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Am I the only one struggling with this issue on Amazon? Please tell me no!

I will try to recap this for you without going into great detail. I self-published my book "Mission Possible" through my publishing company, and had an independent press print 750 copies for me to begin with. I secured distribution into Ingram/Spring Arbor through a company in New York. I have shipped them books more than once. I also started an Amazon Advantage account and listed my book for sale. This was my first exposure to selling on Amazon, and as such, did not fully understand how it really worked. But I believe I have finally figured out my dilema...
I believe there were "book sellers" that purchased my book at a discount through the distributor, and then listed them for sale on Amazon. There was no other way for them to get my book other than getting them directly from me or from the distributor. They always had a cheaper price than I did on Amazon because I had to sell for retail (or could only adjust the price every now & then). I was so frustrated until I realized I might be able to "beat the system".
Follow me here -
I started another Amazon seller account - same email - but different password. I uploaded the info, and listed it for less than the cheapest seller by almost $1.00 . Since I own all of my own books (and have them here physically) I could sell for whatever I wanted to and even undercut them. And yes, I'm still making a profit :)

Below is the link to the page, and you can see that I am the first seller listed! If you hit the "return to product information" and go back to the book listing page, you'll see I have it for sale for $9.95 (I sell it for $7.95 on my website - includes free shipping).

Does any of this make sense to you? I believe I might actually sell some books on Amazon now :) Love to hear your comments!

Here is the link to the Amazon page:

http://amzn.to/apP2g6

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Amanda Dowdy on May 18, 2011 at 1:01pm

I know this thread has been up for a while, but it is still relevant. Thank you for this discussion about Amazon resellers. As a book distributor (AtlasBooks), we get questions about this from time to time from our publishing partners. I did a blog post today about Amazon's policy and linked to this discussion. SPANnet truly is a great place to discuss these important and sometimes confusing topics. Here is a link to our blog post that referenced this discussion: http://wp.me/pwSaL-Gb

Permalink Reply by Deborah McCarragher on May 18, 2011 at 1:55pm

Hi Amanda,

I finally got smart and created another Seller Account (as the Publisher) for my book on Amazon. I'm listed as Alabaster Box Publishing and now have the lowest price (along with one other Seller). Figured I'd try to outsmart them. (lol)

I'm still making a profit on the sale of my book (including shipping) - so we'll see how it goes...

Here's the link: http://amzn.to/apP2g6

Deborah

Permalink Reply by Deborah McCarragher on May 18, 2011 at 2:00pm

Amanda - I enjoyed reading your post on Atlas Books. I even printed it out to save the article. It is so confusing trying to figure out how Amazon sales actually work within the Advantage Program.

Also, isn't Atlas part of Book Masters?

Again, thanks for your response to my original post!

Blessings,

Deborah

Permalink Reply by Amanda Dowdy on May 19, 2011 at 7:24am

Hi Deborah - I'm glad you enjoyed the post. Amazon can be confusing sometimes. Since we work with lots of publishers, we get to dig in with Amazon questions often enough. I'm glad you have found a way to sell that works for you!

And yes, AtlasBooks is a part of BookMasters. It is one of the distribution arms. I posted more about what we do in one of the SPANnet discussion threads: Distribution Options...Does One Size Fit All?