Reviewing distributor options

gmw · 01-11-2014, 06:15 AM

I'm getting ready to (belatedly) publish my second novel (and soon after that, I hope, my third). Since it is something like 15 months since I chose BookBaby for my first, I thought it appropriate to review the situation, because quite a bit has changed. Here are a few of the things that have been of interest to me:

It looks like (though I have yet to go through the process to verify) Amazon may now be able to do direct deposits into Australian bank accounts, the lack of which was one of the things that turned me off going direct last time.

Amazon still require a TIN if you don't want them to deduct the full withholding tax, but - to be honest - I'm not selling so much that this poses much of a hardship, I should still be able to sort that out on my tax return at the end of the year. I imagine I can give them a TIN at some later date if I want.

BookBaby now offers a "free" option similar to Smashwords, including the 15% commission. BookBaby includes something called "Book Promo" - whose value I have reservations about, given that it is included on the free option. To get the BookBaby no-commision offering now requires $249 - and given that nothing else in that package is of particular interest to me (I upload my own epub, have my own website etc.), that is less appealing than when I could do it for $99. So, in effect, BookBaby are encouraging me to take another look at Smashwords.

I've seen people talk about "coupons" for Smashwords promos, and that seems like something I might use. And these days Smashwords supports epub upload, so it's looking more appealing to me. It does require a TIN, but talked about that above.

Kobo now has an Australian presence, so I could look at dealing with them directly. I might finally be able to resolve the formatting issue with the blurb that repeated requests through BookBaby has failed to resolve.

I've only ever sold any ebooks through Amazon (paperbooks have sold elsewhere), so I'm not particularly fussed about other stores (as long as I had something like Smashwords where people could get non-DRM epub versions). In fact I'm not sure my book ever appeared properly on the ibookstore at all (as an ebook), it always looked to me like it was coming from Amazon (but still managing to stuff up the blurb format - what is it with these people?).

So that's my deliberations so far. Does anyone here have any other thoughts they'd like to add? Maybe some other distributor options I should investigate, or issues with Smashwords epub upload ... or whatever.

VydorScope · 01-11-2014, 06:35 AM

My suggestion...which is based on my knowledge of the US Market (the largest ebook market currently) - so you might have to tweak this to fit your situation.

1) Go direct to Amazon. Take the time to create a mobi just for them and get all your details right with them. They are King right now.

2) Kobo - you will want to go direct with them (assuming you can) only because they are also a distributor. Your ebook will show up in lots of non-US stores through them. Stores you can not get into otherwise.

3) Google Play - They are on the rise, not a real player yet but getting in now will get you on the up swing. Thier system is not very intuitive to use, so plan to take time to work through it. You will want to consider going direct to them, as, to the best of my knowledge, no one distributes to them yet.

For all the rest of the stores - use Smashwords, Bookbaby, or Draft2Digital. Put your time in where you make the sales, and not where you do not. There are a gazillion little stores out there now, and you want to be in them, but it is not a good use of your time to fuss with them so let your distributor handle that.

Possible exceptions:

1) Apple - This is a big player for some people but as I understand it one of the hardest to deal with directly. I currently let Smashwords deal with them. It is fairly easy to get around the "you need a mac" requirement, but that takes additional time. If you are not selling much there, I would not worry about it. I am looking into going direct this year with them.

2) Barnes and Noble - I hate to say this, but they have all the signs of a dying platform. I have pulled out of going direct to them and personally do not plan to waste time fighting with them any more. I let Smashwords push to them. I hope they recover, and they still might - but it is more likely the Nook brand will be bought out.

I have been using Smashwords for over 3 years now, and they still offer advantages others do not...

1) Coupons.
2) Pre-Orders
3) Oyster & Scribd
4) Libraries

The primary issue with Smashwords is that they are SLOW with everything. They accept direct EPUB uploads now, and that EPUB is what they distribute to their channels so the Meatgrinder is not an issue anymore - unless you want to use the non-epub options in their store front.

So that is my thoughts on the matter. Good luck!

gmw · 01-11-2014, 07:31 AM

That is interesting and useful feedback, VydorScope, thanks very much.

As for Smashwords being slow, let's just say that BookBaby have never astounded me with the speed of their responses by email - they seem to want to push for phone contact, but when you're not in the U.S. that's a problem. Actual distribution from BookBaby to Amazon was very fast (2 days), Kobo and another came a few days later, the rest took weeks. It's difficult to know for sure who is at fault with some of this, but given that Amazon is so fast (and gets things like blurb layout right), I have to wonder if it's the resellers that are the issue much of the time, rather than the distributor.

