Give Me the Lowdown!
Author Spots provides authors with a beautifully designed online marketplace for selling their books and getting more readers, reviews, and support nationwide. As a Spots Initiative, the platform is networked with other local and niche “spots” across the country that give the “little guys” a better chance at being competitive in the selling market. Authors Spots is a niche dedicated to authors who want to sell more books they have on hand! For a low monthly fee (and no selling fees), authors can list all the books they want, and they keep 100% of sales, paid instantly. Authors promote their personally branded book storefronts, which brings readers to their books as well as the books of others. When we all promote each other, we all win.
I already have a website. Do I still need to join Author Spots?
Yep! Think about the customer experience, expanding your exposure… and CREATING AN ADDITIONAL REVENUE STREAM.
Say you know a voracious reader, and they’ve already bought all your books! Directing them here to Author Spots can introduce them to other authors in your genre. Connect with the authors they support, and that author is likely to refer their readers to you as well. That sounds much better than losing readers to random reads and maybe never coming back to you.
Need another reason to join this community? On top of the huge value that we bring you, we also help YOU promote YOUR books. Author Spots creates social media content as well as does paid advertising and more. Being a part of our platform will also allow NEW customers to discover your business… and who doesn’t love that?
I am thinking about hiring someone/making my website myself. Why should I sign up for Author Spots instead?
With Author Spots, you enjoy the benefits of getting set up quickly, having your own storefront, being on a secure and reliable platform, having the opportunity to be found by more readers being directed specifically to our online marketplace, and so much more. Best of all, you won’t need to worry about:
- Hosting, maintenance, and various other fees associated with an online store
- Putting in all the time and effort to create it yourself (and hoping it’s good…)
- Using an online website builder that might not work the way you need it to
- And the list really can go on and on…
As an Author, what types of products can I sell?
The platform is a place to sell books of all kinds! This includes every genre and every type, from signed and unsigned physical copies to downloadable PDFs. You can also sell book related swag, coloring pages. If you’re not sure, ask.
Do I get my own custom storefront?
You do! You can even add your logo, author details, contact information, and more. Best of all, you can direct readers right to your storefront, via your own URL. You can forward any purchase links on your existing website to your storefront or directly to individual books and promote it all over social media, email, and anywhere you like.
What are the benefits of being a Spots author?
There are so many, but a few benefits are:
- We Support Your Promotional Efforts!
Seriously, this is a thing! We work alongside you to help grow, support, and share your storefront. We are all in this together… so let’s do this!
- Discover New Customers
We give readers the power to shop all of their favorite authors in one spot from the comfort of their home.
- Quickly Add Unlimited Books
Launch and expand your book sales online—no matter what genre you’re in. We give you the ability to easily add as many books as you’d like.
- Sell More Books… Make More Money
Create your storefront, add your books, fulfill your orders, and get paid straight to your Stripe account. Sell books to anyone, anywhere. It’s really that easy.
How many books can I sell?
As many as you’d like.
How do you help me promote?
We support the promotion efforts of our authors and their books through Facebook pages and groups, Instagram, Google My Business, marketing campaigns, and more!
What is the cost to join?
We provide HUGE value, and we only ask for $19.99 a month, which is way cheaper than:
- Hosting, maintenance, and various other fees associated with an online store
- Putting in all the time and effort to create it yourself (and hoping it’s good…)
- Using an online website builder that might not work the way you need it to
- The list really can go on and on…
- Did you notice that we used this crazy list twice? We did because it’s true!
I need help. How do you support your authors?
We use a ticketing system for our Vendor & Customer support. In addition, we also have a Knowledge Base, which can help answer questions you might have regarding how to set up and administer your storefront.
What are the responsibilities as an author?
This really IS your website, and this really IS your online shop. Because of this, you are required to provide customer service to all your customers that contact you and/or purchase books through your storefront. We also require our authors to provide great shipping of their products and report and pay all taxes required from book sales.
How do authors get paid?
You get paid for your sales INSTANTLY. How? Stripe! All authors are required to connect an existing or new Stripe account to their Spot. Why Stripe? Because Stripe is free, reliable, and extremely secure. Plus, it is extremely easy to set up and connect. Don’t have a Stripe account? No worries. All you need to do is a click a button in your Spots Dashboard and fill out a simple form. There is an industry-standard processing fee of 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction. The ACH transfer from Stripe to your connected bank account is 0.8%, capped at $5.
Authors can fulfill customer orders and view sales reports in their Author Spots Dashboard. All financials/refunds/etc. are administrated via the author’s personal Stripe Account. Be sure to download the FREE Stripe app! Why? Because it will notify you instantly of customer orders and more!
Can customers purchase from multiple authors in one transaction?
You know it! The funds (product sale amount + shipping cost + calculated taxes) get automatically divided between all authors, based on the specific product transaction, and deposited directly into their Stripe account.
How does Author Spots make money?
We operate through author memberships. We do not make commission off sales that happen on your marketplace. Why? Because we think that’s crazy! YOU sell the books. YOU support your awesome customers. YOU fulfill and ship your orders. WE simply provide the service that allows everything to happen.
This sounds AWEOME! I’m totally in.
Let’s do this! Open your storefront today!