Quote:
Originally Posted by saoir
Do I have to choose KDP or Smashwords or iBooks ?
Hi all,
I have just finished my first spy/terrorism book and am self publishing on KDP in the coming week or so.
Is it true that I have to choose only one of the three places to publish .. KDP or Smashwords or iBooks ?
I have written my book in Scrivener and can output any format I like.
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Just take your time and do some more research on this, saoir. There are so many choices but don't worry. As you get more familiar with things it will become clearer. KDP is the big dog so you definitely want to go with them, but with KDP you have a choice to make right off the bat. It was what gmw was telling you about
: KDP's "select" program. Where your book is exclusively on Amazon for 90 days. (This can be renewed or ended after the 90 day term expires.) Obviously if you go with KDP Select you can't put your book anywhere else for the 90 days. (As a side note, many people start their book with KDP Select and then after the 90 day term expires they put their book other places as well.)
Now you need to know that if you use a place like Book Baby or Draft2Digital or Smashwords to distribute your book, they are taking a cut of the profits
on top of what the direct companies would take.
For instance you can have Draft2Digital put your book on KDP. But Draft2Digital will take an
additional 10% of what KDP will take on every sale.
So why go with a place like Draft2Digital or Book Baby? Convenience. They basically do it all for you. But you pay for that convenience and really it is super easy going directly to the individual companies and having them sell your book without the additional middleman taking a cut of the profits.
There is one little exception and that is unless you have a Macintosh computer you cannot submit directly to the iBookstore. That is where a place like Draft2Digital might come in handy because they can.
Here's the way I've done it. And I was thinking of covering as many bases as I could.
I have my books directly at:
KDP
Nook
Kobo
Then I also have them at iBookstore (via Draft2Digital).
Whatever is left over (from KDP, Nook, Kobo, and iBookstore) I have at Smashwords (places like Sony and Diesel). (And it's important to note what gmw said about needing to opt-out of any place you don't want be be distributed to on Smashwords or Smashwords will distribute you to all of them.)
Go slow. Start with KDP. You can start with KDP regular and then add KDP Select later. (Although many feel it is advantageous, as I mentioned earlier, to start right off with KDP Select.) Then pick the others off one by one. I promise you it's easy. Just Google:
how to get my ebooks on (fill-in-the-blank)
KDP, Nook and Kobo are a breeze.
Draft2Digital is too.
Smashwords is trickier.
Go slow. Pretty soon the whole thing will be so familiar to you.