Apple/iBookstore seems to see Kindle stuff anyway, or that's what it looks like, so I can't say that getting into their store seems like a priority - if whatever distributor I choose can do it, great, otherwise ... meh. If I'd seen any sales from B&N I might be more enthusiastic about them, or if they made it feasible for non-U.S. to go direct, but last I looked that wasn't practical. So, again, if my distributor can do it I'll use it, but otherwise I'm not fussed.

Thanks for the reminder about Draft2Digital, I'd forgotten about them. I must take a look. I hadn't even thought about Google Play ... but I might put that off until I've got the rest sorted.

You mention creating a mobi especially for Amazon. Why? According to their website they will accept an epub upload, and I imagine they would simple use kindlegen to do the conversion, which is all I was thinking of doing here ... or do you have another/preferred way of creating the mobi?

VydorScope · 01-11-2014, 07:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gmw

You mention creating a mobi especially for Amazon. Why? According to their website they will accept an epub upload, and I imagine they would simple use kindlegen to do the conversion, which is all I was thinking of doing here ... or do you have another/preferred way of creating the mobi?

Couple reasons...

1) First, this is the biggest seller out there. You want your best possible showing to the largest number of people.

2) You can upload non-mobi files, but the conversion on their end is touchy. I have seen TOCs disappear, and so on.

How I make a mobi...

I make an EPUB - and I make it as clean and as perfect as I can get using Sigil. That becomes my master for distribution. Then I let Calibri take that epub and make a mobi out of it. Then I take that mobi and load it on to my kindle and check how it looks there, and then I use the Kindle App on my mac to do the same, and then I use the Kindle viewer that Amazon gives out to see it in various other devices. I use information gained durring that to tweak the conversion parameters in Calibre and do it again till I am happy.

To make the original EPUB, I start with a MS Word DOCX file (not DOC, DOCX - makes a big difference). Then I use Calibre to create an EPUB from that DOCX, and load that EPUB into Sigil where I tweak the file a bit (remove fonts, re do cover, and some other minor things, Calibre has gotten really good at making EPUBs).

When I am done with all that I have a clean MOBI and EPUB that work everywhere and I do not have the problems of getting emails from Amazon about formatting issues, or rejected by the Apple store, or the like that many self-pubs complain about.

gmw · 01-11-2014, 07:59 AM

I generate my epub from LibreOffice and then do a cleanup inside Sigil. I'm quite obsessive so the resulting css and xhtml is usually very clean by the time I'm done. Then I check the result through epubcheck (as well as flightcrew inside Sigil). This much seems to have been working very well for me.

As noted above, all I've ever done then is use kindlegen to create a mobi - not for any sort of distribution, since BookBaby has been doing that, but to check the result in the Kindle Previewer app to see how it looks. I have noticed that kindlegen creates a mobi file that is typically three times the size of the epub, I get the impression it's storing two copies of the text in there, not sure why. I'll have a play and what Calibri does, should be interesting.

Thanks again.

01-11-2014, 06:15 AM	#1
gmw cacoethes scribendi Posts: 5,818 Karma: 137770742 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Aura One & H2Ov2, Sony PRS-650	Reviewing distributor options I'm getting ready to (belatedly) publish my second novel (and soon after that, I hope, my third). Since it is something like 15 months since I chose BookBaby for my first, I thought it appropriate to review the situation, because quite a bit has changed. Here are a few of the things that have been of interest to me: It looks like (though I have yet to go through the process to verify) Amazon may now be able to do direct deposits into Australian bank accounts, the lack of which was one of the things that turned me off going direct last time. Amazon still require a TIN if you don't want them to deduct the full withholding tax, but - to be honest - I'm not selling so much that this poses much of a hardship, I should still be able to sort that out on my tax return at the end of the year. I imagine I can give them a TIN at some later date if I want. BookBaby now offers a "free" option similar to Smashwords, including the 15% commission. BookBaby includes something called "Book Promo" - whose value I have reservations about, given that it is included on the free option. To get the BookBaby no-commision offering now requires $249 - and given that nothing else in that package is of particular interest to me (I upload my own epub, have my own website etc.), that is less appealing than when I could do it for $99. So, in effect, BookBaby are encouraging me to take another look at Smashwords. I've seen people talk about "coupons" for Smashwords promos, and that seems like something I might use. And these days Smashwords supports epub upload, so it's looking more appealing to me. It does require a TIN, but talked about that above. Kobo now has an Australian presence, so I could look at dealing with them directly. I might finally be able to resolve the formatting issue with the blurb that repeated requests through BookBaby has failed to resolve. I've only ever sold any ebooks through Amazon (paperbooks have sold elsewhere), so I'm not particularly fussed about other stores (as long as I had something like Smashwords where people could get non-DRM epub versions). In fact I'm not sure my book ever appeared properly on the ibookstore at all (as an ebook), it always looked to me like it was coming from Amazon (but still managing to stuff up the blurb format - what is it with these people?). So that's my deliberations so far. Does anyone here have any other thoughts they'd like to add? Maybe some other distributor options I should investigate, or issues with Smashwords epub upload ... or whatever.

