DIY Book Sales: Selling Direct
On selling books yourself
I’ve been selling books directly from my website for years. Recently, I changed the software I use to run my store, and I thought it was a good time to talk about why I sell direct, what that really means, and why you might want to consider doing it too (along with a few reasons why you might not).
Direct sales has been a buzzword in the indie author world for a while now—and for good reason. Relying entirely on the whims of big corporations like Amazon and Barnes & Noble isn’t always the smartest way to run a business. Sometimes, you want more control. That’s why many of us go indie in the first place, right?
But I think traditional authors are missing an opportunity here too. Yes, there are some contractual hurdles and logistics to consider, but there are still ways to incorporate direct sales into your author business if you’re traditionally published. I’ll share how I do it and what to keep in mind.
With shrinking royalties, rising ad costs, and discoverability getting harder by the day, direct sales gives you more control, more data, and more connection with your readers. And as both an author and a website developer, I’ve seen how the right setup can be easier than you think.
What Exactly Does Selling Direct Mean?
Direct sales just means selling your books to readers yourself. It can be in-person, through your website, on social media, or via crowdfunding.
Indie authors have all the flexibility in the world to sell our books any way we want. We own the rights, can choose the format and pricing, and decide how and where to sell.
For traditional authors, it’s a bit trickier, but we can still sell signed print books, swag, digital extras, or even courses and services, depending on your publishing contract.
Why Should Indies Consider Direct Sales?
Here are the top two reasons why I think direct sales should be in every indie author’s toolbox:
Higher profit margins – You keep most of the money from each sale instead of whatever percentage the retailer decides to give you. Amazon dis-incentivizes book prices above $9.99 and below $2.99 with a smaller percentage of royalties. Sell books at any price and keep all of the money beyond the credit card or PayPal fee.
Reader connection & data – You have no idea who is buying your book from Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, etc. There’s no way to get that sales info and form a relationship with those readers or contact them again when you have a sale or a new book. By selling direct, you get email addresses and buying info so you can keep in touch with readers who have proven they want to hear from you.
What You Can Sell Directly
Some ideas to get your store started:
Ebooks (PDF, ePub, Kindle files)
Audiobooks
Signed paperbacks or hardcovers
Bundles or box sets
Preorders or special editions
Merchandise (bookish stickers, mugs, art prints, t-shirts)
Courses, workshops, or bonus content
Basically, if you can create it and it’s valuable to your readers, you can probably sell it.
What About Traditionally Published Authors?
I’m both indie and traditionally published, and here’s how I handle direct sales.I mainly sell signed print copies of my trad books.
I’m mindful of bookstore sales, so I usually wait until the book’s been out for about a year before offering them directly. Traditional authors don’t want to cannibalize the bookstore sales, which are the prime indicator that publishers look at when considering you for future contracts.
With my trad deals, I’ve always gotten a healthy number of author copies included (usually 15-25)—but contractually, you’re not supposed to sell those. (Although many authors do.) However, I tend to use those for giveaways.
Instead, I buy discounted copies of my books. Publishers will often offer a discount for authors purchasing their own books, but contracts often say that you can’t re-sell these either and their purchase doesn’t count towards royalties.
For selling direct, I use Author Author. Their purchasing program offers a healthy discount, incredible shipping costs, plus they report royalties to the publisher, so I’m not hurting my publishing sales record.
All of their sales are even reported to The New York Times for list consideration. (Of course, do not use this to buy like 10,000 copies and try to game the system like some folks, ahem.)
I first started my foray into direct sales by buying books to sell at in-person events. Later, I opened my online store. Now, this is definitely not the biggest part of my business, but I’m still making about $7/book versus less than $2 (7.5% of the trade paperback retail price) when a reader buys from a bookstore.
However, one of the biggest reasons to go through the trouble of packaging up books and schlepping them to the post office is connection. Readers who can’t come to the few signings I attend still get a personalized book.
So, if you’re traditionally published, double-check your contract, and don’t assume you can’t sell anything.
Tech Options: How to Set It Up
Here are some great platforms for selling direct:
Payhip – This was my go-to for years. Even though I’m a professional web developer and build ecommerce websites for clients, I went with the simplest and cheapest option for myself for quite a long time. With Payhip, there’s nothing to install on your website and very little barrier to entry.
