Amazon.com is the largest online retailer in the world.

It was launched in 1995 and in a 2008 survey it was found that Amazon.com has 615 million visitors annually! Needless to say, it is an invaluable place to sell books.

Amazon.com has two different programs to sell books. The Pro Merchant account allows the author to make the most money from the sale of each book, but the responsibility of marketing the book falls heavily on the author. The Advantage account provides the author with less money on the sale of each book, but Amazon.com does some marketing of the book.

It is the author’s choice as to which is better. In theory, you sell fewer books with Pro Merchant, but make more money. With Advantage you sell more books, but make less money. Over time, it is theorized that you make the same amount of money whichever account you choose.

What is the difference between Pro Merchant and Advantage?

Pro Merchant:

• Amazon.com takes 15% of the sale
• Author has a personalized storefront
• Listing does not expire
• Publisher or author fulfills each order

Advantage:

• Amazon.com takes 55% of the sale
• Author has a personalized storefront
• Amazon.com stores a limited amount of each book and ships them when ordered
• Books are shipped with “ships from and sold by Amazon.com” packaging
• Titles qualify for Super Saver Shipping and Prime Shipping options as well as free shipping on orders over $25
• Type in the book title in a search engine and it will come up under the Amazon website; because of this, it will always be near the top of a search
• Books are eligible for the best seller list
• Books are eligible for the related category: when you search for one book, other books come up that are related to the same subject matter