Using Amazon Advantage for Creative Sales
In the previous chapter, you learned about self-publishing a book, CD, or DVD. Now, how can you promote the work once it is completed? This is where the Advantage Program will help you sell the book you just wrote, the CD your band just completed, or the video you are offering for training purposes. A growing number of people are recognizing the value of selling information for both expertise and entertainment through self-published books, e-books, videos, CDs, DVDs, and now, electronic books for Amazon’s Kindle. Amazon also accepts enrollment of software, video games, PC game titles, and vinyl records into the Advantage program, in addition to books.
Finding an established publisher and marketer for your work is becoming increasingly difficult, as publishers merge and spend more of their resources on established authors and expected bestsellers. Getting established is one way that the Amazon Advantage Program can help. The Advantage Program is particularly helpful for introducing new works to the market. Titles that are a part of Advantage qualify for Amazon’s fulfillment support, promotional assistance, and shipping specials. On the contrary, Marketplace transactions occur directly between you and the customer. You need to list the item, handle shipping, and provide all customer service. Amazon only handles payment processing for the transactions.
Amazon Advantage Program Highlights
The following is a list of benefits that Advantage provides:
- When becoming an Advantage member, Amazon keeps several of your books in the warehouse ready for packaging, shipping, and invoicing. CDs and videos are also in stock and ready to be mailed. Because Amazon shows these “in stock” books first and more frequently to buyers, customers are more likely to notice and buy them.
- Amazon shows specialized, niche, or hard-to-find items to potential buying customers who are most likely to purchase them. The company’s technology “knows” the buyers’ interests and helps them see items they did not know existed. Merchandise shown is based on the customers’ browsing and buying history, such as with the “Customers who bought this…also bought this” feature.
- Your book can be marketed in a number of different ways on Amazon, which will be covered in more depth in Chapter 10. These include “Search Inside!,” customer reviews, community interaction, and author biographies.
- You are able to manage your entire business with the Advantage Web site all day and night each and every day. You can stock a quantity of up to five of your items in the Amazon’s distribution center, and your titles are listed for immediate availability on Amazon. When you have a sale, Amazon will send you an e-mail and ask you to send more inventory if necessary.
- Amazon retains ownership of customer returned items and stores them as part of company-owned inventory.
- You get paid right at the end of each month after the month of sale without invoicing. If a book sells in April, you will receive payment for it at the end of May through electronic funds transferred to your bank, or by check.
“With the Amazon Advantage Program, the customer sets the list price for the merchandise. Yet, Amazon reserves the right to set the retail price to customers at its sole discretion. It can decide to discount products based on a number of considerations that vary over time. Amazon offers discounts on hundreds of thousands of selected titles every day and cannot confirm when, if ever, a title will be discounted or how long a title will remain at any particular discount.” — From the Amazon Web site.
Amazon, Amazon.com and the Amazon.com logo are registered trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.
Amazon Advantage Program Requirements
All Amazon Advantage Program books, CDs, DVDs, and videos must have a publishing code to be accepted. Books are printed with the ISBN, which delineates the book title and its variety of book formats, including multiple editions, hardcover, paperback, audiocassette, and CD-ROM. The POD printer, for an extra cost, will help the customer apply for the ISBN. You will normally have everything in approximately three to five weeks. If you are not from the United States, request information about ISBN registry for your country. Additional information and application can also be received from:
International Standard Book Numbering Agency
R.R. Bowker
121 Chanlon Road
New Providence, NJ 07974
Phone: 877-310-7333
Instead of an ISBN, music CDs, DVDs, and videos have a UPC. A UPC has 12 digits. The first six digits identify the company. The next five digits delineate the specific product. The last digit checks for accuracy. Additional information and applications can be received from:
GS1 US, INC.
8163 Old Yankee Road, Suite J
Dayton, OH 45458 USA
Phone: (937) 435-3870
EANS stands for European article number, and is primarily used in Europe and the United Kingdom for music CDs, DVDs, and videos.
