The short versionAmazon is a big department store. Books.by is your own shop.
That's not marketing spin—it's a genuine difference in what each platform does. Amazon puts your book in a massive catalog alongside millions of other books and handles discovery through algorithms. Books.by lets you create your own personal storefront where you send readers directly (and keep your royalties and customer relationships in-house).
Both platforms serve a different purpose. In fact, most authors use Amazon and Books.by together. Here's why that makes sense, and how to think about each.
What Amazon KDP does wellLet's start here, because we're not interested in pretending Amazon doesn't exist or that it's somehow bad. Amazon built the largest book marketplace in the world. That's real.
Amazon's strengths:
• Massive existing audience of book buyers
• Algorithmic discovery (when it works in your favor)
• No upfront costs—you pay per sale
• Customer trust and familiarity with checkout
If you're hoping readers will stumble across your book while browsing, Amazon is where that might happen. The keyword is "might."
The uncomfortable truth about Amazon discoveryBefore Books.by, our team spent more than a decade building paltforms and tools for self-publishing companies. Here's what we learned: the average self-published book on Amazon, with no marketing budget, sells somewhere between one and three copies over its lifetime. Usually to family and friends.
Amazon's algorithms favor books that are already selling. If you're not already a bestseller or paying for ads, organic discovery is largely a myth. Your book exists in a catalog of millions, competing for attention with established authors and Amazon's own recommendations.
This isn't Amazon being evil. It's just how marketplaces work. And, if you're the one who is actively marketing and promoting your book, why should you be giving away more than 50% per sale?
What Books.by does differentlyBooks.by isn't a marketplace. We don't have millions of readers browsing our catalog, because we don't have a catalog.
Instead, you get your own bookstore at books.by/yourname. When you share that link—in your email newsletter, your Instagram bio, your podcast interview, your book launch—readers come directly to you.
What that means in practice:
100% of royalties stay with you. Printing & shipping costs are deducted from your sale price (no markup), along with the credit card merchant fee. The entire net-profit is yours.
Daily payouts. Not quarterly. Not 60-90 days later. The day your book ships, you get paid.
You see your customers. Names, emails, order history. They're your readers, so you can actually build a relationship with them, and build campaigns that market future books.
You control everything. Pricing, presentation, when to run sales. No algorithm deciding whether to show your book.
The trade-off (because there's always a trade-off)Books.by costs $99 per year. Amazon KDP is free to use.
That's a real difference. Amazon takes a commission on every sale instead of charging upfront. If you sell zero books, you pay zero dollars.
We charge a flat fee because it's the only way we can offer 100% royalties, and pass on the lowest wholesale printing and fulfilment costs without any markup. We're not taking a cut of your sales, so we support our business by charging a flat-fee for the platform, and focus on adding as much value as possible through our tools.
It's not for everyone, and that's ok. In reality, after selling ~10 books, the annual fee pays for itself. Everything after that is pure upside.
Who Books.by is actually forBooks.by works best when you're already driving readers somewhere. If you have:
• An email list
• A social media following
• A podcast or YouTube channel
• Speaking engagements
• A launch strategy that involves actually telling people about your book.
..then sending those readers to Books.by instead of Amazon means you keep more money and actually know who bought your book.
If your entire strategy is "publish and hope Amazon's algorithm notices me," Books.by probably isn't the right fit. Keep using Amazon for that. We mean it.
Why most authors use bothDeciding where and how to publish your books isn't an either/or decision. The most practical approach:
Use Amazon for:
• Organic discovery (however limited)
• Readers who specifically want to buy on Amazon
• The credibility of being "on Amazon"
Use Books.by for:
• Every link you personally share
• Your email list
• Your social media bio
• Launch promotions
• Any situation where you're directing traffic
When you're sending the reader, you might as well send them somewhere that pays you more and lets you own the customer relationship.
What Books.by isn'tWe're not trying to kill Amazon or convince you to abandon it. Publishing a book is hard enough, and we encourage authors to expand their distribution efforts to any channel that may help.
We're also not a vanity press, a traditional publisher, or a company that takes rights to your work. You own your book, your ISBN (even the free ones we provide), and your customer relationships.
Books.by is a platform, not a gatekeeper. Our parent company is literally called "For Authors, Inc." We registered it that way so we'd have a daily reminder of who we're supposed to be serving.
If you're marketing your own book—actually putting in the work to reach readers—you're leaving money on the table by sending everyone to Amazon. Books.by lets you capture more of the value you're already creating. Same book, same readers, better economics, and control over your own destiny.
Try Books.by
Get started today with a 100-day guarantee. If it's not working for you, we'll refund the full amount, no questions asked.
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