Originally published by Author Media
This is a summary. The full episode and transcript live on Author Media.
Is Curios the Shopify Killer for Authors?
By Thomas Umstattd Jr. at Author Media
What the episode is about
In an earlier Novel Marketing episode, Thomas Umstattd Jr. ran the numbers on Shopify for direct book sales and concluded that the economics only work for authors already moving thousands of copies a month. This episode asks whether there is a middle path, and he puts that question to Curios co-founder Greg Keogh.
Most of the conversation is about the part of selling direct that nobody puts on the sales page: sales tax and VAT, fraud, file delivery, chasing a print-on-demand order through production, and answering the support email that arrives when a reader cannot open an EPUB. Greg's argument is that Curios taking on merchant-of-record duties — for physical books as well as digital — is what makes direct sales worth doing at small volumes rather than only at scale.
The second half covers newer ground: what AI shopping agents do to Amazon's habit advantage, the MCP servers Curios runs on both the studio and marketplace sides, mixed-media bundles, and reader analytics that show which readers actually finish a book. It ends on a genuine disagreement about whether "keep 100%" is the right promise to authors when added checkout fees are known to cost conversions — worth hearing in full rather than summarised.
“I want selling direct to be the default.”
What they covered
A map of the conversation, in our words. The answers themselves are in the original.
- 1
Why the Shopify math fails most authors
A monthly fee plus merchant-of-record duties is a reasonable trade at thousands of copies a month and a bad one at dozens. The episode opens by separating the authors Shopify suits from the ones who are told it suits them.
- 2
What selling direct actually costs
Keeping more of the sale price is the easy part. The conversation works through the rest of it — taxes, fraud, delivery, customer support — and what each one costs an author in time rather than percentage points.
- 3
Merchant of record, including physical books
Readers pay Curios, Curios collects and files the tax, and the author is paid their list price. Thomas notes how unusual it is for a platform to take that on for print rather than digital alone.
- 4
Selling from your own website
Direct checkout links put a buy button on a WordPress, Squarespace, or hand-built site while Curios runs payment, delivery, support, PCI compliance, and fraud behind it.
- 5
AI shopping agents and Amazon's blind spot
An agent sent to buy a specific book compares the whole web, which spends down the shopping habit Amazon paid billions to build. Greg makes the case that this is the widest open door authors have had in years.
- 6
Mixed media, bundles, and the app
A book is not restricted to an EPUB: videos, PDFs, music, and a print special edition can ship as one product, with the digital part arriving immediately and the physical copy following later.
- 7
Reader analytics nobody else offers
Curios reports where readers stop, and how fast they open what they bought, without identifying who stopped. Thomas's reaction — that this should be the lead, not a footnote — is one of the sharper moments in the episode.
- 8
An honest argument about "keep 100%"
Thomas pushes back hard: fees added at checkout reduce completed purchases, so a headline 100% can earn an author less than a plain, lower number. Greg takes the point and explains the pricing change Curios is weighing.
Hear the whole conversation
Novel Marketing published the full episode, show notes, and transcript. It is worth your time, and going there supports the people who made it.
Open on Author MediaNeed help? Get in touch with a real human now
Contact SupportReady to sell direct and keep 100%?
No credit card required. Join creators building real businesses on their own terms.