The Cost of Amazon to Small Publishers

“When someone buys a £8.99 book from us via our website…

Printing cost: 80p
Royalty to author: £1.35
Share to 404 Ink: £6.84

WE LOVE IT WHEN PEOPLE BUY DIRECTLY. It also means the author gets more…

When someone buys a £8.99 book from a bookshop…

Printing cost: 80p
Royalty to author: £1.08
Share to distributor: £1.08
Share to bookshop: £3.60
Share to 404 Ink: £2.43…

When someone buys a £8.99 book from Amazon…

Printing cost: 80p
Royalty to author: 90p
Share to distributor: £1.08
Share to Amazon: £5.40
Share to 404 Ink: 81p

It’s fairly self-explanatory that sales via Amazon really hurt. For some titles we practically make a loss on sales so we have to reassess some of our RRPs in future to balance this issue.”

—Laura Jones, “Money, money, money.” 404 Ink. March 1, 2019.