don’t want to imply that this is a cake walk, because you’ll have to do the best you can to complete in the marketplace (hence the need to hire a team of experts to help you get there). But this was no different before the advent of Amazon.

What’s different now is that you can enjoy the same access that used to be restricted to traditional publishers. By hiring a few key professionals, you’ll be able to develop the necessary competitive advantages to thrive in the nonfiction book market as a self-publisher.

Best of luck!

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to just to generate additional leads for their businesses.

Here are some related posts I highly recommend:

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

Write Your Own Book and Become an Expert: 11 Reasons Why You Should

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of 6 books published through Harper Collins (NY) and Titan Publishing Group (UK). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press and the founder/CEO of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, printing, distribution and marketing.

When you search Google for the cost of self-publishing on Amazon, there’s a tendency to focus on paying the least amount of money possible (self-edit, get a cover done on Fiverr, use Amazon’s free ISBN, etc.).

While this might be a workable solution if you’re publishing your first novel and just want to test the market, it’s the wrong approach for nonfiction authors.

Nonfiction books are expected to deliver on the expertise of the author. As a result, the production quality of your book will define how your professionalism and your reputation will be perceived by the world at large.

Now, Amazon has made it possible for self-published titles to achieve instant world distribution at the push of a button. But this tremendous power comes with a downside.

While this giant market megaphone will amplify the image of a quality product, it’ll also amplify the image of a poor product, and since the image a nonfiction book presents is subconsciously extended to its author, you can imagine the consequences.

Producing a poor product is a professional risk that you simply cannot afford to take. After all, you want to publish your nonfiction book to enhance your business or your career, not to hinder them.

With that in mind, let’s now look at the true cost of self-publishing nonfiction on Amazon.

Pre-Publication Costs

These are the costs that you need to incur in order to first create a polished final manuscript and then turn it into professionally produced print-ready files that comply with Amazon’s specifications for their on-demand digital printing presses.

Pre-publication costs include editing, book layout and cover design.

Editing Cost

As a self-published nonfiction author, you’ll have to compete with traditionally published books on par with their quality. In order to get your manuscript up there you’ll need to consider a number of editing rounds.

Here are the different types of editing passes that professionally edited nonfiction books need, along with their approximate cost:

Developmental Editing:

This is the first editing pass. It’ll take care of the overall structure of your book, making sure that it best supports your main thesis. This pass establishes the optimal flow of ideas for your manuscript.

A developmental editor focuses on your audience, identifying the areas in your manuscript that don’t work for them so that you can take the necessary corrective action.

Typical developmental editing rates are 8 cents per word for standard manuscripts and up to 12 cents per word for highly specialized or highly technical manuscripts.

Content Editing:

This editing pass shifts the focus to the text in your manuscript by ensuring that your writing is always clear.

It’ll take care of your book’s chapter flow, paragraph and sentence construction and the correct placement of your visual elements to make sure that they fully support your text.

Typical content editing rates are 4-5 cents per word for standard text and 5-7 cents per word for highly technical or scientific text.

Copyediting:

This editing pass looks at the accuracy of the language in your manuscript at the word level, taking care of errors in spelling, punctuation, grammar, syntax, capitalization and hyphenation, among others.

It’ll also take care of inaccurate facts such as incorrect dates, wrong proper names of places and people, any potential legal issues with infringement or defamation, formatting inconsistencies and any other type of textual anomaly.

Typical copyediting rates are 3-4 cents per word for standard text and 4-6 cents per word for highly technical or scientific text.

Proofreading:

This last editing pass will go through your laid-out book and book cover with a fine-tooth comb checking for typos, incorrect references, caption errors and general fact-checking to ensure no embarrassing mistakes are found after your book comes back from the printer.

After the proofreading pass, your book’s print-ready files get locked in, ready for uploading to your printer’s servers.

Typical proofreading rates are 2.5-3.5 cents per word for standard text and 3.5-4.5 cents per word for highly technical or scientific text.

