Many of you asked why we use Amazon as the exclusive printer/distributor of the print edition. Variations of this happened to basically every self-pub author I've met, so why didn't I use another platform?
1) Reach. As Ma8ee pointed out, there's literally dozens of people buying books online but not on Amazon. If I want readers to find it, I need to be on Amazon. Bonus, one of the most important controlling factors in new people finding your book is whether the Amazon promo algorithim suggests the book to them, so any sale off Amazon doesn't contribute to building an avalanche. The game's rigged, but it's the only game in town.
2) Money/quality. Last time I checked (few years back, things might have changed), Draft2Digital print books were bad quality. Ingram print books are decent quality but their calculation for printing fees and royalties means they usually don't pay out at nearly the same rate. I've not compared directly for the Cookbook, but for Instant Classic, it's the difference between making a couple dollars or a couple cents. We did it for Instant Classic as a service for people who despise Amazon, but the royalties from the Cookbook are a substantial factor in "eating" and "making rent" for one of the Cookbook team, so there's a limit to how much I want to give away the print edition of the Cookbook. Especially if "giving it away" involves the reader paying Ingram, just not us. If anyone knows a print-on-demand distributor who pays out enough in royalties for authors to make money, please respond to this.
3) Distribution. We're small fry self-pub, without a big publishing house behind us. I've looked around for places which will take us on self-pub books and distribute them, and the options are pretty limited. I'm convinced we'd sell in brick-and-mortar stores, but that's typically not an option for self-pub unless you approach the owner of an independent bookshop on an individual basis. (We approached a couple proper distributors who accept query letters from non-traditionally published books, but they focused on specific genres and we weren't the right fit.) Basically, if you're not traditionally published, you're looking at Amazon, Ingram, or Draft2Digital to print and distribute your books. If anyone knows of other printer/distributors which take self-pub books, PLEASE tell me.
ETA: people are informing me that Ingram can make money, and that Lulu exists. I am investigating.