Upstream Pursuits

Most booksellers know about referral fees and FBA fulfillment costs. But how many have actually mapped the full round-trip journey of a book - from your shelf to Amazon's warehouse, and potentially back again?There's Inbound Shipping. Inventory Placement fees. Monthly storage fees. Q4 storage fees. Aged Inventory Surcharges. And if it doesn't sell? Removal fees to get it back, or disposal fees to let Amazon toss it. If you're struggling to wrap your mind around all the fees and how that...

What Actually Wins the Buy Box? A Deep Dive Into the Data (for Booksellers) I've been selling books on Amazon for over 15 years. In that time, I've heard every theory about how to win the Used Buy Box - drop your price by a penny, get more feedback, switch to FBA, maintain a 99% rating. The forums are full of confident explanations, many of them contradicting each other. Amazon tinkered with their Buy Box algorithm a few times in 2025, then locked in their new rules right around November 1st....

[Market Intelligence for Strategic Booksellers] Welcome to the very first edition of Upstream Intel: a quarterly report that dives deep into Amazon bookseller data. Market Recap: The bookselling landscape shifted dramatically in the past few months - here's what you need to know. After years of FBA dominance, the playing field just leveled out. Amazon's algorithm heavily favored FBA sellers for the Buy Box - where an estimated 70-80% of book sales happen. But in 2025, Amazon tested new rules...