Book Design Cost

Book design takes care of the internal layout of your book. This is another area where professional help is a requirement for self-published nonfiction books in order to complete with traditional publishers.

A book layout designer will take care of properly formatting and laying out your text, images and graphics. They’ll also design your chapter sections and your book headings and sub-headings.

They’ll take care of the page headers and footers including your page numbering and the navigational clues left for readers, and finally, they’ll format and place your book’s front and back matter.

The cost for a quality book designer with experience in nonfiction will range between $350 and $500. You may be able to find a lower cost on the Internet, but be mindful that you’ll likely get what you pay for.

Cover Design Cost

Of all aspects of nonfiction book production, the most visible is the cover design. Therefore, it’s critical that you hire a professional artist with solid experience in nonfiction books in order to perform this important job.

When shown on search results, your nonfiction book may appear side by side with traditionally published books. So, in order to compete for the attention of readers, you’ll need to meet a high cover-design bar.

A professional cover designer is not just a visual expert who’ll know the best placement of your cover elements to appeal to an audience, but is also a “visual marketer,” who knows how different color palettes influence people’s purchasing decisions.

A nonfiction book cover designer with a solid track record will cost between $400 and $600. Once again, beware of the allure of designers on gig websites that will charge you $100 or $50 or even $30 for a book cover.

Even if it looks decent or much better than you expected in relation to what you would’ve been able to create on your own, when compared to traditionally-published books, you’ll find yourself at a significant disadvantage. Again, this is not a place where you want to cut corners.

Publishing Costs

Great! Your professionally edited and produced book is ready to be published. Now, in order to achieve worldwide reach both online and offline with your channels of distribution, you’ll need to self-publish your book on two different platforms.

Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)

The first one is Amazon-owned Kindle Direct Publishing. This platform allows you to cost-effectively make your book available for sale on all Amazon websites around the world.

In addition to listing your book on the Amazon book database, KDP will also make your book available for purchase in paperback format in all major English-language markets, including the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

As a matter of fact, your book will be printed locally in those markets by taking advantage of a network of printing facilities built by KDP that make use of state-of-the-art high-speed digital print-on-demand technology.

This equipment is designed to receive all book orders from Amazon for a given market and print them locally in near-real time, allowing for shipping to the end customer at domestic rates.

This technology affords your book the Amazon status of “Immediately Available” in local markets where printing facilities exist, even though there’s no physical inventory sitting in a warehouse. KDP does not charge any fees to self-publishers.

IngramSpark

The second self-publishing platform is IngramSpark, a subsidiary of Ingram, the largest book distributor in the world. Although IngramSpark can deliver books to online bookstores, their forte is brick-and-mortar bookstores and libraries.

And like KDP, they’ve also deployed a large network of advanced high-speed digital presses that print books on demand. In fact, they operate an even larger network than Amazon’s KDP, with more printing facilities supporting more book formats.

Unlike KDP’s paperback-only format, IngramSpark can print both paperback books as well as hardcovers, giving you more retail flexibility by allowing you to have different price-points for your book.

Also, IngramSpark has near-exclusivity in the distribution of books to bookstores and libraries because they offer them a much higher wholesale discount than KDP. In fact, the low discount offered to bookstores by KDP is a huge disincentive for ordering.

Ingram charges $49 per book format, so budget for $49 x 2 so that you can publish your nonfiction book in both paperback and hardcover formats.

Book Marketing Professional

Amazon is not only the largest online bookstore in the world, but also the largest dedicated book search engine in the world.

This search engine is frequented by over 330 million Amazon customers, plus millions more than don’t have accounts on Amazon, to discover new titles every day.

In order for your book to be discovered through user searches, you’ll need to set up special “keywords” used by the Amazon search algorithm to match your book to the most common user searches in your niche.

You’ll also need to create a book description that’s compelling for readers browsing search results.

