Greedflation

Oh, isn’t this nice? Amazon will now be taking a 50% cut of printed book sales. Considering all the printing fees, if anyone prices a book below $9.99, the writer’s commission will be $0. I’ve always listed my printed book price as $9.99, so I will now be earning nothing on every sale, which is significantly less than the whopping $1.49 I was making. I guess Jeff Bezos is eyeing a new rocket that he wants to buy.

I don’t write to make money, I write because I enjoy doing so. I love exercising that brain muscle, so I’ll keep doing it. It just sucks that I won’t be getting that little $1.49 dopamine hit when I make a measly printed sale.

So, what’s the royalty rate for ebooks, a reader might ask? Here’s the breakdown:

• 35% royalty: the Amazon sales commission is 65% for books priced below $2.99 and above $9.99
• 70% royalty: the Amazon sales commission is 30% for books priced between $2.99 and $9.99

Also, there is an Amazon delivery fee of $0.15 per megabyte (MB) for the file size of your Kindle eBook for each book sold that is priced between $2.99 and $9.99, if you choose the 70% royalty option. A minimum delivery fee of $0.01 applies, and the fees may vary by country. For books priced below $2.99 or above $9.99, no delivery charge is incurred with the 35% royalty option.

I list my ebooks for 0.99¢. At the 35% royalty rate, I make a .35¢ royalty fee for every ebook sale, which is now significantly more than I’ll be making on a printed sale.

Medium is where I learned to desensitize myself against the idea of making money from my writing. I demonetized my articles after consistently receiving only two cents in royalty payments. Moving my writings in front of the paywall wasn’t a hard decision. Seriously, I’d rather my writings be free and available to increase my chances of people reading them.

I’m adopting the same attitude now towards my published works. Once the June changes go into effect, I’m going to reduce my printed price to be as close to cost as possible. I will see how low Amazon will allow me to go. I refuse to raise my prices, so if I’m going to make zero, I want Amazon to share in those proceeds.

I officially understand the philosophies behind Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book.

Moral of this story is: don’t be a writer to make money. Be a writer only because you are. Oh, and fuck Capitalism. And monopolies. And Oligarchs. And…I could go on.

My books Memory Road Trip (e-book, paperback, audio) and Time Traveled (e-book, paperback, audio) are both available! You can also find them at most major international book sites.