I’m getting swamped with emails from authors asking about Shopify and wanting to know what is the best ecommerce platform for authors. Authors are losing money with Shopify, and yet many of them are looking to spend more money to pay someone to help turn things around. 

I need to set the record straight: I don’t recommend Shopify. I’ve done the math, and for most authors, the math doesn’t check out. 

So why is Shopify so alluring, and why is it usually a bad idea? What is the alternative that is better in every single way?

Why does Shopify get recommended?

Now, before I critique Shopify and dive into the math, let’s first discuss why it is so popular and why many successful authors recommend it.

Shopify Allows You to Sell Directly

Shopify allows you to sell ebooks, audiobooks, and physical books directly to readers. Selling directly to readers offers many advantages.

• Your readers become your customers instead of Amazon’s, which allows you to collect their email addresses for future follow-ups and promotions.
• You have full control over pricing.
• You can create product bundles. 
• You can have higher unit margins, which can help make advertising more profitable. 
• You have less vulnerability to Amazon’s bullying and cancellation. 

Now there are a few disadvantages to selling direct:

• There is real cost and complexity.
• Customer support can distract you from writing. 
• Amazon’s A10 algorithm (Amazon’s latest ranking system) disadvantages authors who sell directly. Put more precisely, driving traffic to your Amazon listings from outside sources, like email, blogs, or Google, is now a major ranking factor of the Amazon A10 algorithm. Authors who sell directly send that kind of traffic to their websites, which hurts their Amazon rankings. Selling direct may still be worth it, but the algorithm hit must be part of your calculations.

Shopify Integrates With All the Automation Tools

Another advantage of Shopify is that it integrates with everything you need to automate the experience:

• BookVault for printing and shipping physical books.
• BookFunnel for delivering Audiobooks and Ebooks.
• Kit for email newsletters 
• ChatGPT (Eventually)

The dream of Shopify is that once it’s set up, it will run like a money printer on autopilot while you focus on writing your next book. While many parts of the process can be automated, each automation adds complexity—and complexity tends to cause technical problems at the worst possible moments. 

Additionally, readers who don’t know who you are won’t visit a Shopify store they’ve never heard of to buy a book they don’t know exists. While Shopify can handle sales and delivery automatically, you will still need to invest time and money in acquiring customers for your ecommerce store.  

On its own, Shopify won’t help you get a single new reader. 

Shopify Has a Great Reputation and Easy Checkout

Shopify claims to have the best checkout in the world. In reality, they have the best checkout of third-party ecommerce solutions. There is one website with a better checkout, even more credit cards on file, and even more mailing addresses ready to go. That website is Amazon.com. But Shopify’s checkout can compete head-to-head with Amazon without embarrassing itself. 

Why is Shopify a bad choice for most authors?

An automated way to sell directly with an easy checkout seems like a no-brainer choice for every author. Right?

No. 

Monthly Costs: How much does Shopify cost per month?

Most authors make most of their money within the first 90 days of a book’s launch. After three months, almost everyone who will ever purchase a book has already done so. Even authors with good initial sales tend to have very low ongoing monthly sales. 

Of course, there are exceptions, such as evergreen sales and the rare exceptional book that sees sales increases month after month. But those are one-in-a-million type books. The authors of those books tend to share their success stories far and wide, making these kinds of evergreen books sound far more common than they really are. 

Shopify charges the same $30 per month, regardless of whether you sell any books or not. That is $360 a year or $1,800 over five years. Most books sell less than $1,800 in total sales after the first 90 days. 

Most authors whose books don’t sell well will make more money selling books on Amazon and getting the corresponding boost to their A10 Amazon algorithm rankings than they will trying to make Shopify work.

Also, not having to hassle with Shopify gives authors more time to write. 

Hassle

Shopify has all the complexity of a WordPress or Wix website, plus all the complexity of an ecommerce site. Tech-savvy authors will say, “It’s so easy,” which leads less savvy authors into the valley of the shadow of technical death.  

To escape this valley of complexity, tech-timid authors start looking to hire someone to set up or fix their Shopify site. 

This makes an expensive platform even more expensive, as every change comes with the hassle and cost of hiring someone to make that change for you. This results in authors spending thousands of dollars on webmasters fiddling with payment gateways and shipping integrations rather than on book promotion, editing, or marketing.

This is particularly true since many of Shopify’s most powerful features are also its most advanced. Do you know how to configure Shopify checkout to integrate with ChatGPT? Do you even know who to ask to find out how to do that? 

The hassle doesn’t stop once the site is set up. Ecommerce websites have a lot of moving parts, and there is a lot that can break. Readers expect ecommerce websites to work 24/7. If your site goes down on Christmas Eve, they may send your urgent and angry emails. If you handle customer support yourself, you’re incurring a real cost in terms of time, focus, and quality of life. The time you spend on customer support is time you are not spending on writing your next book. 