Finally, you’ll have to select the right category/sub-category combinations in which to list your book among the more than 3,000 available ones in the nonfiction genre.

Now, all this information is critical for your book’s success on the platform, and it’s not something that you should try to tackle on your own. To maximize your chances for a successful outcome, you’ll need to enlist outside help.

This is where an experienced book-marketing professional comes into the picture.

These experts will help you uncover the most common user searches in your book’s niche and then they’ll help you find the best keywords to match.

Next, they’ll help you identify the best category/sub-category combinations to list your book under in order to increase your chances of landing on one of the over 3,000 Amazon nonfiction bestseller lists.

Finally, they’ll help you write compelling marketing copy for your book description on your Amazon book detail page.

Given the custom nature of this work, book marketing professionals usually charge by the hour with an hourly rate ranging from $80 to $150, depending on their level of experience and their track record in the industry.

Cost of ISBN

For your book to be distributed to the trade you’ll need to acquire an ISBN, or a unique book identifier number, which will be encoded inside a barcode on your back cover.

This is the code that gets scanned at the checkout counter whenever you buy a book in a brick-and-mortar bookstore.

To get this number you’ll have to visit https://www.isbn.org, where you’ll be able to purchase a single number for $125 or a block of ten for $295.

Keep in mind that each format that you want to publish in (e.g. paperback or hardcover) requires a different ISBN.

Amazon’s KDP offers a free ISBN service, but you’ll have to pass on it because if you publish your book with their ISBN they won’t allow you to distribute your title anywhere else (for example, you’ll be blocked from co-publishing on IngramSpark).

Cost of Author Copies

The final cost to take into account when you self-publish is the print cost.

Here you have two options:

You can either buy author copies from KDP or you can buy them from IngramSpark. They’ll both sell you copies of your book at cost. However, only IngramSpark offers a volume discount to authors.

With IngramSpark, the more books you buy, the lower your cost per unit. With KDP you’ll always be charged the same unit price no matter how many copies you buy.

For example, if your print cost is $3.69 for a single copy of a 200-page black and white paperback book on both platforms, you’ll pay $3,690 at KDP for 1,000 copies but only $2,214 at IngramSpark. That’s a savings of $1,476.

In Conclusion

When it comes to the cost of self-publishing on Amazon (with IngramSpark as a co-publisher) the publishing cost itself is very low, but this can be very misleading.

Nonfiction books have a very high bar that they need to meet to be accepted by the market, and publishing a sub-standard product for a low publishing cost is just never a good idea.

Self-publishing on Amazon may have a low cost (if you include the cost of purchasing an ISBN) and a very powerful reach into the global marketplace. But being able to access this many people with a single click of a button is actually quite dangerous.

Unless the product you’re putting out is of high quality, you risk hurting your professional reputation in a very global way – this is just not worth cutting corners for.

The true cost of self-publishing on Amazon must always include the cost of hiring a professional editor, a professional book, cover designer and a book marketing expert to form a team to bring the best expression of your capabilities and your professionalism to market.

The upside of this investment, however, can be quite exceptional once you begin to leverage your book to land new business, open new markets, and of course, sell lots of books in the process!

Good luck on your self-publishing endeavors!

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to just to generate additional leads for their businesses.

Here are some related posts I highly recommend:

How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

How Long Does it Take to Write a Book to Help Grow Your Business?

5 Book Cover Maker Mistakes to Avoid When Designing a Nonfiction Cover

Write Your Own Book and Become an Expert: 11 Reasons Why You Should

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of 6 books published through Harper Collins (NY) and Titan Publishing Group (UK). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press and the founder/CEO of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, printing, distribution and marketing.

If you’re a nonfiction author, it’s important that you learn the pros and cons of self-publishing on Amazon.

When it comes to book promotion and worldwide distribution, there’s no doubt that Amazon has developed a powerful platform to level the playing field for self-publishers.

If you learn to master this platform, you’ll be able to have your book come up in searches side-by-side with traditionally published nonfiction books in your field.

