Two plans. Zero commissions. 100% royalties.

Platforms like Amazon and IngramSpark offer a "free" service in exchange for a commission on every sale — 30–65% on Amazon, 40–55% on Ingram. Books.by charges a flat annual fee (Core at $99/yr or Pro at $299/yr) and passes on 100% of the proceeds to authors. We don't take any commission on the sale of your book, and we pass on the lowest wholesale printing and shipping costs with zero markup. This is only possible because we sustain our business with a flat, transparent annual fee — similar to Shopify's model. For authors selling more than ~10 books per year, it's a significantly more profitable way to build a writing career. We also have no plans to introduce a free tier.

No, and there never will be. The only cost you'll ever incur with Books.by is your chosen plan fee — $99/yr for Core or $299/yr for Pro. We don't charge a service fee, fulfilment fee, or any hidden markups on printing. When you sell a book, you receive a transparent breakdown of the costs: the raw printing cost (based on your book format and page count), the wholesale shipping rate from the vendor, and the 1–2% credit card merchant fee. Everything else is yours.

We don't. Instead, we offer something better: a 100-day guarantee. If, for any reason, Books.by is not suitable for you within the first 100 days, we offer a no-questions-asked refund on the full cost of your plan. You get full access to everything from day one — no feature gating, no trial limitations.

When a reader buys your book, they pay the retail price you set. The printing and shipping cost is deducted at wholesale rates (no markup), and you keep 100% of the remaining profit. You also get the customer's name, email, and order details — data that Amazon never shares with you. You're paid daily via Stripe directly to your bank account.

For Core, after about 10 book sales. If your book retails for $14.99 and the printing cost is around $5, you earn ~$10 per sale. Ten sales = $100 in royalties — your Core fee is covered. Pro pays for itself after ~30 sales. The average Books.by author recoups their subscription in 47 days.

Yes. You can cancel your subscription at any time from your dashboard. Your store stays active until the end of your billing period. Within the first 100 days, you can request a full refund — no questions asked.

ISBNs are required for all traditionally distributed books. For new authors, purchasing a single ISBN through Bowker costs $125 USD — more than the price of our annual plan. As a high-volume publisher with tens of thousands of active titles, Books.by secures ISBNs at dramatically lower rates through our wholesale accounts. Because of this — and as part of our author-first philosophy — we include unlimited free ISBNs with every plan. You can also use your own ISBN if you prefer.

Core ($99/yr) gives you everything you need to publish and sell paperbacks — your own bookstore, free ISBNs, cover maker, daily royalty payouts, and customer data. Pro ($299/yr) adds eBook publishing, premium bookstore themes, Facebook Pixel integration, Google & SEO tools, sales analytics, and 24/7 customer support. If you're just getting started, Core is perfect. If you're ready to scale with multiple formats and marketing tools, Pro is the better fit.

Yes, at any time. When you upgrade, we'll pro-rate the difference based on the remaining time on your current plan. You'll get instant access to all Pro features — no downtime, no data loss. Many authors start on Core and upgrade once they're ready to publish eBooks and use marketing tools.

More than 70% of Books.by authors also sell on Amazon — we're not asking you to choose. But any traffic you generate yourself (email list, social media, website, events) earns you significantly more when sent to your Books.by store instead of Amazon. On a $19.99 book, you earn $9.60 on Books.by vs $5.74 on Amazon — that's 67% more per sale, plus you keep the customer data to market your next book.