Self-publishing · Less obvious
Direct sales from your own shop
The customer pays you. You keep the customer.
Selling from your own website — paperbacks, ebooks, special editions, bundles — means you keep the majority of the price and, more importantly, the email address. It is more work than a store. It is also the only version of publishing in which the reader is yours rather than Amazon's. Festivals, newsletters, and a decent shop page are how this becomes real money rather than a button nobody presses.
- Typical pay
- Often 70–90% of the price after payment fees and print cost. The ceiling is your audience, not a retailer's algorithm.
- Ceiling
- Uncapped
- Speed
- First money in months
- Effort
- A job in itself
- Needs
- Needs an audience
How it works
- 01
You set up a shop (Shopify, Gumroad, Payhip, WooCommerce, or a specialist book shopfront) and a way to deliver files or print copies.
- 02
You send traffic from your list, your social channels, your talks, and your printed inserts.
- 03
You fulfil: a download, a POD order, or a signed copy from a box under the desk.
How to start
- 01
Get the email list first. A shop without a list is a closed café.
- 02
Offer something the stores cannot: a signed copy, a bundle, a bonus essay, a sprayed-edge special.
- 03
Price in postage honestly. Undercharging shipping is a way to lose money while feeling successful.
Watch out
- 01
Customer service is now your job. Lost parcels are a literary form.
- 02
VAT and consumer law apply. A shop is a shop.
- 03
Do not take your books off the major stores until the direct channel actually works. Parallel is saner than purity.
Every publisher I have ever been knows that the names on the list are worth more than the names on the bestseller chart. Direct sales are how a writer becomes, in a small way, a publisher with one author on the list. Start with the list.