Plus, you’ll be able to distribute printed copies of your title in key English-language book markets around the world, including the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand through a combination of Amazon’s websites and their global network of state-of-the-art print-on-demand facilities.

When a reader in any of those markets makes a purchase through one of the many Amazon online bookstores, the order is sent to the nearest digital printing facility, your book is printed in near-real time and shipped locally at domestic rates to the end customer.

In essence, Amazon has been able to replicate the approximate time frame required to pick an item off a shelf, pack it and ship it, except through zero-inventory on-demand printing.

Now, these are great pros. However, there are significant cons to consider as well. For example, brick-and-mortar bookstores don’t like to deal with Amazon distribution for a number of reasons, including the limited range of formats they can produce and the poor wholesale discounts they offer.

In this article, I’ll explain all the pros and cons of self-publishing on Amazon in detail, and I’ll show you how to work around all the cons so that your book is also made available for ordering to brick-and-mortar bookstores around the world.

Self-Publishing Options

After a decade or two of continuous technological advancements, including the migration of commerce online, the global ubiquity of the Internet, and the advent of high-speed, on-demand digital printing presses, self-publishing nonfiction has now truly become mainstream.

The chief architects of this publishing revolution are two large conglomerates: Amazon on the online side, and Ingram on the brick-and-mortar side.

They’ve both created distribution platforms that allow self-publishers to easily and cost-effectively upload their book files into their databases, and between the two of them they offer near-100% worldwide bookstore coverage, both online and offline.

Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)

KDP is Amazon’s self-publishing distribution arm. As stated earlier, they operate a network of on-demand, high-speed digital presses located in three continents, plus distribution through all Amazon book-selling properties.

When a customer orders your book on Amazon, the book is printed and shipped when payment is received. KDP retains 40% of your list price as their distribution fee, subtracts the printing cost from the remainder, and pays you the difference as a royalty.

Before you can upload your book to KDP, you’ll need to purchase an ISBN book identification number for your title. In the U.S. you can purchase this number from https://www.isbn.org. The cost is $125 for a single ISBN or $295 for a block of ten.

(Note: KDP offers a free ISBN, but if you take them up on their offer, you’ll be banned from distributing your book anywhere other than Amazon, plus Amazon will become the publisher on file, not you.)

Once you’ve obtained your ISBN, all you have to do is to create a KDP self-publishing account, enter your publisher details, enter your book details and provide the metadata necessary for readers to find your book on Amazon.

At that point your book will go live on all Amazon website properties around the world.

IngramSpark

IngramSpark is the self-publishing subsidiary of Ingram, the largest book distributor in the world with an active book inventory of 7.5 million titles.

Ingram was founded in the late 70s and over the next four decades became the largest book distributor for bookstores and libraries, first in the U.S. and later internationally.

Ingram was the first company to innovate in large scale, high-speed, on-demand digital printing and to this day remains the industry leader, with facilities in the U.S., U.K., France and Australia.

IngramSpark was created to allow self-publishers and small independent publishers access to Ingram’s vast distribution network and their global on-demand printing infrastructure for a very low cost.

Creating a self-publishing account on IngramSpark is free, but uploading your book costs $49 per title. You’ll also have to purchase your own ISBN prior to submission.

Unlike Amazon’s KDP, IngramSpark allows you to print books in both paperback and hardcover formats, which gives you more retailing flexibility since you’ll be able to offer your book at two different price points.

Another advantage of IngramSpark is that they allow you to purchase author copies at attractive volume discounts, whereas KDP doesn’t offer any discounting beyond their print cost.

Amazon Pros & Cons

Now that you know the lay of the land when it comes to cost-effective worldwide book distribution for self-publishers, lets discuss the pros and cons of self-publishing your nonfiction book via Amazon.

Amazon Pros

1) Amazon gives you premium access to the largest online bookstore in the world through their subsidiary KDP.

