Publishing and Distribution
Publishing your eBook Online
You can share your eBook with friends and family or promote and sell it online so it reaches a wider audience. Note that many of these online distributors and retail platforms either take a commission from every book sale or have some kind of fee-based distribution element. Some retailers allow for direct submission, but they will also take a royalty from the book sales.
Distributors
|
Image
This is a popular option with self-published authors due to the user-friendly interface, the fact that they take care of the formatting, and are known for having good customer support. |
|
Image
One of the original distributors of self-published eBooks, Smashwords will take manuscripts as either formatted .doc files or as existing EPUB documents. The eBook can be converted to a number of different file formats that will then be pushed out to eBook retailers. |
|
Image
Taking a very different approach to eBook distribution, unglue.it's main goal is to make more books available to read and use for free. In order to accommodate this, they have provided ways for authors to set up a crowdfunding site where authors can sell their books with the agreement that once the book has earned a certain amount of money, it will be released under a Creative Commons license. They will not not produce EPUB files, but will help you contact third parties for creation and conversion. |
Direct to Retailers
|
Image
Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) does not offer direct support for formatting EPUB documents, but they have a free formatting guide on the Kindle store – . KDP also has a list of recommendations for conversion services. KDP does offer some element of promotion, but in order to get that help you must sign an exclusive contract. |
|
Image
Apple Books is an eBook retailer specifically for Mac and iOS devices, with reading list and. Books from the distributors above can be listed on Apple Books. Books can also be sold directly through Apple Books, but a Mac is required for authors to sign-up. |
|
Image
Google is an eBook publisher and retailer through their Google Play service. Publishing is free. Writers are able to submit their work in .PDF or .EPUB. Google recommends both. Google also operates their Partner Program — authors submit their books as a .PDF for inclusion in Google search results. The book's Google page will include a formatted preview, and links to any of the online sources of your book (including print retailers and libraries). |
|
Image
Kobo is branded as a service that is extremely reader and author friendly; there is a great deal of transparency when dealing with Kobo and their guides are highly detailed. Kobo will actually convert manuscripts from .doc or .docx files to EPUB at no extra cost to the author. However, reviewers of the service comment that it is still better to format your EPUB in a program like Sigil to make sure that it looks good as an EPUB file. |