SPA Girls Podcast – EP461 – The Best Places To Publish Your Books

SPA Girls Podcast

The best places to publish your books are the one/s that best suit you the best given your audience, energy, time and publishing philosophy. So how do you decide what platform is right for you?

Should you “be Amazon exclusive, “go direct”, “publish wide” and/or use an aggregator? And what do those terms even mean?

Firstly the definitions:

Amazon Exclusive – means publishing your ebooks exclusively on Amazon and in the Kindle Unlimited subscription reading program for at least the initial 90 day period. This exclusivity requirement by Amazon applies to ebooks only; you can publish your print books and audio books on other platforms if you so wish.

Publishing Wide – means publishing your ebooks on as many retailers as you choose, including the “big four” : Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and Apple Books.

Going Direct – means setting up your publishing account directly with each retailer and uploading your books yourself.

Aggregators are service providers who you upload your books to, select which retailers you wish to publish on, and they then distribute them widely to your chosen online retailers in return for a percentage on sales. We use Draft2Digital.

FIRST RULE no matter where you publish: ALWAYS read the terms and conditions for each online retailer so you understand what you’re agreeing to. Each retailer has clear guidelines and comprehensive information for authors. Take the time to understand them.

The following is OUR summation as at the time of recording, August 2024. Things change in the self-publishing landscape, so do your due diligence. The pros and cons are for us; you may feel differently which is perfectly okay too!

Amazon

• You want to sell on Amazon, the #1 book retailer that captures 60% of the market. However, you also want to maximize your sales potential by reaching the other 40% of the market with channels like Apple Books and Kobo.
• Amazon’s KDP Select program requires you to sell exclusively to them for 90 days. There are a few pros to this program. But if 90 days’ worth of non-Amazon royalties matter to you, ditch the exclusivity and publish wide.
• There is a way to reach Amazon and everywhere else. An aggregator like PublishDrive simplifies the process and lets you keep 100% of your net royalties.
• Amazon generates around $28 billion worldwide from book sales every year, responsible for over 50% of sales, controlling between 50-80% of book distribution in the US.
• Amazon dominates the ebook market by around 70%. Amazon sells 3x more print books than ebooks. Its Audible platform captures around 60% of the audiobook market.
• Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is the largest ebook publisher of self-published books. Around 30% of Amazon’s ebook sales are self-published.
• KDP Select is an ebook-only program you can enroll in while uploading your title to Amazon’s self-publishing platform, Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). When you enroll, your ebook is made available in Kindle Unlimited (KU), a subscription program for readers that allows them to read as many books as they want. To enroll, you must commit to distributing your ebook only through KDP and nowhere else for 90 days. After this period, you can opt out or renew for another 90 days.

Apple

• You’ll reach readers in more countries. As I’m writing this, Amazon operates in 13 countries worldwide. But Apple Books are sold in more than 50 countries. And while Amazon may be the dominant player in the US and UK, it is far from that in other countries.
• In the US, Apple Books has overtaken Barnes & Noble for second-place to Amazon in ebook sales.
• Apple Books accounts for roughly 10 percent of the global ebook market. Apple Books has about a 10 percent share of the US ebook market. Apple Books has about a 30 percent market share in Australia.
• You’ll reach a slightly younger crowd. On the Indy Author Podcast #87 (every episode is amazing), Draft2Digital executive Dan Wood said that “Apple seems to have captured a much younger crowd. Primarily I’d say female and somewhere in mid-twenties to early forties.” So if you’re looking to reach younger women, it may make sense to publish to Apple Books.
• Apple Books readers are said to be willing to pay higher prices than Amazon readers.
• Apple Books will give you high royalties (70 percent) and high visibility for ebook box sets sold exclusively on Apple Books. (Kobo Writing Life will do the same.)
• Apple Books has affiliate codes which you can use without restrictions
• Authors like how Apple Books does its preorders—differently from Amazon. In short, pre-orders are factored into sales rank as they happen and are counted cumulatively on launch day in your sales rank. The latter isn’t true on Amazon. In other words, Apple Books incentivizes you to get a lot of pre-orders.

Kobo

Kobo, an anagram for “book,” is a Toronto-based retailer of eReaders like the Kobo Libra 2, the Kobo Elipsa, and the Kobo Sage, and is a retailer and distributor of ebooks and audiobooks to a global market.

Kobo has localized storefronts in 40 countries and 25 retail partners.