It’s definitely my recommendation for beginners. There’s no monthly fee, but they charge a 5% transaction fee. Reporting and statistics are not the best in the business, and exporting addresses for shipping was a bit of a headache, but I still recommend them. Perfect is the enemy of done.
Shopify – This software runs a huge percentage of e-commerce stores on the internet. You can create stores with hundreds or thousands of products, or just a few. However, there is a $39/month minimum monthly fee, which is why I don’t recommend it for those just starting out or with only a few books.
Shopify is powerful and polished, with lots of apps (most of them with an extra monthly fee) that can provide you with a metric ton of functionality.
I moved my store to Shopify recently because I wanted some of these extra features that Payhip doesn’t offer, and I also wanted a more direct connection with my shipping program to reduce friction in the process.
It does take time to build a Shopify store—it’s not necessarily for the faint of heart. However, it allowed me to use one of the many apps to do my non-Kickstarter, pre-order campaign for my special edition hardcover omnibus.
I’m using the Fundpop Crowdfunding app to collect preorders for this special edition and allow readers to reserve a copy without paying until we reach a specific sales goal.
Running an actual Kickstarter campaign (which is another kind of direct sales) requires more resources than I have available at the moment, but I wanted to gauge interest in the special edition and get a good idea of how many books to order before committing to actually ordering them.
WooCommerce — This WordPress plugin is great for those already with sites on that platform. I build a lot of WordPress sites and initially planned to go in this direction. However, the main barrier here is maintenance. Again, I have been a freelance website developer for over 20 years, so the maintenance is not a problem from a technical perspective. But I needed to consider how much time I wanted to spend building the store from scratch and customizing it to my specifications.
For those who will need to hire someone like me to build a store for them, the basic costs for a developer to create a WooCommerce or a Shopify site are similar. However, with WooCommerce you will have to budget for regular maintenance, updating the plugins and such. Most laypeople can run WordPress updates themselves without issues, unless it’s one of those 1% of times when an update cause some kind of catastrophe.
The main pro for WooCommerce is that it runs on your own website. Shopify is hosted on Shopify’s servers and if they ever go out of business, or change their terms of service, or do something else you don’t like, you’ve invested a lot in someone else’s real estate. With WordPress and WooCommerce, everything is on your own digital land. For better or for worse.
There are other associated costs for WooCommerce, mainly plugins, which, like Shopify apps, provide additional functionality generally are paid software.
Integrations & Tools
Email: All of these options connect with email software such as MailChimp, MailerLite, ConvertKit, etc. to grow your email list.
Book delivery: All connect with the very necessary BookFunnel for a smooth download experience for ebooks and audiobooks.
Shipping: I use PirateShip for discounted postage. (With US Postal Service shipping always choose media mail if possible—it’s the cheapest option.) Shopify and WooCommerce both integrate directly with PirateShip. You’ll be copying and pasting or importing addresses from Payhip.
Payments — Stripe and PayPal are the standard go-tos. Easy and secure.
Why Direct Sales Might Not Be For You
Let’s be real—it’s not all sunshine and instant sales. Selling direct from your site comes with its share of annoyances and headaches.
There’s a not insignificant time and tech investment up front.
Sales tax and VAT can get complicated (One benefit of Payhip is that they deal with the VAT for you if you’re selling internationally). And you’ll definitely need to do some research or check with an accountant to see what the sales tax thresholds are in your location and when you’ll have to pay them and how.
You’ll need to handle customer support (missing packages, downloads that won’t open, etc.—BookFunnel is a godsend for this). People aren’t always nice when they need customer support, and it’s an extra thing for you to do.
If you’re selling physical books, you will have to ship them out. Depending on where you live, the post office will pick up some outgoing deliveries. However, I don’t believe they do that with media mail. You’ll also need packaging and shipping supplies: boxes, bubble wrap or filler, labels, etc.
And probably the biggest one: discoverability. Just because you build it doesn’t mean they’ll come. You have to drive traffic to your store. That’s a whole separate post, though. (Let me know in the comments if you’d like to see that!)
Final Thoughts
Selling direct isn’t about replacing retailers—it’s about diversifying your income, connecting with readers, and owning more of your business.
You don’t have to be a tech expert to get started. It doesn’t have to be fancy—just functional.
If you’ve been thinking about trying direct sales, start small. Try selling a short story bundle, a signed book, or a digital goodie. See how it feels.
Have questions? Want to share what’s working for you? Drop a comment—I’d love to hear about your experience!
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Thanks for sharing this!