One of the biggest goals of this project right this moment is that it can self sustain without needing people to pay to be listed or use. However, this doesn’t negate that everything has a price associated to it.
The system itself that houses the app runs about $40/mo with a 1 year contract, which isn’t bad for the basic functions it provides.
You might be wondering about this website. It’s actually a playground that I have access to as part of a previous job. If used for the project, it does have costs associated to it, but it’s about $20/mo. By paying that, it provides a lot of additional function that would help out later in the project (also future) while having the WordPress Commerce (possibly VIP) package. Just as comparison.
“PlotTwists.xyz” is the domain name that I selected while working in the previous job and by no means is “Plot Twists” a final name.
How does Indie Unbound make money?
Great question!
Warning. The below links are intentionally not hyperlinked. If you access the Affiliate Link, please be advised that we could earn a commission on anything you purchase from Amazon.
The immediate funding is Affiliate Links. Such as when a book is available on Amazon, the link will have an Affiliate tag added to it so the project receives a “refer” bonus for the purchase.
For those not familiar, we’re going to use a Harry Potter book as an example:
https://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potter-Sorcerers-Stone-Rowling-ebook/dp/B0192CTMYG/ref=sr_1_1?content-id=amzn1.sym.c5a928f0-d570-48cd-80d7-1bbea171175b%253Aamzn1.sym.c5a928f0-
d570-48cd-80d7-1bbea171175b&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.QcXoMPzyjv6nc3yf85RqPR9JiZsq
urjZlM_oCq3xJETUdsBOwKCv2sZTmsHHKV7hm10gAE_E0JoeY5W8vrrV57rtdF9bqTR
e_4bI4hjmWXMqQORllarmMiw6WueXBMu0yG28vvvi6-4Bc5zSXq4ErnpOeUP7LV3xW
zWK7uYXm_IsKABpkE8jtrmBezw1vjvqzzipbMWmLxvOXIPxj2NgfrUEYM5n0wsbQEQ
HCooFRvE.7_NsJYioQqdxN2OlsatgDChWxh6cF7Vm4Z-
WBMOmA6w&dib_tag=se&keywords=harry+potter&pd_r
If you submitted a link that looks like this for your book, first thing we (Admin’s) would do is cut it down to the relevant information, which would be:
https://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potter-Sorcerers-Stone-Rowling-ebook/dp/B0192CTMYG/
This also helps ensure that your reporting is a little more accurate on KPD Dashboards.
All of the remaining static is just how someone got to the book, which in this case was a search on the Amazon Website for “Harry Potter”, which in this case won’t matter. Once the link is cleaned up to the needed details, we’d add our part to it, which for our example would look like:
https://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potter-Sorcerers-Stone-Rowling-ebook/dp/B0192CTMYG?&linkCode=ll1&tag=plottwists-20&linkId=2b04db912ca761ce67e5eb15b308d41e&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl
Where “plottwists-20” is the Affiliate Code.
The alpha-numeric ID is a tracking ID for Amazon’s use within the Affiliate program.
The language helps direct Amazon to what language to display in (sorry non-English Users! Your browser might override this though!).
And the final part is information about the referral source, which was Affiliate.
I used to work for Amazon in a past life :D.
Now, in this example, we wouldn’t actually add an Affiliate link to this book because we can’t overload with $0 e-books, or we could get kicked out of the program.
On a phyiscal book, Affiliates earn 4.5% of the total before tax. Not very much, but it adds up.
There is also a commission for digital books, but it varies. Commonly less than 10%.
But here’s the other thing about Amazon Affiliate links. Affiliates don’t just earn on the item directed to. A little tracker is added to the back end of Amazon’s system which allows anything you purchase in the next 24 hours to qualify for a commission. So if the person clicks on your book, decides not to buy it, but goes and finds a vaccuum they like, we could get a commission on that vaccuum.
And……let’s say this person put your book and the vaccuum in their “Save for Later” cart. As long as the purchase is completed within 90 days (original 24 hours + 89 additional days) of clicking the Affiliate link…guess whose getting a commission?
Yeah…Amazon Affiliates Program is an interesting experience if you know how to read the data.
Other platforms also offer similar programs, but not as creepy. You’ll notice in the app that statements about Affiliate Links are in multiple places. Amazon requires full disclosure of Affiliate Link usage so we went a little overboard intentionally.
Social Media.
Another way that the service can make money is by monitizing Social Media. This is where Meta (for Facebook and Instagram) will pay pages based on engagement. It could be a few dollars a day, or more. All depends on the programs.
One part of the deal is that when a Book is posted to the app, it’ll be shared on Social Media too. Once enough of a network is built up, it’s additional eyes on the Authors work.
And since it’s unique content being posted, it’ll generate some revenue. Someday, anyways.
Sponsorship/Partnerships/Referrals.
If costs aren’t getting met, there would also be the option to expand into partnering with different entities for some kind of perk.
But at the same time, I don’t want to have ads in the User flow.
Accountability.
The idea here isn’t to make me a millionare. It’s truly to offer ways for Authors to support other Authors. You know, if you went to a Publishers website, you’re going to see their books or Authors listed, but it’s not a resource the rest of us have, and that’s what we’re trying to change here.
For any Authors interested and that have active accounts, I’d be more than willing to send out monthly communication that shows how much was earned from the different “revenue streams”, as well as how that money was allocated.
Why active account? Sorry, but someone that isn’t helping the community really shouldn’t have any input.
I wanna stress that this isn’t a scam or some “get rich quick” scheme. Like I’ve said, as of this moment there is no plan to charge, so that’s a fairly bad scam. And there’s nothing quick about any of this.
Advertising.
One reason for building revenue is that we want to do advertising of the site. That way everyone benefits from the site. This could be Social Media ads, something in Google Ads, maybe even a digital billboard at some point.