Ask Egg Bird: How to Sell a Book Published Abroad on Amazon

If you are not already a subscriber, this is the perfect time to sign up, via RSS or via email.

Luigia from Italy asks the following question:

How does Amazon acquire the books it sells? In other words, how can I get a book published by an Italian publisher to be sold by Amazon?

There are various ways to sell books on Amazon, but for someone with a book published by a foreign publisher the situation has a few complicating factors. There are two questions we must answer:

1. Is there a North American distributor? And,
2. Who holds the North American rights?

If there is no United States distributor and no holder of American rights to the publication, then you cannot sell the book on Amazon. That is the sad and simple answer.
If this is your situation, you can approach Amazon in Germany, Japan, France, Canada or the U.K.

But if there is an American distributor, someone who has the rights to the publication in the United States, then there are several options, depending on the volume of books one expects to sell. The best option I can see is the Amazon Advantage program. There are detailed instructions on the Amazon site at this link, if you will follow it. The main prerequisites to participate in this program are:

• Having the North American distribution rights;
• Having access to email;
• Having a U.S. bank account;
• Having an ISBN number for the book(s) in question;
• Having a barcode on the book(s).

This was a hard question to answer. It took quite a bit of research. One of the hardest things is that there is pretty much no way to communicate with Amazon in person. I had some questions and I had to just read and read and figure them out myself. There are several other programs, like the Marketplace program, but I think this Advantage program is the best bet, if one has the prerequisites.
I hope this answers your question, Luigia, and good luck!

Tagged as: Amazon Advantage, Amazon.com, Marketplace, Publishing