stop selling your books on Amazon KDP do this instead i published my very first book on Amazon in 2009 back then it was pretty much the only option there was Ingram Spark Lulu Express press. barnesandnoble. com Publish Drve like none of those options existed yet back then it was something called Createspace and then Createspace had a partnership with Amazon so you publish through Createspace and then you were able to put it on Amazon.
com through Createspace that was the process but here's the thing that nobody told us back then when you sell directly through Amazon. com with your book it is nearly impossible to make money and I'm not talking about just like 25 cents 35 cents yeah you can do that easily on Amazon. com i'm talking about real money like $35 a book sale which is what I make now in fact my first year as a self-published author I made a total of $126 the entire year and that was profit of course that wasn't that wasn't revenue that wasn't gross that was net so basically what I kept after Amazon would pay me my little my little royalty checks it was so bad and I didn't realize that I was never going to achieve my goal of making a full-time living writing and self-publishing my own books using that business model until one day I was having a conversation with my hairdresser at the time and she was successfully running her own business and I said to her "Man I'm making all these sales i'm doing all this marketing but I'm only walking away with 25 cents and she said "What?
" I said "Yeah I'm only walking away with 25 cents after I make a sale. " She said "Walk me through your numbers. " So I told her "I listed the book for sale for $10 the book itself cost like $6 something cents to print and then there was the shipping fee and then royal and then Amazon was taking a 40% royalty on top of that so by the time everything was paid I was making 25 cents.
" My hairdresser looked at me she said "Stephanie you work for Amazon. " And it was this huge aha moment and I realized that it really doesn't matter as much as I love writing books as much as I'm so passionate about this art form and I'm so grateful God made me a writer i've been a writer since I was 6 years old i love writing it doesn't really matter does it if I'm broke because at the end of the day even if I'm loving writing and I'm enjoying the process if I can't make money with it then I just have a very expensive hobby and that's not the goal for me as an author and for you as an author we are here to yes express ourselves through our art but we are here to make money to get paid for our art because that's what an artist should be able to do everybody else gets to go go to work and get paid for their for their services right why is it as authors we're expected to just hand over 40% of every sale we make to a company that had nothing to do with writing the book now if you're thinking to yourself "Hey listen i like selling through Amazon. com i like having Amazon.
com take care of all the work for me and all this stuff cool i'm not trying to discourage you from that however I do want you to just add an additional sales platform okay just add if you want to keep it on Amazon that's fine but let's just add because if you sell the way I'm going to teach you inside of this video number one you are going to be able to have access to your own customers email address yes ma'am did you notice that when you send people to Amazon. com to purchase your book Amazon doesn't tell you who they are did you notice that but Amazon knows who they are and Amazon retargets that person that you sent to their website with other books from other authors the disrespect instead if you send that person to your own website to purchase you now have their email address and you can present them with your second book and your third book and your fourth because my vision for you in the name of Jesus is for you to be a 25 Pete a 50 Pete praise God right now I'm working on book number 59 you can absolutely do this because you're going to have your own customer list the second benefit is when you sell through your own website instead of through Amazon. com you now don't have to give Amazon that 40% amount of your revenue yes if you price your book within the $2.
99 to $9. 99 category you can keep 70% of the sale which is great but for all the rest of us it's like 40% 50% sometimes 70% that they're taking and it's just insane we're just giving them money for no reason because you are doing the work to sell your book and then the third biggest reason that I recommend you create your own platform even if you're going to keep selling on Amazon still create your own platform to sell on is because Amazon can shut down your author account anytime they want to and I mean anytime they want to so I am transitioning my business into writing Christian romance novels i'm launching my own personal brand i'm so excited about it and I've been loving writing these books right i joined a few self-publishing groups on Facebook because I wanted to connect with other Christian romance novelists and it's and I just wanted to kind of network and just be part of that space and I've discovered something so many of these authors are getting their accounts shut down out of nowhere they're getting these random emails from Amazon KDP saying you violated some sort of random policy and we're cut shutting down your account but the worst part they're not even giving them the money that they already earned they said "Oh the royalties you've made we're just going to keep that. " I am blown away that this is even legal but apparently if we read Amazon's terms and conditions they have every right to do this therefore if you are building your author business solely on Amazon.
com if one day day they decide you violated this rule or you talked too much about faith or you talked about too much about this they can just shut down your account they don't have to even give you an excuse and worse they don't have to pay you the money that you already earned holy cow don't give amazon. com ownership of your business build your own platform that belongs to you that is run by you and that lets you be able to keep all the money that you earn that you rightfully earn through the art you are producing by sitting and typing out those words you're producing this art you should be paid for it so let's show you how step number one to stop selling your books on Amazon KDP is to build your own website build your own author website so we have to have a place where people can come to securely purchase our books one of the beautiful benefits about selling on Amazon. com is that everybody is familiar with Amazon.