All books listed with the Advantage Program must also have a barcode, which is a symbol that can be optically scanned for title, ISBN/UPC, and price. The barcodes on your products determine how quickly Amazon shipments are received into inventory and available to customers for sale. The complete name for the barcode format is Bookland® EAN Barcode with 5-digit Add-on Code (or Price Code). The ISBN is printed above the barcode and the Bookland EAN code is below. The first three digits tell the scanner that the item is a book or a book-related product. Then come the first nine digits of the ISBN and a check digit to verify that the scanner has correctly read the barcode.
CDs, videos, and DVDs must have the UPC code instead of the ISBN, which can also be translated into a barcode format. The first digit is the prefix for the Uniform Code Council (UCC), the organization that administers the UPC and other retail standards. With only a few exceptions, the next five numbers are the UCC company prefix, and the final five numbers identify the specific product. At the end is a check digit, which allows the scanner to verify that the item has scanned properly. The UPC-A barcode, also known as a “UCC-12,” has a total of 12 digits.
Ideally, barcodes should be integrated into the design of the product. If your merchandise has already been manufactured or printed, barcode labels can be produced after printing and applied to the outer packaging or cover. Anyone who supplies an item with a barcode to Amazon must ensure that it complies with the following guidelines:
- Amazon must be able to scan the barcode, so there can be nothing, such as outer packaging, to obscure the view. The barcode has to be located on the back of the product, in the lower right quadrant. It is mandatory to shrink-wrap CDs and DVDs in order to protect them during shipping and to distinguish them from used items. The barcode must be seen through the packaging in order to properly scan.
- The barcode must scan to the original ISBN or UPC number.
- The owner of the product needs to test the barcode with a certified verifier in order to ensure the parameters that contribute to a high-grade barcode. A barcode scanned by the local bookstore is not equivalent to having it verified. If you print your own barcodes, make sure that this process did not create any defects that reduce barcode performance.
- The barcode should be printed with black ink on a white background with a 1/4-inch of white space on the left and right side. This is known as the “quiet zone.”
- If an item has both an ISBN and a UPC, Amazon requires that it be listed only under its UPC.
- Amazon recommends the following as vendors for questions regarding and the production of barcodes:
FineLine Technologies
157 Technology Parkway, Suite 700
Norcross, GA 30092
Phone: (800) 500-8687
Fax: (678) 969-9201
AccuGraphiX
3588 E Enterprise Drive
Anaheim, CA 92807-1627
Phone: (800) 872-9977
Fax: (714) 630-6581
Fotel Inc.
1125 E. St. Charles Road, Suite 100
Lombard, IL 60148
Phone: (800) 834-4920
Fax (630) 932-7610
Eversio Technologies
844 NW 49th
Seattle, WA 98107
Phone: (888) 333-9001
Fax: (206) 284-0915
As noted, before registering for Advantage, you need to have an ISBN or UPC number and a scannable barcode that matches this ISBN. You also need to have your book, video, or CD printed in a small quantity. You can do this through Amazon’s own POD or one of the many other similar organizations. At this point, you do not need any more than a dozen copies: some for your own use and others to send to Amazon for approval.
Amazon Advantage Sign-Up
Go to the Amazon Web site and click on Advantage at the bottom. After you put in your name and password, Amazon will ask you to accept the program agreement and then request general information required for enrollment on your contacts and banking specifics. You will hear back within five days regarding approval.
Becoming a member of Amazon Advantage is not costly. Yet, you may be surprised about the consignment fee. In the bookselling business, the authors do not normally get a high percentage of the fee unless they market and sell the book themselves. In this case, Amazon charges an annual fee of $29.95 for membership to Advantage. This includes unlimited title enrollment. The standard commission rate is 55 percent, where 45 percent of the list price goes to you and 55 percent of each unit sold goes to Amazon. As noted previously, you decide on the price at which it will be listed, or the “suggested retail price,” but Amazon can lower the price of the item under the list price; in this case, Amazon pays from its percentage. For instance, if the suggested retail price is $39.95, you get $17.98 when selling a copy, even if the price is later discounted.