A short while ago, I ran a post on Amazon Advantage — describing how you can set up a distribution-style arrangement with the online sales giant. And I’ve recently updated the information on this site being offered in regards to the Amazon Affiliate program. In the interest of maximizing your effectiveness on Amazon, there’s one more program that you should be aware of: Amazon Seller Central.

Through Seller Central, you can offer your self-published items for sale on Amazon, but unlike Advantage, you package and ship the merchandise when it’s sold.

Here’s a quick step-by-step tutorial on using Seller Central — and a simple strategy I use to try to get the most out of selling on Amazon.

The Seller Central Interface is very easy to manage. To add a product to your inventory, you can either choose from an item that has already been listed or you can create a new product.

If this is a self-published book, then you’ll probably be creating a new product.

As you can see, you’ll be entering a lot of information — including images — to help classify and search-enable your merchandise. You’ll also be able to enter in your own retail price.

Remember, in your description, you can offer extras that others who may offer your book (distributors, retail chains, etc.) can’t touch — such as copies of the book signed by the author (you).

And if you’re the only one who is carrying your book, it’s a good way to get your merchandise listed on Amazon. However, items listed through Seller Central are presented on Amazon’s Web site with a few slight differences.

This is the Amazon page for Evil Inc Annual Report Vol. 5. I released it through Amazon Seller Central.

Here’s the page for Evil Inc Annual Report Vol. 2. It was distributed by Diamond Books, and as a result, it was an official listing on Amazon.com.

There are some key differences. The official page offers One-click ordering and shipping/pricing through Amazon Prime. The Seller Central listing cannot offer either. That’s going to have an effect on sales.  Speaking of which, only the official listing has this…

…and that’s going to affect sales as well. Note: All of the Evil Inc books that appear in that “Also Viewed” listing are books that are distributed by Diamond.

Whether you use Seller Central or Amazon Advantage, signing up for the Affiliate Program is a wise move. Remember, you get a percentage of the sale of anything a user buys when they arrive to Amazon through one of your Affiliate links. So, needless to say, any time I link to my merchandise, I use an Affiliate link. That way, I get a little extra reward if the user buys one of my books. And if they buy someone else’s merchandise instead, I still get a small kick-back on the sale.