SPA Girls Podcast – EP016 – Where Will You Self Publish?

SPA GirlsWelcome to episode 16 of the SPA Girls podcast. I hope the new year is treating you well, and you’re excited and motivated to make this year your best one yet! In this episode we talk about a few of the different sites where you can put up your books once they’re finished and ready to go.

There are the distributors, such as Amazon, Kobo, iBooks and others, basically retail sites where readers can purchase and download your books.

The other option is an aggregator like Smashwords or Draft2Digital, where you can upload your completed novel once, and then let them put them out to all the different retails sites – in exchange for a percentage of your income.

We introduce you to each of the main players, we talk about the pros and cons of the different types of distributors and aggregators, and what you need to watch out for when deciding who to use.

Digital Storefronts

Amazon

Amazon have given us a wonderful opportunity to be in the business of self-publishing and they have a lot to offer as they still have the lion’s share of the market. With Amazon comes the choice to go exclusive and there are many thoughts on this subject.

Wendy has all of her books on Amazon like Trudi and Cheryl but some of hers are only on Amazon. The platform for this is called KDP select and also can include KU (Kindle Unlimited). Customers purchase KU as a monthly fee and can download as many books as they like. Amazon will then pay an author per page read. KDP select has a 90-day exclusivity sign on program so you are not locked in to exclusivity for life but sign up again with just a tick.

We have found it very easy to not only load but to keep up to date with sales and payments.

Amazon has many sites worldwide and you can potentially belong to all of these depending on where you live in the world. New Zealanders have a little difficulty at times with some sites.

Kobo – A company started in Canada and distribute to over 60 countries.

Ibooks – You need an apple mac computer to access this site otherwise you can do this through an aggregator or perhaps find a work around if you feel this is for you. The way apple is headed ensures that there will be stiff competition for Amazon in the future.

Barnes & Noble – Nook – Need an aggregator unless you are in USA.

All romance e-books – Not particularly friendly or easy to access.

Your own web site – Doable but not recommended when starting out as it can be tricky.

Aggregator

An aggregator will take a percentage of your income to put your books on the sites they offer. Some people don’t like to pay the fee that this incurs but for others the cost can be offset by the stress and time saved by having someone else do it for you.

To access some of these sites, like Tolino, you must use an aggregator such as Smashwords or D2D. You can do the others yourself or do a combination of distributors an aggregator.

Smashwords – Will send to Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo.

D2D – Pay more regularly than any of the others through PayPal. Easy site (Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Tolino, ibooks, Amazon, Inktera, Scribd, Oyster (about to be canned), 24 Symbols.

D2D also have Create Space. A program which enables you to produce print on demand books.

Depending on the site it can take 24 hours to a few days to be loaded.

There is bound to be trial and error as you navigate the wonderful world of self -publishing. It’s a whole you new world and really incredible to be able to do this directly. Just remember that the beauty of all of these sites is that even after publishing it’s easy to make adjustments and changes, including covers. And, let’s not forget that incredible buzz when you first push the button.

Try not to stress at wanting to do it all at once. Try doing one a day, week or even a month until you have found your way.

 

Author: SPA Girls

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