How to Sell Your Book on Amazon

Authors try to look for ways to sell their books to as many people as possible. The conventional way would be to have them go through distributor who sell them to bookstores and other retail stores. But there are ways that the author can sell his or her book. The online world provides just the answer.

Amazon.com has become quite a familiar item in the online world among the millions of websites out there. The website has been able to carve a niche for itself on the Internet by being the most popular online bookstore around.

The site provides a convenience to people in buying books of any kind from the comforts of their own home. And not only that, Amazon.com has also been able to give authors a means to sell their works online and reach out to a wider audience that conventional methods might not usually be able to provide for them.

With Amazon.com, virtually everyone now is able to put up a self-published book up on the market. This is open not only for authors but also for publishers and resellers of books as well. This is made possible through becoming a member of the website.

Amazon.com offers two types of membership options to those who are interested. One of them is the Amazon.com Advantage. This type of membership is a consignment sales program where authors as well as publishers have their catalog of books, CD's and DVD's listed on Amazon.com. The other membership option, the Amazon.com Advantage Professional, is reserved for professional, medical, technical, and non-profit publishers.

For self-published authors, applying for the Amazon.com Advantage Program would have their self-published book become a part of the books listed on this hugely popular website. This opens up a market for self-published authors that is global in scope, an opportunity that is not available before the Internet became popular.

The first step to get into the Amazon.com list is through application to the said program. The application can either be rejected of approved depending on the author's qualifications. In order to qualify, authors must have the rights to distribute their books in North America. Their books should also have scannable bar codes following ISBN or EAN Standards printed on the back cover. Authors as well as publishers should also agree to paying the annual membership fee charged by Amazon.com as well as have online access to manage the account.

Once an author is approved and is noticed through email, the non-refundable membership fee is then charged from the new member. The new member is then required to list a book title or two of their books along with the related information. Additional titles may be added at any point during the membership. The site then has the right to reject or approve the book titles for listing on their site.

Once the book title has been approved by Amazon.com, it then sends an initial order for delivery to their warehouse on consignment basis. The quantity will usually depend on the popularity of the book listed on the catalog.

When there are customers from the website that want to purchase the books, Amazon.com processes them within 24 hours and is shipped to any part of the world. When the books in its inventory has gone below the minimum level, Amazon.com then sends additional orders to the author to replenish their stock. Revenues from the book sales (minus commission) can either be deposited directly to the author's bank account or sent by check with the corresponding service charges.