Reduced Sales

A sad reality is that most readers prefer to buy on Amazon. In a survey, they may claim to prefer indie bookstores, but their actual spending behavior shows they spend it mostly on Amazon. 

They prefer Amazon.com to other websites because their credit card is already on file, and they can check out with a single click. Typing in a credit card number and shipping address is a hassle, and most people will take the path of least resistance.

Shopify has a great low-friction checkout, but it still has more friction than Amazon.

Some experts present Shopify as a way to boost sales. This is misleading. Switching to Shopify alone will not boost sales. The fewer sales you get on Amazon, the lower your book ranks and the less Amazon promotes your book.  

That said, switching to Shopify can boost your sales if it is part of a comprehensive business plan that includes spending significant money on customer acquisition. However, switching to Shopify without a business plan to accompany it will actually reduce your sales, not boost them. 

Shopify is not a shortcut to success. It is the long, hard road through the valley of the shadow of technical death and through the wilderness of taxation. 

Sales Tax Complexity

Shopify is not the merchant of record (the entity legally responsible for sales taxes). This means you are responsible for collecting and remitting sales taxes, as well as filing sales tax returns in as many as 400 US taxing jurisdictions. You are responsible for understanding the laws about which sales taxes in which places you are expected to pay. You are expected to correctly fill out each sales tax return and correctly pay the correct amount of sales tax. 

Are you excited to use Shopify yet?

You can use services like TaxJar or TaxCloud to manage much of this complexity. Both integrate with ecommerce platforms but add $20–$90 per month in fees. Hiring a bookkeeper is another option, though that typically costs several hundred dollars per month. To learn more about these services, visit this webpage that compares TaxCloud and TaxJar. 

Reduced Margins for Most Authors

Shopify and TaxJar together cost about $50 per month. If you sell your ebook for $5, you must sell 10 copies each month, just to break even. 

But the real question is, how many $5 ebooks would you need to sell on Shopify to make the same 70% margin that you would make selling those books on Amazon? If you include the credit card fees, the answer is 47.4 copies.  

So, to keep the math simple, let’s round that to 50 copies. Most authors don’t sell more than 50 copies a month outside of the first 90 days after launch.

But what about advertising?

The 50 copies to 70% margin assumes those sales are “free.” But no one will visit your Shopify store if they don’t know about it. You must spend money to acquire customers. How does that change the math?

Let’s assume the cost to acquire a new reader is $1 in ads. Spending $100 on advertising would bring in 100 new readers. Some authors manage to spend less, but most spend far more.

If it costs you $1 to acquire each reader, you’d need to sell 910 ebooks per month to maintain the 70% profit margin Amazon offers per sale. And the higher your cost to acquire a reader, the worse those numbers become.

How do I know if I’m ready for Shopify?

Now, there are many ways we can manipulate those numbers to make the picture look better or worse. A common strategy is to increase the average order amount. The math really changes when the typical customer buys two $5 ebooks or a bundle of books worth $25. The margins on physical books also change things around.

Here’s a simple rule of thumb to know if you’re ready for Shopify: if you don’t already have a business plan, you’re not ready for Shopify. Once you’ve created a plan that Shopify fits into, you’re ready for Shopify.

Most indie authors have written only a few books and are still refining their marketing strategies. Their covers and product-market fit aren’t strong enough to attract new readers for just a $1 cost of acquisition, and they don’t yet have enough titles to raise the average order value high enough for Shopify to make sense.

Now, this doesn’t mean that Shopify will never work for them; it just means they are not yet ready. And that’s how Shopify becomes a trap for new authors. 

If you don’t have a business plan, you’re not ready for Shopify.

Thomas Umstattd, Jr.

The Shopify Trap

Most authors signing up for Shopify are looking for shortcuts to boost sales. Instead, they lose a month’s worth of writing time fiddling with Shopify settings, and then they go on to lose money in nine out of ten months. 

Shopify is not a shortcut. It is a massive commitment in time and money, 

If you are the author of two or three novels and you sell a few dozen copies per month during non-launch months, using Shopify is like buying an 18-wheeler when all you need is a pickup truck. 

However, if you typically sell 10,000 copies per month, the math completely changes, and Shopify may make sense. But that is not the only time Shopify can make sense. 

Is Shopify ever a good idea for authors?

Maybe, If You Are Tech Savvy 

If you are a tech-savvy person who enjoys tinkering with your website, adding the complexity of a fully powered ecommerce solution may be for you, particularly if your business plan calls for it. 

