Calling Indie Christian writers, Children's book authors, clean fiction writers (Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Romance, Young Adult, Children's fiction, Regency...) who would like to try something new!

I am always thinking about ways to tackle the marketing issue. It is my biggest enemy, but an enemy I want to defeat. Last year I started an online book store, and made quite a few sales in the beginning, but it fizzled out, and I didn't have the energy to do something about it. Now, I am ready to try this again, but I thought I might be more successful if I had other authors join my store. 

I am a self-published author through Kindle Direct Publishing/ Amazon. I am grateful for that option to get my work, out, without losing money I don't have, but let's face it, the paperback option is a big time rip-off. Sure, I make royalties, but because of the printing cost and everything and Amazon getting a good chunk, the royalty pay is super low, unless you make your book super expensive, but who likes to buy expensive books?

So, I looked for other ways to sell my work. The marketing situation is the same whether I sell through Amazon or do my thing, but by having my book store, I can play by my own rules. KDP lets you order author copies and so you have a much bigger playing field regarding pricing the books. I still have my books on Amazon as well, but I feel I am more in control. I also love that there is no interference with reviews, and anyone can post a review and don't have to have an account on Amazon or Goodreads. Not only that, but I am super frustrated with Amazon and how they target reviews and sometimes simply delete them. It ticks me off.

I transferred some of my reviews to my book store. On Amazon, my debut novel has 21 reviews on my bookstore, 37 reviews. I hate having to beg for reviews, but I hate it even more because not everyone has an account on those important platforms. Writing a review there is super easy, and you can even write reviews yourself (meaning transferring them from other platforms) so you have them all in one place.

So, if you are interested in joining me, here is my thinking/ plan:

Since this online store is geared towards Christians (religious-leaning audiences), teenagers and children, I only accept the following genres (as long as it is clean):

• Fantasy
• Romance
• Historical Fiction
• Young Adult
• Religious or inspirational
• Sci-fi
• Mystery
• Paranormal 
• non-fiction

Not accepted:

• Erotic
• Horror
• Cross-genre/ fiction
• short stories
• non-fiction bashing religious denominations, same-sex relationships, genders, cultures, etc.

How this will work:

I will be managing the store. I can add your email address, so you get a message each time the store makes a sale.  Since I just upgraded the store from free to more features, the cost is $20 a month. I also use stripe, so customers can pay with a credit card. If we are several authors doing this, I would only charge you $1 a month, which will help me cover the monthly cost. I am not sure yet, about stripe and the costs there, but I don't think it is much. You would need a PayPal account, so I can pay you  or a stripe account, so I can transfer it to you. I am still pretty new to stripe, so be patient when I figure things out.

You are in charge of your taxes regarding your income. The store is set for sales using Amazon shipping. I finally figured out the dang shipping set-up, but again that's all based on Amazon shipping since I will order my books directly through them, so I get the author discount. That also means I can only ship to the following countries: US, Australia, Germany, UK, Italy, Spain, France. (I can ship to other places as well, but I don't get author copies discounted and would have to add the difference to the shipping cost.) If you don't sell through Amazon or have a publisher, I need all the information on selling, including your shipping costs. The bookstore is great and adaptable, but shipping has to be a fixed price, otherwise customers will take advantage of you.

Depending on how many sales you make, I would pay you once a month through PayPal. My phone number changed recently, and I can't get into my dang account right now, but I am getting that fixed. I will only take out the cost for the website and stripe. You keep the rest.

Taxes are a bit of a pain in the butt, so right now it is a fixed percentage on shipping. Kindle books can be sold through Amazon. I added a link to my book description that will take customers directly to the page on Amazon. I tried to set it up through the bookstore, but it is so difficult to figure out and set up, and the e-book selling is actually pretty fair. Plus, we can keep our books on kindle unlimited.

Each author is in charge of ordering and shipping their books. I need the information for shipping and such for the website, but it will be up to you to take care of your orders, since I don't have access to your KDP (or others) accounts. The website sends out notification emails to let us know when a sale has been made. (Which is why I need your email address.) It can also send out dispatch/ shipped emails, but I have to do that manually since that has to happen after the order has been ordered and shipped.

You decide the price for your books. You can sell it as high or low as you want. 

The idea of this is, that we work together to advertise and market our books. Maybe if we have an online bookstore that offers a good variety of Indie books and all do our part of advertising for it, things will get better regarding sales and reviews. I love that my reviews are all in one place now.

The bookstore's currency is set on US dollar, but customers can change the currency to the currency of their country. It will also change the prices to their currency, but all is based on us dollar. 

If you write books within the genre not for my online store, but have one or two books in a genre for the store, you are welcome to sell it through the store, and I can add a link to Amazon or your website, so customers can check out those books as well. I just don't want those genres directly on the website. Plus, I have to manage it, too, and don't want to completely overwhelm myself. I also like the idea of having a place for like-minded readers like me without the worry of coming across inappropriate covers and things.

If you have any questions, just message me. The store is live already, so I can add anything as soon as you want to join. Here is the link: https://booksandmore-boutique.onlineweb.shop 

Right now, all my books are featured, but I can change that quickly.

Looking forward to hear from you soon.

Love,

Rebecca