I say premium because even though Amazon allows other distributors, including IngramSpark, to sell books on their website, they’re known in the book industry for giving priority to their own titles at the detriment of others.

Although this isn’t something they’re ever likely to admit, it’s been observed in the past that while KDP books show up on Amazon with a status of “immediate availability,” non KDP books often show up with a status of “not in stock.”

Clearly, “not in stock” should not apply to IngramSpark books, since they’re also printed on demand. However, to prevent these issues you should always distribute your book through KDP to ensure preferential treatment by Amazon’s algorithm.

2) Since nonfiction books must always be distributed in print form (eBooks are not taken seriously in the nonfiction book market unless you’re a famous author already), KDP’s global on-demand printing network will ensure that your book is printed and shipped locally in the largest English-language book markets in the world, namely, North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

3) Amazon has a captive audience of over 330 million customers worldwide and about a third of them are Amazon Prime subscribers, who can get free and low-cost shipping options for many purchases, including books.

4) Amazon operates the largest dedicated book search engine in the world. If you do your homework and set up your book right, you’ll be able to rank high on Amazon user searches for books and may even be able to make it into one or more of the over 3,000 bestseller lists that Amazon keeps for nonfiction titles.

To learn how to rank high on Amazon searches, read my companion article: Self Publish on Amazon: A Guide for Nonfiction Authors.

5) Amazon has also changed consumers’ book-buying habits by popularizing user-reviews as an important book-buying signal.

If you master the art of getting a large number of positive book reviews for your title, you’ll dramatically increase your chances of becoming an Amazon bestseller, often leapfrogging many established titles in your niche.

To learn how to get positive user reviews for your book, read my companion article: How to Get Reviews on Amazon for Your Nonfiction Book.

Amazon Cons

While Amazon is a great platform for self-publishing nonfiction authors, it does have some downsides. I’ll list them below:

1) Amazon distribution doesn’t offer as much flexibility in terms of book formats as IngramSpark.

Amazon’s on-demand printing equipment is only set up for paperback book distribution, since they don’t have the equipment that is necessary to produce hardcover books.

IngramSpark, on the other hand, can manufacture both paperback and hardcover editions allowing you to offer your product at two different price points.

2) Amazon distribution offers noncompetitive wholesale discounts to brick-and-mortar bookstores, acting as a disincentive for bookstore orders.

While the traditional wholesale discount expected by bookstores is 40% off your list price, Amazon distribution only offers them a 25% discount, which isn’t sufficient in most cases to cover their retail overhead and allow for a reasonable profit margin.

The reason is that Amazon takes a 35% cut from your list price, which doesn’t leave room for the industry-standard 40% wholesale discount.

IngramSpark, on the other hand, only takes 15% off the list price as their distribution fee, allowing for the full 40% bookstore discount without cutting too much into your royalties.

As an example, here’s the math for both distributors:

• Amazon Book Sale to Bookstores: List price = $15.99, Amazon fee @ 35% = $5.60, Bookstore discount @ 25% = $3.75, book print cost = $4.05, your royalty = $15.99 – $5.60 – $3.75 – $4.05 = $2.59.
• IngramSpark Book Sale to Bookstores: List price = $15.99, IngramSpark fee @ 15% = $2.25, Bookstore discount @ 40% = $6, book print cost = $4.05, your royalty = $15.99 – $2.25 – $6 – $4.05 = $3.69.

Not only does KDP’s low wholesale discount act as a disincentive for bookstores to order your book, but you’ll also lose $1.10 in royalties when compared with the royalty you’ll receive from IngramSpark for the same sale.

To prevent KDP from distributing to brick-and-mortar bookstores, don’t select “Enhanced Distribution” when you set up your title. This will limit KDP’s distribution to Amazon properties only and will give you the freedom to sign up with IngramSpark for bookstore distribution.

3) Amazon’s KDP doesn’t offer volume discounts to authors. If you need to buy a large number of books for back-of-the-room sales at events, KDP will sell you your book at cost, but they won’t give you any discounts below the print cost for volume purchases.

