Do you have to use Amazon to publish your book?

I strongly recommend publishing on Amazon. Sometimes people ask about going through other platforms because they don’t want to support Amazon — this is understandable, but inadvisable.

Amazon is free and shouldn’t be complicated if you follow the steps in Week 11 and ask questions if you get stuck on any of the steps that I outline.

Another benefit to using Amazon is that they just take a small cut of your sales — around 30% for e-books and 50% for paperbacks (for printing and shipping/distribution). Many other online platforms take a much higher percentage, and traditional publishers take closer to 90%(!).

Around 75% of online book sales go through Amazon. It unquestionably gives you the widest distribution, visibility and social proof.

Remember: Amazon is not a publisher — they simply print and distribute the book that you own 100% of the creative rights to. They are not allowed to make changes to your materials, nor do they want to. They simply facilitate the printing and distribution of your book.

Some people have inquired about printing spiral-bound books. Amazon does not currently print spiral-bound books themselves, but you can go through a separate company (like Lulu) to do that. So, you can still sell a spiral-bound book on Amazon. It will just be printed by a different company.