As a coach, is selling my book on Amazon right for me?

As a Coach, Is Print-on-Demand Right for My Book?

If you’re a coach or consultant working in the personal development space, your self-published book is crucial to your revenue and reputation. Given its outsized importance, traditional print-on-demand (POD) may impede your personal branding and profitability. Because you need to connect with your clients and control your image and marketing, allowing yourself to be subsumed into the Amazon POD system can be a costly error. As many life and personal development coaches have learned the hard way, it’s crucial to find out more about book printing and fulfillment options.

Under Amazon POD, Customers Aren’t Really Yours

Amazon has more than 150 million paid Prime members globally and over 300 million active customer accounts globally. Consumer penetration in terms of raw quantity on this scale is entirely unrivaled among other print-on-demand services. Its print-on-demand solution, book order fulfillment to the end-user, 2-day delivery, and global network should make Amazon a natural choice to sell your books. But, there are numerous disadvantages, especially for coaches and entrepreneurs in the personal development industry who want to connect with their clients.

You owe it to yourself to investigate other ways to print your book and fulfill book orders because, under POD, Amazon controls the customer journey and relationship. Because most coaches and marketers are primarily interested in connecting with their end customers and upselling them, being cut off from customer data and online relationship-building opportunities come at a cost. When you sell a book with POD, the customer becomes Amazon’s. It keeps the revenue and the brand opportunity, and you never know the customer who bought the book.

The POD formula does not work for most coaches because their primary reason for selling a book was to generate a client lead, which is now lost to Amazon. Moreover, Amazon is the distributor and face of your business.

Brand dilution

When you distribute through Amazon, you become a name in the sea of retailers that sell on Amazon. When someone buys through Amazon they don’t really register the product brand, they just remember buying from  “Amazon”. That might be a problem for a new seller trying to establish their brand. Additionally, once Amazon is your core distribution platform, you become entirely reliant on its infrastructure, and its brand.

Not a solution for book funnel

Coaches or marketers develop a book funnel as a lead magnet.

In its simplest form, book sales funnels are a way to get readers to find your book and buy it, in an automated way. Once you sell a book, you want to connect with those readers, nurture a relationship and encourage them to join your tribe and buy more of your stuff! The most ideal way is to give away your book for zero dollars and just charge for shipping & handling. Giving you a book away for free is a great way to capture a lead and this creative option simply is not a solution in Amazon.  Amazon would be asking you to pay for the cost of the book and shipping charges in their sale price and there is no way possible to make a $0 dollar book funnel.

Amazon has only a POD solution

Amazon sells your book using their POD services. POD has print limitations with book trim size, handing certain paper quality and quality of color printing. For example, if you are looking to print a case-bound book, this option does not exist with Amazon POD services.  Additionally, there is no price discount if you are selling in large quantities. Print on demand has a flat price irrespective of your business needs. If you are a business that is selling larger quantities per month then POD is not a good solution for you.

This is where Acutrack can help.

Acutrack is an e-commerce fulfillment company – with a specialization in publishing books and media-on-demand. They offer both fulfillment and printing services, allowing customers to seamlessly integrate all of their logistical needs with just one partner. With Acutrack, your brand is at the forefront. Your customers are buying from YOUR  brand, in YOUR  packaging. This allows you to establish your brand.

While Amazon has a much larger potential target audience, If you are already an influencer, you do not actually need Amazon’s audience for your product, you already have your following!

 In fact, if that is your position and you use Amazon, you surrender your audience to the monolith to some extent. With Acutrack, you keep the entire proceeds of your sale and not a measly percentage. Your book. Your revenue.

Most importantly, Acutrack’s service provides you with direct and granular control over your customer data. This is a lynchpin of marketing: knowing your audience. Without proper customer demographic information, how will you know who to cater to? This is essential information that you need if you want to naturally grow your business. Access to this data brings your brand, your growth, and your end goals to the forefront. 

In conclusion: Acutrack provides an easy fulfillment and on-demand printing solution – one not shackled by the problems of Amazon. Most importantly, it focuses on growing you, your audience, and your brand with transparent customer analytics, rather than trying to augment its own brand.

Visit www.acutrack.com for more information, and check out our blog for other tips! To learn more about how Acutrack can help you achieve your goals, talk to one of our experts.