IngramSpark, on the other hand, offers very attractive volume discounts for author purchases. Also, Amazon sets a limit on the size of book shipments to 999 copies per shipment whereas IngramSpark doesn’t impose any limits.

If you need, say, 1,200 books because you have 3 large public-speaking events lined up, Amazon will charge you for two separate shipments, whereas IngramSpark will deliver all your books in a single shipment at a lower shipping cost per copy.

Next Steps:

Now you know the pros and cons of self-publishing with Amazon. To get the best of both the online and offline bookselling worlds, create self-publishing accounts with Amazon’s KDP as well as IngramSpark to have all your bases covered.

Just make sure that you don’t select “Enhanced Distribution” inside KDP and you’ll be off to the races. Next, it’s time to shift gears to book promotion!

To help you get started, read my article The 7 Most Effective Book Promotion Ideas for Nonfiction Authors to learn powerful techniques to get the word out about your book.

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to just to generate additional leads for their businesses.

Here are some related posts I highly recommend:

How to Write a Compelling Nonfiction Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Business Owners

Write Your Own Book and Become an Expert: 11 Reasons Why You Should

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of 6 books published through Harper Collins (NY) and Titan Publishing Group (UK). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press and the founder/CEO of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, printing, distribution and marketing.

If you self-publish on Amazon to distribute your nonfiction book, you’ll have access to not only the largest online bookstore in the world but also to a much lesser known benefit that’s of critical importance for your book.

On-Demand Printing

Amazon happens to operate one of largest print-on-demand networks in the world, with advanced, high-speed digital printing facilities on three continents operated by their subsidiary, Kindle Direct Publishing.

In essence, Amazon can take an order for your book from anywhere in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand and have your book printed and delivered locally to customers using domestic shipping rates.

This is a significant competitive advantage for nonfiction authors who depend on the sale of printed books, since there’s very little value in publishing nonfiction eBooks – they don’t carry the aura of expertise and credibility demanded by the genre.

Also, by self-publishing your book on Amazon, you’ll be able to purchase author copies at cost to use as calling cards or to bring to events for back-of-the-room sales.

Book Search Engine

In addition to print-on-demand, Amazon operates the largest book search engine in the world.

When people are looking for information they turn to Google, when they’re looking for videos they turn to YouTube, and when they’re looking for books they turn to Amazon.

When people need to find a book to help them solve a problem, they’ll do a search on Amazon by typing keywords that relate to the problem they’re experiencing.

If you supply Amazon with well-researched keywords that relate the subject matter of your book to their problem, you’ll dramatically increase your chances of being discovered by over 330 million Amazon customers.

This is a game-changing feature for authors which is simply not available anywhere else, and it can make the difference between your book becoming an Amazon bestseller or being relegated to the bottom of their database.

Amazon has revolutionized book selling for self-published authors and truly levelled the playing field with major publishers in ways that were unthinkable a decade or two ago. All you have to do is take advantage of their search capabilities.

Getting Your Files Ready

Before you set up your self-publishing account on Amazon, you need to make sure that your book files are produced with the exact specifications required by Amazon’s on-demand digital printing presses.

The advanced nature of this equipment demands a degree of precision that can only be produced by professionals using specialized book layout and cover design software, so don’t attempt to generate these filed by yourself.

Also, since you’re publishing a nonfiction book that will establish you as an expert in your field, you can’t afford to not hire professionals to design your book.

Any sign of design amateurishness will reflect poorly not only on your book but also on your reputation. As a nonfiction author, you must be able to compete head to head with the best books on the market.

When people do a search on Amazon for a book in your niche, your result will come up side-by-side with traditionally published titles and you must be able to visually compete with them – hence the need for a professional book layout and cover design.

Book Layout File

This is the file that holds the contents of your book, excluding your cover – it’s often called the “typeset.” This file must be produced using professional-grade book publishing software, and must be designed to the specifications of digital printing presses.

