Hello Deb,
Yes, I’m the one who started the thread on the Kindle direct publishing forum.
There wasn’t any “struggle.” There was a week of investigation, browsing, and commenting, in order to come to my decision, which was not to publish with Kindle.
If you had continued reading the thread from the point at which the above link takes you, you would have found this post.
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Personal Website vs. Mass Market Web Publisher
Posted: Nov 22, 2010 8:44 PM in response to: notjohn
As the person who started this thread, I thought you all might be interested to know how I made out by self-publishing my books on my own website,
www.katiebooks.ca as I mentioned above was my intention after I investigated the problems associated with obtaining an exemption from US withholding taxation.
Without any attempt to advertise or promote my books, and relying solely on chance and word-of-mouth, I have been averaging 400-600 unique visitors/month, from 40/50 countries, and an average of 60/100 copies of my books have been downloaded each month since the first version of my website appeared eight months ago.
Giving the books away for free certainly encourages downloads, and I might starting charging if I ever consider my writing worth someone's money, nevertheless I'm sure my monthly traffic is more than I would have if my books were buried among the countless thousands on any mass marketing web publisher.
I'm sure it worth every author's time to explore selling their work on a personal website, as the initial cost for acquiring a domain and web building software is nominal (under $200), and building a website not difficult to do nowadays with available software. Resultant book sales then provide 100% royalties, no tax problems other than reporting income on your personal tax return in your own country, with all writing expenses including purchase of the domain name, software, additional website content (stock photos etc), and internet access as deductible expenses. If my writing skills were better, or my ego greater, the additional minor cost of a PayPal account would, I'm sure, provide a steady income for an activity I enjoy.
Wherever an author may live, a personal website provides a world-wide retail outlet and an opportunity to sell to readers at a remarkably low cost. It provides closer contact with readers, and a focus for future sales. Please visit
www.katiebooks.ca for an example.
Good luck with your writing,
Tony
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Since posting the above, my website stats have improved somewhat. Katiebooks.ca is now averaging about 1000 visitors, and 250 book downloads, a month. Site visitors come from over fifty countries. The most popular pages are still the e-book tutorials, but the Reader’s page displaying my books are a close second. The Writer’s page is gaining popularity.
As an amateur writer, making my stories available on my own website is a good solution to the problem of what to do with them when they are finished. The one problem I am experiencing is that I receive almost no feedback from readers, therefore I have no indication how well my books are received. Nevertheless, I still think avoiding the tax reporting problems on Kindle was a wise decision. Since I publish my e-books in the most popular e-book formats, they are still available to Kindle readers, and the users of other reading devices.
I hope the above answers your question and satisfies your curiosity.