Are you a Nigerian or African author aspiring to publish your book on Amazon?

Actually, publishing on Amazon is a great idea. But, just like any other platform, Amazon publishing has its pros and cons. And there are a lot of things you need to know about Amazon before you get to publish on the platform, especially because of the geographic location. Knowing about these things will help you in making decisions that will affect your book’s sales and ultimately, the overall success of your book.

Now, without much ado, the following are some of the important things you need to consider before publishing your book on Amazon;

1.Your Objective
One of the most important things to consider before publishing on Amazon is your objective as an author.

Before you get started on your publishing journey, you need to ask yourself, what exactly are my objectives? What do i want to gain by publishing this book?

Is your objective precisely to make money online as a published author? Are you trying to create a voice or you just want to leave a legacy that will showcase your expertise?

If your publishing objective is the former or latter, your strategy will be different.

Understanding your objective helps you in getting things in the right perspectives, before you finally kickstart your publishing journey.

After getting clear with your objective(s), you can head over to create your goals and marketing strategy, based on that.

2. The target Audience
The second important thing you need to consider before publishing on Amazon is your target audience.

This is a no brainer. There’s always a need to consider your target audience before you embark on publishing on any platform, whether online or offline. This is very important.

To get started with this, you want to start with asking yourself questions like; who am i writing for? Who’s likely going to buy this book, after I get it into the market?

Are these people on Amazon? Do they buy books from Amazon or would they be willing to make purchase from Amazon, if I publish my book there.

Knowing the availability of your real target audience is very important to the success of your book.

Because if there’s no sufficient number of potential buyers for your book on Amazon then there might not be any need to publish on the platform in the first place.

Another thing you need to do is to consider the content of your book.

Does your content sit comfortably with this audience? Or is there a way they can connect to what you’re writing about?

Getting to know this clearly will guide you on your decisions as to whether publishing on Amazon will help you achieve your goals as an author or not.

3. The Listing Price
Before publishing on Amazon, you also need to consider the listing price for your book.

To get a realistic listing price for your book, there are certain things you need t look into. This includes among other things, the best price for the average buyer, based on the purchasing power of your audience and the price that will leave you with a decent royalty, after all expenses are deducted.

If you’re also publishing a paperback copy of your book on Amazon, before fixing your list price, you need to pay attention to the printing cost, cost of shipping the book to the buyer, Amazon charges and your own net royalty.

Having a fair knowledge of this will help you in setting a list price that will be beneficial to you, your audience and Amazon itself.

Considering the cost price and corresponding royalty, you’ll have to decide if publishing on Amazon is the right thing to do or not.

If making profit is your primary motive and publishing there is not worth it then you might want to consider an alternative platform.

https://www.victorwinners.com/publishing-on-amazon/

4. 35 VS. 70% Royalty Options
Publishing with Amazon offers you the chance to gain either 35 or 75 percent royalty earnings, based on the listing price for your book.

For all books sold below 2.99 Dollars, and over 9.99 Dollars, you stand to gain about 35% royalty remittance. On the other hand, books sold over 2.99 to 9.99 USD offers you a whooping 70% in royalty.

To choose a convenient royalty for your book, you’ll need to consider several options. For instance, you’ll have to put into consideration, factors like;

a.) Available territories where your books will be sold. Most of the time, the 70% royalty is only available for sales in the US and most of Europe.

For sales in some locations outside this, you’ll need to be enrolled in the Amazon KDP Select before you can enjoy the 70% royalty.

b.) Book Size; you’ll also need to consider the file size of your book, as this will affect your cumulative royalty per sales.

c.). Competition Pricing;
Finally, you’ll also need to put into consideration, the average prices for other books that are similar to yours.

Having a thorough look at these pointers will help you in choosing the right listing price and subsequently, the royalty that will be beneficial to you, based on your realities.

5. Marketing and Promotions
If your sole objective is to make money selling your book on Amazon then you’re going to do a lot of work when it comes to promoting the book.

Reason for this is because, you’re going to be the one doing most of the promotions for your book, if you really want to sell.

Of course, you can always pay people to promote your book on your behalf if you have the means.

Generally, you have the option of promoting your book either by the use of the free promotional options available or the paid promotions. I made a comprehensive post on how to promote your books on Amazon here.

When it comes to free promotion, there are a lot of things you can do to promote your book for free.

This could include things like enrolling your book in the KDP Select program and using the few available promotional options, getting an author website and blog, writing guest posts, getting featured on podcasts and interviews etc.

The paid promotion on the other hand can be quite pricey. Wit paid promotion, you can choose to use third party promotional platforms like social media Ads, paid ads on other websites, Google AdWords etc.

You’ll also have the option of using Amazon’s own paid promotion channels.

If you’re planning to use the Amazon platform for paid promotion, you’ll need to have at least 100 USD in your amazon account before you can get started.

If you’re not able to access such amount then promoting your book on Amazon might not be the thing for you

6. KDP Select
KDP Select is a program available to authors who are willing to give Amazon exclusive rights to sell their ebooks only on the Amazon stores, in return for some promotional tools that will help the author to sell even more books.

It is usually an optional offer in which users can opt in and opt out usually, within a period of 90 days.

While KDP Select usually sound promising for most new authors, it does not always mean all authors will make a lot of sales when they enroll on the program.

The program has both it’s pros and cons which includes for instance; that you will not be able to sell your book on any other platforms apart from Amazon while you’re still enrolled in the program.

This means that besides selling it offline, you’re stuck with selling your book only on Amazon, if you subscribe to the program.

On the positive sides, you can use the various available tools for KDP select authors, to promote your book.

Based on the foregoing, it is very important you study and understand your options before enrolling on the program.

7. Genre
Your genre is one other important thing you should consider before publishing online.

While it is not arguable that Amazon sells books on almost all the well known genres on earth, there are actually a handful of genres that command the largest number of sales on the platform.

In order to make effective sales on Amazon, you need to consider your book’s genre, and be sure you’re writing on a genre that has a reasonable number of fans on the platform.

Doing this will make it easier for you to promote and sell the book.

In conclusion, publishing on Amazon is a great idea but as always, there are certain things you will need to put into consideration before making a final decision to publish on the platform.

Now, over to you. When it comes to publishing on Amazon, which of these things are really of a great concern to you?

https://www.victorwinners.com/publishing-on-amazon/