How complicated would it be to host my books myself and sell them through the site? I’m competent enough to know that I’d need server space and some sort of software package to handle the sales, but not competent enough to know how simple/expensive it is to acquire and set that up.
(By “myself,” I don’t mean “physically host a server in my house,” unless physically hosting a server in my house is easier than I think it is. I’m just wondering about ways to sell my books that put 100% of the sale into my pocket rather than the cut Amazon might give me.)
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Welcome to infinitefreetime dot com 
Are you willing to do deal with collecting Sales Tax for each state/locality and remitting accurate reports of this to the IRS? It’s a bit of a pain in the ass, based on what I’ve read, lurking on the selfpublish yahoo group.
Shopping cart software is available everywhere and there is a site called weebly that let’s you do your own sales.
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There are a number of DIY sites that you can use. Musicians do it all the time. But, do you really want to do all that marketing and fulfillment yourself?
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Ebay + PayPal and a link from your wp site via descriptive button.
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This is a multi-part question, so you’ll get a multi-part answer.
First and foremost, you need your own server, or server you can heavily reconfigure.
– My site runs off of a cloud Linux server that I own permanently (as long as the company exists, at least). Place is called Cloud@Cost. I paid $70 back in January. I host both the WordPress blog and direct links to PDFs on it.
– There are heavily configurable cloud providers like SquareSpace that offer you options galore. SquareSpace itself also adds in a commerce/shopping cart option for a pittance extra per month.
Second, you need a place to store the ebook files, and a way to manage them. I have far less expertise in this area, but there are programs that combine shopping cart functionality with download links to content. You could also manually send out copies of X or Y, but that’ll run into scaling issues something fierce.
Third, you need a good way to track all of your gains and losses, and where they came from. The whole tax concern.
– PayPal does an excellent job of showing ins and outs.
– Any given bank account does this as well.
– Tax code knowledge is pretty much a DIY. Have fun, there. The good news is that digitally acquired goods like ebooks aren’t taxed for the vast majority of the USA, and only a handful of other countries tax (the United Kingdom and the EU are famous for the Value Added Tax on digital goods).
Myself, I’m going to direct sell print copies of my books, giving the value-added of having them always signed by me. It’ll be way more expensive than just going and getting the ebook (or downloading the free PDF), but at that point they’re wanting to be a collector (or a really great fan).
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Check out Kawasaki’s APE (Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur). Well worth the money in many ways, it includes detailed sections on exactly this question. Best reference I’ve seen, and it’s being updated regularly. Good luck–would like to hear what you decide!
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Here’s the link — http://apethebook.com/
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