Kobo Plus

Kobo also offers a monthly subscription-based service—Kobo Plus.

As of 2024, Kobo Plus is available to subscribers in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Portugal, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

Kobo Plus books can only be read on Kobo devices or the Kobo app.

Through Kobo Writing Life or through an aggregator (distributor), ebook and audiobook authors can make their books available on Kobo, including on Kobo Plus.

Kobo Plus requires no author exclusivity, and unlike other self-publishing retailers, Kobo Plus pays authors from a shared pool based on minutes read by readers in each given country.

Barnes & Noble

1. Higher Royalties: Barnes & Noble Press offers higher royalties than traditional publishing houses. According to their website, authors can earn up to 65% of the list price for eBooks and up to 70% for print books. This is a significant increase compared to the 10-15% offered by traditional publishers.
2. No Exclusivity: Barnes & Noble Press does not require exclusivity, which means that authors can still publish their books on other platforms. This is a great advantage for authors who want to reach a wider audience.
3. Print-On-Demand: Barnes & Noble Press offers print-on-demand services, which means that authors can order copies of their books as needed. This eliminates the need for authors to order large quantities of books upfront, which can be costly.
4. Easy to Use: Barnes & Noble Press is user-friendly and easy to navigate. The platform offers step-by-step instructions on how to upload and format your manuscript, making the self-publishing process less daunting.
5. Marketing Tools: Barnes & Noble Press offers marketing tools to help authors promote their books. These tools include the ability to create author pages, run promotions, and participate in the Barnes & Noble affiliate program.

Cons:

1. Limited Reach: Barnes & Noble Press has a smaller audience compared to other self-publishing platforms such as Amazon. This means that authors may have a harder time reaching a wider audience.
2. Limited Formatting Options: Barnes & Noble Press has limited formatting options, which can be frustrating for authors who want more control over the layout of their book.
3. Limited Distribution: Barnes & Noble Press only distributes books to Barnes & Noble stores and their website. This means that authors may miss out on potential sales from other retailers.
4. Limited Support: Barnes & Noble Press has limited customer support, which can be frustrating for authors who need help with the self-publishing process.
5. Limited Marketing: While Barnes & Noble Press offers marketing tools, authors are still responsible for promoting their own books. This can be challenging for authors who are not familiar with marketing.

Google Play

• Google Play is in 75+ countries. (see the list here.) And while Amazon may be the dominant player in the US and UK, it is far from that in other countries.
• You’ll reach Android users worldwide—including in South Africa, Europe, and India. Outside of the US and UK, 7 out of 10 mobile phone users, some 3 million people, have Android devices.
• Google Play Books readers are said to be willing to pay higher prices than Amazon readers.
• Google Play Books pays authors high royalties (70 percent) on ebooks in most countries (click here to learn more) and, unlike Amazon KDP, charges authors no delivery fees on books priced below $2.99 or above $9.99.
• Google Play Books has an affiliate program that pays authors a 7 percent commission on ebook and audiobook sales.
• Authors who have free series-starter lead magnets will be rewarded with increased visibility for their other books.
• Google makes it easy and beneficial to run discount promotions and promo codes (more on that later).
• Publishing your book with Google Play automatically adds it to Google Books and the previewable part of an ebook is crawled by Google’s search engine.
• It’s possible to stand out if you have some luck or some success in figuring out the algorithm. Plus, you have less competition.
• If you find categories that perfectly describe your book, you may have a chance to really stand out.

Cons of publishing an ebook with Google Books

• Google Play Books has only a 5 percent market share in the US. It might feel like it’s a waste of time and energy to try to chase this down and to have to learn a new platform, and it probably won’t be worth it to put all your “apples” in the Google Play Books basket.
• You must make 20 percent of your book previewable.
• I’ve heard people say that Google Play Books isn’t really a bookstore. It’s a tech company. You’ll have to experiment and learn what the algorithms like.
• Google Play underwhelmed authors years ago. Before 2020 it was difficult for authors to get on Google Play, and those who did get access found the process frustrating to navigate. Things have changed for the better. But some authors still feel stung.
• Even now, there are some distributors who, for technical reasons, are unable to work with Google Play.
• Discoverability on Google Play may require experimentation and successfully running promotions and changing metadata. A “set it and forget it” approach may not cut it.
• You’ll need a Gmail account or a Google Account (but you can create one), and you’ll need an Android device to preview your books.