Maybe, If You Have the Runway

Some authors have a lot of money, and the idea of spending a few thousand dollars on Shopify is no big deal. This kind of author is often entrepreneurial and has lots of products to sell beyond just the book. So if you have the money to spend, go for it! Just create the business plan first. 

Maybe, If You Write Evergreen Nonfiction

If you write evergreen nonfiction that continues to sell and have a direct relationship with your readers, Shopify might be the right choice. Many nonfiction books quietly sell 100 copies every month. These books can do well in a Shopify context, especially when combined with coaching, courses, workbooks, and other nonfiction products. 

Maybe, If You Are Prolific

If you’ve written one book, you must sell 50 copies of that book every month on Shopify to make the 70% return you would make on Amazon. If you’ve written 50 books, you only need to sell one copy of each book per month for the same result. 

The more books you’ve written, the easier it is to make a Shopify store make sense. This is particularly true if you write both fiction and evergreen nonfiction, and you are tech-savvy.  

The more of the above “maybes” you have, the more Shopify makes sense. 

But there is one time when Shopify, or one of its competitors, always makes sense.

Yes, If You Have Your Advertising Dialed In 

Once your advertising is profitable and scalable, Shopify or WooCommerce almost always makes sense. 

For example, I interviewed Connor Boyak, who sells millions of dollars’ worth of books directly to readers every year. He acquires most of his readers with a combination of Facebook ads and Homeschool book fairs. He shared his entire business plan during our interview and provided all the details on how he went from having no books and no money to becoming a major brand author with millions of dollars in annual sales. 

Once he got his ads dialed in and profitable, he could boost his advertising spend and grow his sales. This allowed him to increase his sales from hundreds to thousands of books per month, and eventually to tens of thousands of books sold every month. 

His business plan called for being able to sell directly to readers. For him, Shopify made sense. However, he didn’t start with Shopify. He started with WooCommerce.

So let me underline this again. Connor Boyack was selling millions of dollars’ worth of Tuttle Twins books using WooCommerce before he switched to Shopify. 

To discover the secret behind his success, listen to our interview. He was one of the most financially transparent guests I’ve ever had on the show. 

Shopify is a great option for successful authors like Connor. But for most authors, getting Shopify is like buying an 18-wheeler when all you need is a pickup truck.  

The better option for most authors most of the time is Kickstarter! 

What is the best alternative to Shopify?

Kickstarter combines all the advantages of selling direct with amazingly powerful marketing psychology. In past episodes of this podcast, we’ve discussed social triggers, including Urgency, Social Proof, Scarcity, Loss Aversion, and Ubiquity. The more you incorporate these elements into your marketing, the more of a frenzy you build around your book. 

Do you know which platform has all of them built in by default? Kickstarter! The only social trigger built into Shopify is anchoring.

These social triggers are so powerful that most indie authors will make more money in a one-month Kickstarter campaign than they will with Shopify all year long. Both platforms allow you to sell directly, but only Kickstarter has powerful marketing psychology built into the platform itself. 

Kickstarter has no monthly fee. They only make money when you do. 

Kickstarter also gives you more time to write. It’s an intense campaign, and when it’s over, you can get back to your writing and not worry about answering panicky Christmas Eve emails. 

Additionally, since Kickstarter happens before your book is released, you can sell directly through Kickstarter while still benefiting from KDP Select and the new changes in the A10 algorithm. 

But wait! There’s more!

Kickstarter handles sales tax for you. It collects, reports, and remits sales taxes automatically. No need for TaxJar or TaxCloud. There is no paperwork for you to worry about. 

But perhaps the best benefit of Kickstarter is that the typical author campaign has an average cart value of between $40 and $60 per person, which is a much higher cart value than authors typically get on Shopify. This means you have far more margin for advertising. 

Kickstarter has all the advantages of Shopify, with none of the downsides, and several bonus advantages that you can’t get anywhere else. 

So while Kickstarter is an obvious choice for almost everyone, it’s not a complete solution if you want to sell direct year-round.

What are some other alternatives to Shopify?

Runner Up #1: WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin that can do everything that Shopify does and shares most of its disadvantages. WooCommerce won’t handle taxes for you, but it does integrate with TaxJar and TaxCloud. It also integrates with BookFunnel and BookVault for selling digital and physical books. 

The most valuable feature for my audience is that it also integrates with Divi, which allows you to make your store beautiful.  

If you already have a Divi WordPress website, adding WooCommerce is much easier than building a whole new Shopify store from scratch. It also saves you the hassle of maintaining both a website and a separate online store.  

While the core WooCommerce offering is free, various features and add-ons do cost. Keep things simple at first, and avoid those costly add-ons for as long as possible. That said, the first add-on I recommend is either TaxCloud or TaxJar.  