com they're already purchasing you know kitchen supplies and electronics and clothing now we all buy clothing from Amazon i would have never thought that would have happened years ago but I find myself ordering dresses now from Amazon. com they're a beast at e-commerce and we are already used to it so it's kind of easy to have somebody purchase our book from it right but if we're trying to do this on our own platform we need to create the same type of secure buying experience for our customer as they would have on Amazon. com and the way you're going to do this is through building a website and I highly recommend you use a template one of the big I do a lot of website audits for fellow authors here at Godlywood Girl and one of the biggest problems I see is that the website looks completely unprofessional if somebody is coming to your website to purchase and it looks like a scam website they will not purchase nobody wants to be defrauded right nobody wants to be calling the bank all day having to cancel all these credit cards and switch all these bank account information nobody wants that so you have to make sure your website looks secure and professional and the way to do that is to use a template i am begging you i know we're creatives i know we want to have pink backgrounds and this and that and have drop shadows and flying around cartoon animations i get it but that is not what we need to be doing when we're selling books okay we want to model the professional e-commerce look of Amazon.
com using a professional website template i'm so excited to show you how to build your website quickly using AI a huge shout out to hosting. com they have sponsored today's video and they've given me a discount code for you guys go to hosting. com/godlywoodgirl go ahead and pick your plan i love the business plan um you get multiple websites and the best thing 0% transaction fee so when you make a sale you actually get to keep it so go ahead and click choose plan and then what I love about Hostinger the longer the period that you choose the less you'll pay each month so if you pay the do the 48-month plan oh my goodness look at this like if you were on Shopify it would be $29 per month no matter how long you're on there i love that about Hostinger they reward your longevity and you'll also get free additional months included when you do the longer period plan and then over here where it says have a coupon code click that and type in Godlywood girl and shout out to Hinger they gave me a 10% off coupon exclusive for you guys just put in Godlywood girl and it'll take 10% off your order so go ahead and click continue once you're on this page go ahead and let Hostinger know what you do so I'll say goal setting tips i share goal setting tips goal setting tips to help authors be productive and then just click create a website and you're gonna see how quickly Hostinger does this for you it's so amazing look at this just like that you got a website you see this it's amazing and they they even create the tips for you it's so cool so um if you want to get a different version just click create again or if you like what you see which I love what I see go ahead and select it i'm going to select this purple scheme though because I know my book is purple um very cute so click continue and Hostingers what you see is what you get you literally click and edit click and edit click and edit um so up top yep i'll keep goal setting tips home blog like Hostinger started a blog for me so okay thank you i'll just click here and delete because I don't have testimonials yet um under tips let's see what we got achieve your goals yep they This is just more stuff that they made for me cool i'm not mad at it and they made this for me they made all of this for I didn't have to do any of it um I'm going to keep the the blog here achieve your dreams i'm going to keep this here goal setting strategies yep keep all that there get in touch excellent thanks and then just down here I'll probably just delete these because I don't have social media this is you know just a demo i always like to keep the email address box so that you can um be building your email list all the time um yeah this is it so one thing I the only thing I might change is just clicking in here and click I kind of don't want to though because I really like this purple yeah i'm going to click edit section change this to video that's the only I love to make hosting your videos and then I'll just select goal setting you see this this they give this to you for free how amazing is this they literally give this to you for free like all these videos as part of your hosting plan i love it um so I'll just scroll through and find somebody doing goal setting like she looks great select item beautiful beautiful love this so I have a website up and running in just a couple of minutes step number two to stop selling your books on Amazon.
