Authors Selling Direct: Ecommerce for Authors: Authors Selling Direct, #1

By Morgana Best

Authors Selling Direct: Ecommerce for Authors tells you how to grow your own author business rather than help the retailers grow theirs.

Learn from a multiple USA Today Bestselling fiction and non-fiction author who has been involved in ecommerce for decades. Morgana Best is a Klaviyo Partner, a Shopify Partner, and a Partner Member of the Alliance of Independent Authors.
 

Authors Selling Direct: Ecommerce for Authors replaces the book, Stop Making Others Rich.

The groundbreaking book, Authors Selling Direct:Ecommerce for Authors, offers a new perspective to authors, showing authors an alternative to the retailers, and introducing the untapped potential of owning your own online bookstore.

This paradigm shift is not just about selling books. It's about taking control of your sales process, maximizing profits, and owning the customer.

Imagine not worrying about shipping. Print books are automatically handled for you. No more time-consuming trips to the post office. The book tells you about automated processes for Print on Demand and book delivery, and about delivery for ebooks and audiobooks with customer service taken care of for you.
 

Authors Selling Direct: Ecommerce for Authors

When you have your own ecommerce store, you can unleash the power of your backlist titles. With your own store, it matters not to the customer whether your books are ten years old or one month old. With your own ecommerce store, "Rapid release" becomes a thing of the past. You can write in whatever bizarre categories you like. No more category constraints.
 

Authors Selling Direct: Ecommerce for Authors

tells you the importance of owning the customer. It tells you how to increase your earnings with automated cross-sells and upsells.

The book explains the huge difference between Facebook Traffic ads, the ones you have no choice but to use for the retailers, and Facebook Sales ads, the ones you use for ecommerce.

What's more, having your own ecommerce store gives you complete control over returns. No more dealing with third-party policies that might not always be in your favour. 

Learn why ecommerce email and SMS marketing is nothing like the email marketing systems authors use for selling on the retailers.

With an ecommerce store, you can set up automated reviews. No more worrying about your ARC team or searching for reviewers. And no more concerns that a retailer will remove reviews.

One of the major benefits of having your ecommerce store, as outlined in the book, is the security of next-day payments. No more waiting for 60 days for payments from retailers. 

Authors Selling Direct: Ecommerce for Authors has you covered if you've ever been confused about international sales tax. It explains the complex world of international sales tax in simple, understandable terms, helping you navigate this tricky area with ease.
Discover insider tips for correct store set up. Anybody can set up a store, but stores need to be set up correctly.

Authors Selling Direct: Ecommerce for Authors is a game-changer. It's not just a book; it's a roadmap to a more profitable and stress-free authorship.

This is the future of authorship, and it's time to embrace it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Better Best Press
• Release date: Apr 11, 2024
• ISBN: 9781923098169

Morgana Best

After surviving a childhood of deadly spiders and venomous snakes in the Australian outback, bestselling author Morgana Best writes cozy mysteries and enjoys thinking of delightful new ways to murder her victims.

Book preview

Authors Selling Direct

AUTHORS SELLING DIRECT

ECOMMERCE FOR AUTHORS

MORGANA BEST

BETTER BEST PRESS

 Live to accomplish your own goals and dreams or be used as a resource to accomplish someone else's.

GRANT CARDONE

CONTENTS

Dr. Morgana Best

Foreword

1. Introduction

2. Pay yourself first

3. What is Ecommerce?

4. It’s ALL about the customer

5. Audiences

6. Avoid Free

7. Don’t build a castle on rented land

8. Don't be afraid of change

9. Bundles

10. Email and SMS marketing

11. Facebook Sales Ads

12. What is your desired outcome?

13. SEO

14 The Book Whisperer

15. Mobile commerce

16. Apps and Plugins

17. 7 ways to sell from your author store or website

18. Let’s get legal!

19. Influencer marketing

20. International currencies

21. Tokengating and NFTs

22. Have a business mindset.

23. A hot mess?

Some Shopify stores for you to study

24. Merchandise

25. Selling Print Books

26. Accepting payments

27. Pen names

28. Translations

29. Selling on Socials

30. International Sales Tax

Appendix: Policies for the Footer

My course for authors selling direct

About the Author

Notes

Authors Selling Direct TM:

Ecommerce for Authors

Copyright © 2024 by Morgana Best ™

All rights reserved.

ISBN 9781923098169

Better Best Press

Authors Selling Direct ™

March 2024 Update

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

No part of this book is to be construed as financial advice or guidance.

Disclaimer: This book is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to replace professional advice. Morgana Best is not a certified tax advisor. Morgana Best is not a financial adviser. Morgana Best is sharing her option from her own experience with no guarantee of gains or losses. For further help, or if you are ever in doubt, please consult a professional tax advisor or accountant or tax authorities.

A very small number of links are affiliate links, which means I receive a small percentage of sales if you wish to purchase, but you do not pay any more for this. Please note that these are only for products which I have used or use.

DR. MORGANA BEST

FOUNDER, AUTHORS SELLING DIRECT

Klaviyo Partner

Shopify Partner

Partner Member, The Alliance of Independent Authors

Klaviyo Partner, Shopify Partner, Partner Member, The Alliance of Independent Authors

FOREWORD

The first version of this book was released some years ago when most authors hadn’t heard of selling direct.