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01-11-2014, 06:35 AM	#2
VydorScope Wizard Posts: 3,418 Karma: 35207650 Join Date: Jun 2011 Device: iPad	My suggestion...which is based on my knowledge of the US Market (the largest ebook market currently) - so you might have to tweak this to fit your situation. 1) Go direct to Amazon. Take the time to create a mobi just for them and get all your details right with them. They are King right now. 2) Kobo - you will want to go direct with them (assuming you can) only because they are also a distributor. Your ebook will show up in lots of non-US stores through them. Stores you can not get into otherwise. 3) Google Play - They are on the rise, not a real player yet but getting in now will get you on the up swing. Thier system is not very intuitive to use, so plan to take time to work through it. You will want to consider going direct to them, as, to the best of my knowledge, no one distributes to them yet. For all the rest of the stores - use Smashwords, Bookbaby, or Draft2Digital. Put your time in where you make the sales, and not where you do not. There are a gazillion little stores out there now, and you want to be in them, but it is not a good use of your time to fuss with them so let your distributor handle that. Possible exceptions: 1) Apple - This is a big player for some people but as I understand it one of the hardest to deal with directly. I currently let Smashwords deal with them. It is fairly easy to get around the "you need a mac" requirement, but that takes additional time. If you are not selling much there, I would not worry about it. I am looking into going direct this year with them. 2) Barnes and Noble - I hate to say this, but they have all the signs of a dying platform. I have pulled out of going direct to them and personally do not plan to waste time fighting with them any more. I let Smashwords push to them. I hope they recover, and they still might - but it is more likely the Nook brand will be bought out. I have been using Smashwords for over 3 years now, and they still offer advantages others do not... 1) Coupons. 2) Pre-Orders 3) Oyster & Scribd 4) Libraries The primary issue with Smashwords is that they are SLOW with everything. They accept direct EPUB uploads now, and that EPUB is what they distribute to their channels so the Meatgrinder is not an issue anymore - unless you want to use the non-epub options in their store front. So that is my thoughts on the matter. Good luck!

01-11-2014, 07:31 AM	#3
gmw cacoethes scribendi Posts: 5,818 Karma: 137770742 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Aura One & H2Ov2, Sony PRS-650	That is interesting and useful feedback, VydorScope, thanks very much. As for Smashwords being slow, let's just say that BookBaby have never astounded me with the speed of their responses by email - they seem to want to push for phone contact, but when you're not in the U.S. that's a problem. Actual distribution from BookBaby to Amazon was very fast (2 days), Kobo and another came a few days later, the rest took weeks. It's difficult to know for sure who is at fault with some of this, but given that Amazon is so fast (and gets things like blurb layout right), I have to wonder if it's the resellers that are the issue much of the time, rather than the distributor. Apple/iBookstore seems to see Kindle stuff anyway, or that's what it looks like, so I can't say that getting into their store seems like a priority - if whatever distributor I choose can do it, great, otherwise ... meh. If I'd seen any sales from B&N I might be more enthusiastic about them, or if they made it feasible for non-U.S. to go direct, but last I looked that wasn't practical. So, again, if my distributor can do it I'll use it, but otherwise I'm not fussed. Thanks for the reminder about Draft2Digital, I'd forgotten about them. I must take a look. I hadn't even thought about Google Play ... but I might put that off until I've got the rest sorted. You mention creating a mobi especially for Amazon. Why? According to their website they will accept an epub upload, and I imagine they would simple use kindlegen to do the conversion, which is all I was thinking of doing here ... or do you have another/preferred way of creating the mobi?

01-11-2014, 07:59 AM	#5
gmw cacoethes scribendi Posts: 5,818 Karma: 137770742 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Aura One & H2Ov2, Sony PRS-650	I generate my epub from LibreOffice and then do a cleanup inside Sigil. I'm quite obsessive so the resulting css and xhtml is usually very clean by the time I'm done. Then I check the result through epubcheck (as well as flightcrew inside Sigil). This much seems to have been working very well for me. As noted above, all I've ever done then is use kindlegen to create a mobi - not for any sort of distribution, since BookBaby has been doing that, but to check the result in the Kindle Previewer app to see how it looks. I have noticed that kindlegen creates a mobi file that is typically three times the size of the epub, I get the impression it's storing two copies of the text in there, not sure why. I'll have a play and what Calibri does, should be interesting. Thanks again.

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