com is to create your book listing information create your book listing information so for us to be able to sell our book we need to make sure people understand why they need to buy our book and this is where selling on your own website actually gives you an advantage over amazon. com so if you've ever listed your book for sale on Amazon. com you know through KDP you only have 5,000 characters to work with you can't embed photos you can't embed mockups nothing like that you all you can do is just fill in those little characters but on your own website you can do this page up you can make it look exactly how you want it to look you can have mockups you can have sneak peeks you can have video where you're introducing your book and talking about your book and most importantly you can write a sales letter explaining to somebody why they should purchase your book you want for this page to explain how your book is a solution to somebody's problem now if you have not written a book that's a solution to somebody's problem let me let me let me just pause a little bit to give you some business advice that I wish somebody had told me when I started in 2009 when you write a book you are you should be writing a book that's a solution to somebody's problem people don't just buy books they buy solution to the problems in the form of a book so you want to make sure you write a book that's a clear solution to a clear problem that's going to make your marketing very much simpler I'll say um if you don't know how to write a book that's a clear solution to a clear problem get into the God that would grow faith-based author school i have the 30-day write your book boot camp where I'll show you how to do it from not not even having an idea just I'll show you how to do it from scratch to published book that is a clear solution to a clear problem so go ahead and get together your book mockup your product description and set up your book listing on your website just do it up sis imagine like you're talking to somebody in person but they're reading it on the page and the third step to stop selling your book on Amazon KDP is to list your book for sale on your own website list your book for sale on your own website this is super fun this part because I don't know you get to like see the tangible result of all your hard work as an artist it's really cool and yes as a writer you are an artist took me a long time to accept that this is an art form but it is because we get to paint like we get to paint pictures with words which is really cool anyway what you're going to do is you're going to log into the back end of your website you're going to create a new product and you're going to upload your book you're going to put in your product description put in your mockups hopefully you have a sales video and just press publish and now it's available for sale on your website once this is all done you are officially an indie author you officially have your own author platform that nobody can shut down nobody can shut down it's going to give you the customer's email address it's going to allow you to retarget to your customer when you write book number two three four and most importantly you get to keep your entire sale you don't got to share with a billion-dollar company that already makes a million dollars like multiple million dollars like they don't need our money they already make it so now I just need to add my book to my website and every time you publish a new book you're just going to go into Hostinger and you're going to add it and you're going to have a whole online bookstore so on the left here on the panel click add store click add store and it's going to give you um some play products go ahead and just click inside and click manage products it's going to give you some demo products so on your back end go ahead and select all these products and just hit delete delete and then add your book and this is how you're going to add all your books as you publish go in and add a new book every time you write a new book so you're going to click add product mine is a digital product if yours is physical select physical and you're going to love this part click upload images and generate product details with AI it's going to write your product description for you so right here I'm going to grab my ebook template click open and the AI is going to do its thing sis you're going to love this look at this goal setting 101 a step-by-step guide to achieving your goals and it tells you it tells you i love that so much okay um so I'm just going to put my long title here um $15 is fine and then right here you would just click upload files and you would upload your PDF obviously I don't really have one cuz it's just a demo but you would upload your ebook here i like to have my link available for 30 days and I like to turn off show related products but that is a personal preference and once you're all done click save and now you can go ahead and exit out of the product manager go back to your home and right under home you see it says start and learn click start or your button might look a little different but whatever that button is go ahead and click it edit button change that to shop and right here where it says link to change that to page and select your product you want at the very top we call it above the fold in graphic design for it for your book to be available for sale and then here right under click add section select online store select single product and your book will be here now if you have multiple books published you're going to need to go in and manage the product and select the specific one that you want um but this is the only one we have right now and then under layout you can change this to portrait if your um book cover is a little bit fuller like mine you can also do square landscape it's pretty cool and that's it my love that's it once you're all done click save click preview and this is your website that you just made with Hostinger in a couple of minutes has tips has a blog has resources and your book is available for sale and every time you publish a new book go in and add the book and you're going to have your whole bookstore here available for people to purchase this is how you can create and sell your own books without using Amazon KDP and you are able to keep all of the profit my love just build your Hostinger site so to get started with Hostinger go to hostinger.
com/godwoodgirl use discount code GodlywoodGirl at checkout to take 10% off your entire hosting plan if you need help doing this make sure you come join my free 3-day start your book business challenge where I'll show you how to build your author platform step by step go to christianbusinesstoolkit. com and don't forget if you want to see my formula for writing self-publishing your own book get into the Godlywood Girl Faith-based author school i show you how to do it step by step let me give you a little sneak peek hey it's your girl Steph Rodnez and if you've been struggling to move forward on your journey as a faith-based author I've created a brand new community called the Godlywood Girl Faith-Based Author School just for women like you who want to move forward in your purpose as a woman of Christ writing books the school includes the author toolkit which has 10 tutorials for 10 different types of Christian books you can write including non-fiction books daily devotionals prayer journals ebooks there's a lot in there you'll get access to the Godlywood Girl Book Funnel Toolkit which shows you how to take your book bundle it up and put it into a sales funnel including a lead magnet funnel a trip wire funnel and my very favorite a webinar funnel you'll get access to the book promotion toolkit which shows you how to create a marketing plan to promote your funnel because in order for people to buy our books right we have to tell them about it that's what the marketing toolkit shows you how to do plus you'll get access to a community of other women who are writing faith-based books just like you are sis you do not have to do this alone come join the brand new Godlywood Girl Faith-based author school so you can get the tutorials you need you can get the community you need and most importantly you can get the network that you need to step into your purpose as a faith-based author i can't wait to see you there visit christianschool.
