Selling books in the UK compared to the US

byron100 · Oct 31, 2014

I haven't noticed any threads on this topic, so I thought I'd start one.

Since I've released my novel Winter Fall, I've done very well sales-wise in the US and interestingly enough, in the UK as well. Despite me doing zero marketing to the UK audience, my sales ranking on Amazon / uk is actually higher than than the US ranking, and some days, I actually sell more books to the UK than the US.

Is this typical experience for published books? Is it an e-book thing, since paper / hardback books cost more over there? Or is Amazon just promoting my book on the UK site on the basis of how it's doing over here?

Inquiring minds want to know...

nkkingston · Nov 13, 2014

Dead tree books are exempt from VAT, which ebooks aren't, so actually they're often perceived as being better value than ebooks. From one of the big five I might pay £7.99 for a paperback and £5.49 for the same book as an ebook, which is a small enough difference I'd often go for the paperback.

However, when US books come through often the pricing is determined by the exchange rate, which means a lot of US ebooks are cheaper than UK ones. For example, your book is £2.38 in the UK, which is cheaper than than a latte (but not usually cheaper than tea, which is obviously the standard we apply over here!). It's high enough people assume the book is good quality, but low enough people are willing to take a risk.

Selling books in the UK compared to the US

byron100

nkkingston

Bemused Girl