The book was called Stop Making Others Rich: How Authors Can Make Bank Selling Direct. Only around 10% of the original content is still in this book, and I have changed the title.

Anyone who buys this ebook directly from my store, authorssellingdirect.com will receive updates to this book at no cost.

It’s important to note that I do not teach a special scheme, a secret sauce, or a special method. Big businesses do not follow any secret sauce or method. No, they adhere to sound ecommerce principles, and you should too.

Don’t have shiny ball syndrome and seek something out of the box that will help you sell more, because what will help you sell more is to adhere to sound ecommerce principles. Get your storefront right and your flows in place. Make sure your SEO is good because that will drive free traffic to your store.

1. INTRODUCTION

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Selling direct requires a complete mindset shift. Your author store is not simply another retailer. If you have an author store, you have an ecommerce business. If you are selling on the retailers, you do not have an ecommerce business.

I realise the thought of selling direct and the ways to accomplish it successfully can be daunting to authors who have never sold direct, but it really is a join the dots process. The thought of it can be unnerving, like visiting the dentist. It’s always better than you think.

Selling direct does pose challenges unique to authors. For a start, our products are a low price. At least half our products are digital. And while our main market is generally in one or maybe two countries, our audience is international.

The strategies we employ when selling direct are not the strategies we employ when selling on the retailers. The two are worlds apart. We need to approach selling direct as an ecommerce business owner rather than as an author. Books are products.

I have a comprehensive course on selling direct on Shopify for authors who would like a detailed step-by-step process.

There is no magic wand.

I’m fond of magic wands. I write paranormal, after all. But if you’re looking for a shortcut, go and look for the Loch Ness monster instead. It will be easier to find.

Authors often lament that they have no time to set up a store. The magic leprechaun won’t set up a store for you. If you want to have a successful business, you will need to put in the work.

It’s time to get the facts on selling direct as an author. I’m excited, and I’m sure you will be too.

What can you do?

It’s easy to set up bundles of ebooks and audiobooks in your store.

It’s easy to set up pre-orders for both digital and print books.

You can sell print books all over the world without ever going to the Post Office.

And if you have Shopify, you can do duplicate product pages for the same print book set up to sell to different parts of the world. For example, you might want to self-fulfil books to your own country but use a Print on Demand (POD) book printer to sell books in the UK and use a different printer to sell books in Canada. This is all doable. I hope I didn’t I make your head spin, but I wanted to tell you what was possible.

If you’re in the US and have already blown up on TikTok or are hoping to do so, you can use Acutrack, which is not a POD model but is a book printer and fulfilment centre. It ships books same day and is used by authors selling volume on TikTok.

No more harassing your ARC team or paying a dodgy (or maybe non-dodgy) review service. Your review app will email people and ask them to review and will remind them as well, and what’s more, it will post the reviews on your site. After you set it up, you don’t need to do a thing.

Your ecommerce email and SMS marketing system will make you actual passive income – you’ll have to set it up in the first place, of course. However, once you do, these flows will continue to make you money. Klaviyo email and SMS marketing typically brings in 30% of a store‘s income.

You can have cross sells and upsells in place. Think Amazon’s Frequently Bought Together; you can do that too. You can even have a post-purchase flow which appears on the thank you page after somebody has bought. This has an almost 100% open rate.

You can have (absolutely need!) BookFunnel to handle customer support for you at no extra cost to yourself, for ebook and audiobook sales. And if you think you’re not going to need customer support, well, just excuse me while I break off and chuckle.

2. PAY YOURSELF FIRST

Pay yourself first.

GEORGE S. CLASON, THE RICHEST MAN IN BABYLON

I have always loved books. For me, they were a form of escapism. I was born before the Internet, and as my parents were too strict to have a television, books were my only method of escape. I was an avid reader, reading anything and everything I could. My favourite book as a child was Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree. I also liked The Secret Seven and went on from there to Agatha Christie.

I loved animal books, but the animals usually died. Very upsetting for a child. I suspect that’s why I now write cozy mysteries. Only people are harmed, never animals. It warms my heart.

So books are my thing, and the reason I sell direct is mainly for security, but also because I find it fun.

And this is why. And, as they say in the movies:

Decades earlier

My mother was from a wealthy, entrepreneurial family but married into the Closed Brethren. My father's extended family was infamous amongst the Brethren for being horribly strict.

We had to wear head coverings to church, which was not called church but rather a meeting, and we had to attend all the weekly meetings. We were not allowed to have friends from school at our house, and we were not allowed to go to their houses.

When I was a teenager, my mother decided to leave the Brethren. Her brother was second in charge of a religious cult, and she threw herself into that.

What does this have to do with selling direct, you ask? I'm getting to that!

In this religious cult, everybody was told to marry any random person from the cult. They said the world would end in the next few years, so it didn't matter who you married.

My sisters and I were sent off to a Christmas camp, which was basically a matchmaking effort.

Long story short, I ended up marrying a man from the cult. He decided to sink his money into a business venture and to save money bought a block of land with a small iron shed on it. It had