I know authors who profitably use WooCommerce to augment their sales. It makes financial sense for them because there is no monthly fee, and some of them just don’t collect, report, or pay sales taxes. They assume they are too small to attract the notice of the tax man. And so far, the tax man has not come knocking. 

Do I recommend ignoring sales taxes? No. No, I do not. But you are an adult, and you can make your own decisions and take your own risks.  Personally, I have enough issues with the government as a law-abiding taxpayer. The last thing I want is more interaction with the government for not paying taxes.  

Runner Up #2: Gumroad & Lemonsqueezy 

These are close competitors that allow you to sell directly all year, without charging you a monthly fee. They also handle sales taxes for you. 

They get paid when you do. Gumroad takes a 10% cut, and Lemon Squeezy charges 5%. So if you have a slow sales month, there are no fees.  

The major downside for both of these services is that neither supports the sale of physical products. Technically, Gumroad is still phasing out support for physical book sales, so some authors are grandfathered in. But if you were to sign up for Gumroad today, the product options are digital only. 

Runner Up #3: Payhip (for Brits)

Payhip offers direct integrations with BookVault for physical sales and BookFunnel for digital sales. It handles VAT taxes for UK authors. So if you are in the UK, this is a good option. It checks all the boxes.

However, Payhip does not act as a merchant of record for American sales taxes. We reported in an earlier episode that they did. This was either a confusion between UK and US taxes, or they stopped offering sales tax remittance in the United States. 

Payhip doesn’t integrate with TaxJar or TaxCloud, which is a big problem. I suspect many Americans using Payhip are remitting sales taxes. When the Trump administration finds out that a foreign company is helping American businesses dodge taxes, the hammer will fall. 

You won’t want to be anywhere near Payhip when that happens. America and the UK have a long history of tax disputes not going well. 

I recommend that Americans avoid Payhip until it offers a solution for remitting sales tax. 

My Advice

Which one should you pick?

Your success as a novelist primarily rests on the quality of your novels. Your books must promise to deliver an experience that readers want, and they must deliver on that promise. That’s easy to say, but it takes a lot of hard work on your part. You must know who your reader is and what they want. Then, you must hone your craft and write your book to fit those desires.

Most authors start by writing the kind of book they want to write rather than the book readers want to read. It takes practice to learn to die to yourself and love your reader. 

No online sales tactic or direct-sales system can replace the need to write books readers can’t put down or stop talking about. Complex ecommerce platforms like Shopify can easily distract you from honing your craft and writing your next book.

My one-year-old always seems to be covered in bruises. She watches her older siblings on the playscape and wants to do everything they do. It doesn’t matter that she just learned to walk; she’s determined to go down the slide by herself like a big kid. And if that means going headfirst, so be it.

As a dad, I try to resist my millennial urge to be a helicopter parent and hover. But sometimes my one-year-old wants to walk into the street, and that’s when I have to step in. But I’m only stepping in for a time. Eventually, she will be old enough and big enough to cross the street on her own. 

As a beginning author, plan to focus most of your time and energy on learning how to be a better writer. Master the craft of writing the kind of book readers can’t put down and won’t shut up about. When you have a book ready to release into the world, do a Kickstarter campaign, launch it on Amazon, and then get back to writing the next book. 

If you keep improving your ability to delight readers and follow this process consistently, your audience will eventually grow large enough that investing time and money in an ecommerce platform like Shopify or WooCommerce will be worthwhile.

How do I know if I’m ready for an ecommerce solution?

You’ll know you are ready when you consistently sell 500-1,000 books on Amazon. Then, put together a business plan, and if the numbers make sense, invest in a fully powered direct sales tool like Shopify. 

Just remember, if you don’t have a business plan, you are not ready for Shopify.  

If you want help creating a business plan, check out my course The Tax and Business Guide for Authors, where I walk you through the process of creating a business plan step-by-step. I also feature advice from multiple CPAs who work with authors. The course will teach you what authors need to know about taxes, tax planning, and the business side of writing and publishing.  

Once you’re ready to focus on the business side of writing, this course is one of the smartest investments you can make.  

Featured Patron

Tiffany Dickinson, author of The Golden Web

When Thomas, a hermit spider living in a children’s hospital, discovers he can talk to Marco, a seriously ill young patient, he faces an impossible choice: protect his heart by staying distant, or risk everything to become the friend this brave boy desperately needs, even though their time together might be heartbreakingly brief.                                                                                     

You can become a Novel Marketing Patron here.

Related Episodes

• How to Sell Books Directly to Readers with Joanna Penn
• 059 – Novel Tax Tips for Authors
• 7 Business Mistakes That Ruin Author Careers
• How Connor Boyack Sold Millions of Books Directly to Readers Without Using Amazon