- There is something that happens
to author selling books on Amazon
that cuts into your profits,
wreaks havoc with your book pricing and your ads,
but it is easy so long as you noticed it's happened.
And if you want to keep control of that buy box on Amazon
and make sure you're getting paid as much as possible,
then this video is for you.
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Hey, there I'm Julie the Broad from Book Launchers,
where your professional self-publishing team
helping you write, publish,
and promote a non-fiction book
that will help you have a huge impact on your readers
and done right.
We'll help you grow your brand,
build your business and make you money.
The best part you keep all the rights and royalties.
It happens more than you realize other companies
will be selling your book on Amazon, not just Amazon.
And it may not seem like a big deal
until you dig a little deeper,
but first, you may not know what the heck I'm talking about.
So, let's back up and talk about the Amazon buy box.
The Amazon buy box is that spot
on the right side of an Amazon product detail page here.
Check this out where customers can add a product
to their cart or buy now.
What does buying now mean on Amazon?
Well, the buy now button in the Amazon buy box,
lets shoppers make it right instant purchase
right from the product detail page.
Here's a screenshot from Ron...
Here's a screenshot from Ronald Worleys book,
Ditches To Riches.
It's where you click add to cart or buy now.
If you run Amazon ads,
there's a more compelling reason to care
about whether you own, or in this case,
Amazon owns the buy box.
When a product loses the buy box,
all sponsored product ads, stop running.
Amazon's guidelines for how to win the buy box states
that vendors must excel in pricing,
availability fulfilment and customer service
to win that buy box.
If you're published through KDP Print
for your Amazon distribution,
obviously they control all of that except ricing,
and that's how your buy box can be lost sometimes.
Third-party sellers can obtain the books wholesale
from IngramSpark and then sell the books
at any price they wish.
We may give a seller the suggested price
of 1999 for retail price.
But if a seller is seeing a lot of traction,
they might lower that price to try to sell more
or if a book was doing well and then stop selling
a supplier like Book Depository might have stock
on hand that they put on sale to try
and get it out of their warehouse.
There's plenty of reasons
why the pricing can be played with,
but here's what it looks like if you lose the buy box
because it's happened with a lot of clients,
including Carol Sanford.
You can see here the sold by is Book Depository US
and you can see the box below for other sellers is Amazon.
And Amazon's the top backup box, not the primary seller.
So, the issue Book Depository had the best price of 1156.
Of course, as a savvy prime buyer,
I know that Amazon is still the best deal
because I don't pay for shipping.
And with Book Depository, I'll pay for shipping,
but many buyers won't know to look for other sellers.
And again, your ads won't run if you've lost that box.
So, to maximize your profit
and ensure your Amazon ads are running,
you need to make sure that Amazon has that buy box.
So, what can you do?
Well, if Book Depository
only has one copy of your book, buy it.
You can also drop your Amazon price down
to regain control of the box.
But what we do when ads stop running
is we usually contact Amazon.
They have a Buy Box Review Team,
and they'll dig into it and usually fix the problem
with some prompting.
If you're not running ads though,
they're not going to care as much about this issue.
So, you're back to buying out the copies
or dropping your Amazon price to try to win it back.
Ultimately, it's usually a good sign
that your book has other parties selling it.
It means there's momentum and other parties see value
in carrying your book and selling it.
If you're not running ads,
I probably wouldn't stress about the buy box,
but I did just want you to know
what it is in case it ever happens to you.
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This video right here is one I did
on another little thing you might not know
about called Universal Book Links
that will help you with book marketing
or this one is the latest and greatest from the channel.
So, go ahead, click on the one you want to watch.
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So, I'll get that going,
so we can share a cup when you get there.