For your book designer to be able to generate the correct format for Amazon’s equipment, you’ll need to give them access to your self-publishing account so that they have access to Amazon’s specifications.

They include:

• Choosing the correct trim size for your paperback book: Amazon only supports select trim sizes (16 as of this article). Custom sizes are not supported.
• Color paper: Amazon can print black and white books on white or cream-colored paper. Books with color images can only be printed on white paper.
• Maximum and minimum page counts: Each trim size and paper type combination has a different maximum page-count allowed. The minimum page count is 24 pages.
• Specifying whether images in your book bleed to the edges: If this is the case pages must be extended a specific amount beyond the trim size to allow for cropping equipment to work correctly.
• All layout layers should be flattened: Layering is a feature of professional book-layout software. Un-flattened or transparent layers will be rejected by Amazon’s pre-flight check.
• All fonts and images must be embedded in the native file: Amazon does not support the submission of fonts and images in separate files.
• All images should have a resolution of at least 300dpi: A lower resolution will result in printed images that are pixelated, which looks amateurish.
• Margins must be defined based on the total page count: Amazon requires different minimum margin sizes based on your book’s total page count. Thicker books require higher margins on the edge where the book is bound.
• Files should not include crop marks, trim marks, bookmarks, comments, invisible objects, annotations, placeholder text, or metadata: These are visual aids used in professional layout software to assist the designer during the creative process. They must be removed prior to submission.
• PDF files should be optimized: This is to eliminate unnecessary data from being transmitted, thus reducing the file size. This allows for better performance when transferring, uploading, viewing, and printing the submitted book layout file.
• Only single page spreads are allowed: No multiple page spreads are allowed (e.g. 2-up files or higher).

Book Cover File

The specifications for your book cover file are very involved and require professional cover-designer skills and the use of publication-grade illustration software.

Give your cover designer access to your account so that they can get the correct information before uploading your cover file. These specifications include the following requirements:

• Your cover size must incorporate the correct spine size: This information varies according to the type of paper used in your book (two specifications for black and white printing and one for color printing)
• Cover formatting: Amazon requires one continuous image centered left to right on the spine.
• All graphic and text layers must be flattened in the book-cover file (except for the barcode)
• A cover bleed must be set on all sides using Amazon specifications.
• All fonts must be embedded in the book-cover file.
• Spine text: For spine text to be printed, your book must have more than 100 pages. The spine text must keep a minimum distance from the edges.
• Barcode: It must follow detailed Amazon specifications regarding size, image resolution and distance from your back cover’s edges. The barcode must not be flattened into the main cover as a single image.

KDP Account Setup

Now it’s time to set up your Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing account (i.e. your “self-publishing” account).

First, if you already have an account with Amazon, then sign in to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) with your existing Amazon username and password (visit https://kdp.amazon.com).

If you don’t have an Amazon account, then enter your name, your email address, and create a password.

After you log in, click on your Account tab and complete the “Author/Publisher Information” section making sure you enter your real name and not a pen name because Amazon will use this information to send you royalty payments.

You’ll be able to use a pen name later on when you enter your book title information.

Next, complete the “Getting Paid” section, to receive royalty payments. Available options include direct deposit, wire transfer and check. If you live in the U.S.A. then direct deposit is the most efficient and least costly way to receive payments.

Amazon will pay you 60 days after the end of each month in your local currency.

Finally, under “Tax Information,” answer the step-by-step online interview regarding your tax status under U.S. law so that Amazon can establish your tax identity.

This is required under U.S. law in order to receive payments from Amazon, even if you don’t live in the U.S.

Book Submission

Once your main account setup is completed, it’s time to enter your book title information. This is the information that will appear on your Amazon book detail page.

Also, you’ll be entering the metadata that will not appear on your book page but that’s critical for Amazon’s search engine to display your book in response to a user search.

