It’s a wonderful feeling when you finally have your book written, edited, proof read and formatted and covered with a beautiful dust jacket or e-book cover. Now is the time to upload your book to a publishing platform but which one is the best for you?
There are many authors who do not want or need to sell their books online. Writers of local history, a memoir or an anthology of short stories put together by a writers’ group may choose to distribute their work without using online publishers. So, the first option would be to find a local printer and negotiate a number of copies and price. Mary McDee will explore this option in depth in a later blog.
Below I have listed the publishers that I have decided to consider when I publish my books. You can upload to as many or few publishers that you choose as they are not exclusive.
- Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) – This is the most popular platform to get authors into print. They are free and fast at getting your book available to readers. They have world-wide distribution and royalties are around the 70% mark. You will need to have an Amazon account so you can use the service. Amazon will publish e-books (to read on a computer, tablet or Kindle reader) paperbacks and even hardcover books. These can be ordered by the author for distribution or they supply a print on demand (POD) service which means a customer sees your book online and orders a copy which is then paid for (includes postage) and sent directly to the customer’s address. Amazon provide a plethora of tutorials and videos all of which appear to be user friendly. The process of uploading to KDP is meant to be easy but as of yet I haven’t tried it out. I will certainly be doing a blog about my experience in the near future. Amazon have a printing facility in Australia.
- Google Play Books – this publishing platform is similar to Amazon but only does e-books. They have a Partner Centre for authors and you will need to open an account. An advantage of publishing on Google Play Books is that they have a recommendations system that makes it easier for readers to find your books using Google searches.
- Barnes and Noble is another publisher who allows you to order e-books, paperbacks and hardcover books. It offers 70% royalties and is similar to other publishers.
- Draft2Digital is a different type of publisher called an aggregator. They distribute your books to other booksellers. They have recently started to distribute print book on demand but not in all areas. It is well worth exploring the advantages of using Draft2Digital. They also offer a free and easy to use formatting service which I will explore in a future blog. The royalties for Draft2Digital are lower than publishing directly with other retailers.
- Ingram Spark is another aggregator and they have a wide network of distribution to places like schools, libraries and retail chains. They excel at paperback and hardcovers, and you can use Ingram Spark in tandem with other retailers like Amazon. The royalties are less and they used to have a setup fee of $49 dollars but this has been waived since 1st May 2023. They also offer free revisions for a set period of time.
There are a number of other publishing services available for authors. It is important to be wary of publishers who demand fees for their services and always look carefully at any contracts especially relating to copyright.
Having a few different platforms presenting your books is referred to as Going Wide. This distributes your book to as wide a range of readers as possible. There are no restrictions to publishing on several different platforms at the same time. However, there are restrictions to using the same ISBN on different book formats. You have to have a different ISBN for a paperback, audio and hardback but you don’t need a ISBN for an e-book.
If you use Amazon and opt for Kindle Unlimited you have to be exclusive to Amazon. This is a service that allows readers to pay a monthly fee to be able to download any number of books they want. Authors benefit by getting paid by the pages read rather than the purchase of the entire book. You can opt to have your book exclusively on Kindle direct for a set contract time of 90 days or leave it there indefinitely.
I have provided an overview of the different publishing options. I recommend that authors explore the advantages and disadvantages of several sites and also seek more information on-line.
I found the following information invaluable:
www.yourpublishingguide.com/blog/7-best-places-to-publish-your-book
Cheers Elsie
©Elsie King 2023
Photo attributed to Creative Commons.
Indie Scriptorium -- Self Publishing Collective 
A wealth of shared information. I am not sure if my first comment was sent. Thank you.
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Great article. I’m confused on one thing and can’t seem to find a definitive answer yet on any blog. I’ve seen yes and then seen no. If you purchase an ISBN and self-publish your book on multiple platforms, let’s say, it is a paperback book. Can you use the same ISBN across those multiple platforms? It’s the same book, paperback format, just published under different companies. Thanks for any input.
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As I understand, a book published in a different format, say, a paperback made into a hard cover, needs a new ISBN. Same if you choose to publish the book as an audio book. But as an Indie author, if you have an ISBN for your paperback, it has that ISBN no matter which company or how many companies you choose to publish under.
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