Over the years, I’ve had numerous conversations with authors who totally dislike the Amazon model of selling books. Mostly this refers to the percentage that Amazon takes in order to list and sell a book. With all the scuttlebutt around Amazon these days, this conversation has gotten even stronger. A lot of marketing and publicity experts have been encouraging an Amazon boycott, but does this really make sense for you?

Image via CrunchBase

In 1999, when the self-publishing wave was starting to build (thanks to print-on-demand technology) a then fairly unknown company began to emerge as an online resource to sell books. Back then, there were limited ways to sell online, and Barnes & Noble wasn’t stocking these books in their stores, so Amazon became a salvation for many authors. As the online site grew in both demand and popularity Amazon did some things that were questionable at best. Who can forget the #amazonfail campaign? (If you aren’t familiar with this, Google the hashtag and you’ll see some old conversation around Amazon pulling certain books out of its system).

As an author, you are also a business person — and if you’re not thinking that way you should be. Your decisions should be based on fact, though arguably if you don’t like Amazon or what it stands for by all means follow your heart on this one. Consider this though: it’s hard enough to sell a book in this market. Not just because money is tight (because entertainment items never seem to suffer the same fate as other dispensable things), but because there’s so much competition out there. If you take away a trusted sales source you could lose a customer; are you really willing to risk that?

Read the rest at Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/penny-c-sansevieri/self-publishing-tips_b_1509082.html