Note that Amazon will “lock” your book title, author name and ISBN after you publish. If you need to make any changes to this information after publication you’ll have to unpublish your book, make the necessary changes and publish it again.

First click on “Bookshelf” and then click on “+ Paperback” to open the book setup section. Then, under “Paperback Details” enter the following information:

• Book Title: Enter your title and subtitle exactly as it appears on your cover.
• Series: Only enter this information if your book is part of a series (e.g. due to the large page count of your manuscript you’re splitting your book into three separate volumes).
• Edition Number: Enter 1 if this the first time your are submitting your title. When you submit a new edition of your book enter 2, and so on.
• Author: You may use your actual name or a pen name if you prefer but make sure it matches the information on your book cover.
• Contributors: Enter the names of any illustrators, editors, cover designers and any other person that helped you create content for your book if you want to give them credit for their work, unless you have a contract that stipulates that you are the sole author (e.g. you hired a ghostwriter).
• Description: This is the publisher blurb that appears on your book detail page and it’s the key marketing text that book browsers will read when they land on your page. This blurb must be ideally written with the help of a book-marketing professional because purchasing decisions will often be made based on this text.
• Publishing Rights: Since you’re the copyright owner of your title, enter “You own the copyright and hold necessary publishing rights.” In the unlikely case that your text is a public domain work, then you must select “This is a public domain work” and identify the required territory rights.
• Keywords: In this section you need to enter 7 keyword phrases that best approximate searches that readers enter into Amazon when looking for a book like yours. This is another area where it pays to enlist the help of a book-marketing professional because these keywords will make the difference between your title being found often by readers and never making it to the first page of results.
• Categories: This is another critical piece of metadata information and should also be filled with the help of a book-marketing professional. Amazon has over 3,000 nonfiction categories and sub-categories and which one you choose will have an impact on whether your book can make it into their bestseller lists or not. Read my companion article How to Promote Your Nonfiction Book to Rank High on Amazon for more information on how to choose the best categories for your book.
• Large Print (included in the Categories section): If you wish to create a version or your book in large print (font-size 16 or higher) you’ll need to create a separate edition with a new ISBN. Amazon will then link this version to your original paperback and promote it in their large-print browsing results.
• Adult Content: This is unlikely to apply to most nonfiction books, however if your book contains language or images that are not appropriate for children under the age of 18, then check this box.

When you’re done with “Paperback Details.” Switch tabs to “Book Content.” Here you’ll be entering your technical printing options and upload your print-ready files.

Leave these options to your book layout and cover designers since they require specific technical knowledge.

Finally, when your book content section is complete, you’ll be able to open the “Paperback Rights & Pricing” section. This is where you’ll select the territories where your book will be available for purchase.

You can either select All Territories (Worldwide Rights) or select Individual Territories. Finally, you’ll set up your book pricing. Option 1 allows you to select your default market and set your list price in that market’s currency.

Amazon’s KDP will calculate your list prices in other currencies as necessary.

Option 2 allows you to create a unique list price for the currency of each market that you wish to sell into.

Next Steps:

Great, now you know everything you need to self-publish your nonfiction book on Amazon. Once you do, I recommend that you set up an advance book-review team to make sure that you rank high on Amazon searches from the get go.

Positive book reviews are the most important signal used by the Amazon ranking algorithm and it’s critical that you get this done right. Read my article How to Get Reviews on Amazon for Your Nonfiction Book to learn how to set up this important team prior to your book launch.

Best of luck!

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to just to generate additional leads for their businesses.

Here are some related posts I highly recommend:

How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

How Long Does it Take to Write a Book to Help Grow Your Business?

5 Book Cover Maker Mistakes to Avoid When Designing a Nonfiction Cover

Write Your Own Book and Become an Expert: 11 Reasons Why You Should

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of 6 books published through Harper Collins (NY) and Titan Publishing Group (UK). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press and the founder/CEO of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, printing, distribution and marketing.