Should I put up my "Who am I? I am I ... " book on Amazon and Flipkart for more visibility and impact, even if it means hike in list price from Rs.159 to Rs.199?

Last updated on 14th Oct. 2018

As I am working on promoting my book, "Who am I? I am I - Ultimate Existential Reality Answer; Vedanta; God and Science conversation", https://pothi.com/pothi/book/ravi-s-iyer-ultimate-existential-reality-answer-vedanta-god-and-science, it is becoming clear that listing on amazon.in may be a significant thing from visibility and impact point of view.

I guess that most book buyers in India know of amazon.in. Pothi.com is not so well known. So listing the book on amazon.in would help raise the profile of the book somewhat.

For doing that I need to pay a one-time charge of Rs.1500 to Pothi.com with no annual fee as of now, as it is currently waived.

But the hassle is that the price of the book will increase from Rs.159 (the production cost of book with ZERO ROYALTY to me, as per my choice) to Rs.199! Not only will amazon.in list price be Rs.199 (with perhaps some discounts coming into play, at times), but even Pothi.com price will have to match that price and so be bumped up to Rs.199!

In such a scenario, if I personally order copies from Pothi.com, as the author I will get the discounted production cost price of Rs.159 (+ shipping). But other users will have to pay Rs.199 (+ shipping).

As it is, Rs.159 is considered a stiff price for an A5 sized, 123 page book. And that's because I have used zero-money-investment Print-On-Demand method where one can print even just 1 single copy of the book. Offset printing of a minimum of 500 copies of the book may result in a production cost of around Rs.50 per book copy, but then I would have to cough up Rs.25,000 and worry about sales of the books, storing hundreds of book copies, recovery of investment, and essentially get into a businessman kind of situation, which I certainly don't want to get into. I have led a pensioner/retiree life with a straight forward Income Tax return without any hassles over the past 15 to 16 years, and I do not want to disturb that in any way.

But amazon.in listing will surely increase visibility and impact of the book. That is important for promoting the book.

So I am quite seriously tempted now to explore listing the book on amazon.in (and flipkart) even though the list price will increase to Rs.199 from Rs.159.

If readers have any suggestions/thoughts about this, I would be glad to know of them.

BTW Google search for the terms (using incognito Chrome window to remove bias towards my work):
* God and science conversation books
* existential reality books

shows my Pothi.com paperback book in the 3rd set of results (21st to 30th result hits).

If instead of Pothi.com result link, it were to be an amazon.in result link, I think it would be viewed more seriously.
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An Indian author whose books are available on amazon.in and amazon.com wrote over email (and was OK with public sharing):

Dear Ravi

Making your book available on Amazon and Flipkart will make it more easily available to people, wherever they may be. Neither of these websites will do any publicity or make your book more widely known.

In my experience, people don't usually browse through online lists to see what kinds of new books are available: online book retailers are not like bookshops where people will look through the shelves to see if there is anything that interests them. So it will be people who have already heard about your book who may become interested enough to want to find out more and can then go to Amazon or Flipkart for longer descriptions, and to read reader feedback (if any). And for people in far flung places, these websites will make it easier for them to get a copy.

This is my experience.
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I (Ravi) responded (slightly edited):

Dear --Name-snipped--,

Thanks for your valuable input based on your experience.

Noted that people may not browse through lists and get to know about my book, if it is put up on amazon.in.

What I was thinking about was scenarios where people come to know of the book through my promotion efforts. At that time, if I provide an amazon.in paperback sale page link, they may be more willing to visit it (and maybe, just maybe :-), buy it) than if I provide a Pothi.com sale page link.

I now think that amazon.in listing is a kind of standard for a book to meet, in the eyes of many book buyers in India. There is tremendous name recognition for amazon.in. Among the people that I interacted with as part of promoting the book including local shopkeepers in Puttaparthi, very few had heard of Pothi.com but almost everyone, if not everyone, knew of amazon (amazon.in).
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The Indian author correspondent wrote:

Another advantage of an Amazon listing is that people anywhere in the world can choose how to pay for your book (e.g. Indian or foreign credit card or net banking, for example, or even cash on delivery). Not sure how pothi.com handles payments.
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I (Ravi) responded:

From Pothi.com website:
"Payment options available are Credit Card, Indian Debit Card, Indian Internet Banking, Electronic Transfer to Bank Account, Check/Demand Draft. The details are available" here: https://pothi.com/faq/107/what-are-the-payment-options-available-on-pothicom/.
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I (Ravi) should add that as of now, due to concerns related to indemnity clause with Pothi.com that I had to agree to (check box selection, if I recall correctly) as part of the process of using Pothi.com for self-publishing my book, I have limited shipment of the book from Pothi.com web sale page to India only. This way I am exposed to Pothi.com indemnity related legal risks only in India, which I think is something that I can somehow manage, as I am sure that my book content is well within freedom of speech laws in India.

The ebook (free download) page on  Pothi.com does not allow me to restrict downloads to India. So I think that download is possible for all. Does that expose me to Pothi.com indemnity legal risk outside India too? Perhaps. Maybe I should discuss this with them.

Note that the indemnity clause states that I have to bear Pothi.com's legal expenses if any legal suit is filed against my book!!! That is scary for me. I am OK with me bearing legal costs if anybody files a legal suit against me directly for the book. But paying Pothi.com's lawyers is something that would make me very uncomfortable. Anyway, I don't have a choice. Unless I agree to the indemnity clause I cannot self-publish the book using Pothi.com self-publishing platform (or any other Indian self-publishing platform as this indemnity clause seems to be a standard practice). So I have crossed my fingers and have hoped for the best. But I want to play somewhat safe by limiting my Pothi.com indemnity risks for the book to India only.
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