Although I've tried using Kindle Unlimited a couple of times for my books, I prefer to go wide with them to serve as many readers as possible. In the past, I've used distributors such as Smashwords and Draft2Digital (I highly recommend the latter over the former). Distributors make it easy to reach multiple sites with one process. However, publishing directly to sites such as Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, and Apple also has advantages. You can have greater control over pricing, gain access to special site-only promotions, and receive higher royalties. So last month, I stopped using Draft2Digitial for the distributors listed above and started going direct.
So far, it's been a tedious process republishing my work at different vendors. Kobo and Barnes and Noble were the easiest, since they accepted the files I'd used elsewhere. Google and Apple are more complicated. I have to submit my manuscripts to Google as PDFs and to Apple as epubs. While Word does a straightforward job of creating PDFs from Word documents, I have to use a conversion program like Calibre to create EPUB files. This worked for some of my books, but others got rejected for embedded font errors, and I haven't figured out why. So Apple currently has only one book out of my five-book fantasy series and Lyon's Legacy but not the sequel, Twinned Universes. I'll have to do some more research to figure out what the problem is.
Once I get everything republished properly, then I have to convince Amazon to set the first books of my series back to permafree. Then I can promote them to encourage readers to get the rest of the series.
If you plan to publish your books on multiple sites, I recommend gathering all the information and files you need before you start. It's not just manuscripts and covers; it's blurbs, ISBNs, and other information such as original publication dates. I wound up collecting some of this information in a single document I can use as reference later.
If you're an indie author, do you publish just on Amazon or other sites too? What's your favorite store for ebooks? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
3 comments:
We deal both direct and with several distributors, including Publish Drive which reaches a lot of foreign markets. ITunes is the pickiest and you're not the only one to experience errors.
Your post couldn't have come at a better time for me! Lately, I had been thinking about and looking into going wide with my books but then learned that, for me, it would be too tedious and time consuming because, having a day job, I just don't have that extra time to be formatting my books for nearly every single platform I publish it through. However, if Smashwords or Draft2Digital make it easier to publish wide, then maybe I'll look into using one of those two. Thanks for the insight and advice!
Thanks for telling me about Publish Drive, Diane!
Steven, I highly recommend Draft2Digital over Smashwords. They're easy to work with and offer more services.
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