Amazon KDP is the easiest place to list an ebook. It is one of the worst places to build a business around one. On a $9.99 ebook you keep 70% only inside a narrow price band, drop to 35% outside it, and never find out who bought your book. Amazon owns the customer, the pricing levers, and the relationship.
Selling direct — from your own storefront or an author platform — flips that. You set the price, you keep far more of each sale, and every buyer becomes a contact you can reach again for your next launch. This guide covers the real math, the honest trade-offs, and how to start.
The royalty math, side by side
The headline number authors miss is what actually lands in their account after each channel takes its share.
| On a $9.99 ebook | You keep |
|---|---|
| Amazon KDP (35% tier) | ~$3.50 |
| Amazon KDP (70% tier, minus delivery fee) | ~$6.50 |
| Gumroad (10% + payment fees) | ~$8.70 |
| Payhip (5% free plan + payment fees) | ~$9.10 |
| Readfeed (15% fee, before Stripe fees) | ~$8.49 |
| Direct via your own Stripe (fees only) | ~$9.40 |
Two things stand out. First, almost any direct channel beats Amazon's 35% tier by more than double. Second, the gap between the direct options is small — a few percent — so the platform fee is not the thing to optimize for. What you get around the checkout is.
What selling direct actually gives you
- Margin. Keeping ~85–95% instead of 35–70% changes the unit economics of every promotion you run.
- Your reader's email. This is the real prize. On Amazon you never learn who bought. Direct, every sale is a contact you own — and authors with an email list of 15,000+ earn dramatically more per launch than those without one.
- Pricing control. Run a launch price, a bundle, a pay-what-you-want, a free first-in-series — without asking a retailer's permission.
- Data. You see conversion, refunds, and repeat buyers, so you can actually improve.
The catch nobody mentions: a storefront is not an audience
Here is where most "sell direct" advice quietly stops. Gumroad, Payhip, Lemon Squeezy and a Shopify store all do the same core job well: they take a payment and deliver a file. But they are empty rooms. They assume you already have traffic — an audience, a mailing list, a following — to send to the checkout. If you don't, a direct storefront is a link with nobody clicking it.
That is the difference between a checkout and a platform. A checkout waits for you to bring readers. A platform already has them.
Your options, honestly compared
Gumroad / Payhip / Lemon Squeezy — the fastest way to a working checkout. Low fees, file delivery, email capture built in. Best if you already have an audience to send there. No discovery of their own.
Shopify — the most control and the most work; a monthly fee and a store you must drive all the traffic to. Overkill for one or two titles.
Your own site + Stripe — lowest fees, highest effort, and you own everything. Great once you have real volume.
Readfeed — direct sales plus the readers. You keep ~85% on ebook sales (5% on signed copies, 10% on reader gifts), payouts go straight to your Stripe account, and your book sits inside an active reading community: book clubs that can adopt it, live author events you can ticket, and readers who discover books on the platform every day. It's the checkout and the room full of people at the same time.
How to start selling direct on Readfeed
- Create a free author account. No monthly fee — Readfeed only takes a cut when you make a sale.
- Connect Stripe. Payouts go directly to you; Readfeed never holds your money.
- Upload your ebook (EPUB) and set your price — including free, if you want a reader-magnet first-in-series.
- Generate or upload a cover, add your blurb, and publish.
- Turn on the extras that a bare storefront can't offer: let book clubs read your title, host a live launch event, and sell signed copies.
The bottom line
Going direct is no longer the hard, technical path it used to be. The real decision isn't whether to sell direct — the math already answers that — it's whether you want a checkout you have to drive traffic to, or a checkout that comes with an audience attached. If you're starting without a big list, that second option is worth far more than a two-percent difference in platform fees.
Keep ~85% and reach readers who are already here
Create a free Readfeed author account, connect Stripe, and start selling your ebook direct — inside a community of active readers, book clubs, and live events.