Top 10 Platforms to Sell Your Ebooks
What is an Ebook?
An Ebook, also known as an electronic book, is the type of book which can be published and accessed through electronic devices.
An Ebook is just like a normal book. You can choose to write whatever you want, fiction or nonfiction. Once you have written your Ebook, you can choose to sell it on different online platforms of your choice. Here are some of the best platforms where you can sell your Ebook.
1. Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing
Amazon Kindle is, without a doubt, the biggest platform for people to publish and sell their Ebooks at. Every list of ebook publishing platforms has Amazon Kindle in it. Amazon Kindle is one of the most famous platforms for ebooks publishing and selling.
You would be interested to know that 35% of the market share for all the books sold by Amazon belongs to indie books, being the most popular ones. This shows that you can sell your ebook quite well if you use the correct marketing strategies and practices.
Furthermore, you can publish your ebook here for absolutely free. With each sale, Amazon will allow you to earn from 35-70% of the full price.
You can publish your ebook here in three easy steps. All you have to do is register online, then open your store and click print. With enough marketing, you too will be able to sell ebooks. Don’t just use Amazon for purchasing purposes; use its full potential and begin to publish and market your ebooks.
Not only do you get your ebooks sold on Amazon, but the buyers can also review your product there.
2. Google Play
You can use Google Play for more than just downloading games or other software. Publishing ebooks on Google Play is a possibility. You can target Android and Google Book users with ease with the Google Play Books Partner Center.
The control you get here is quite similar to another ebook publishing platform, iBooks Author. All you would need to do is upload your ebook, set up the selling price, and get access to people from all over the world.
The reason why Google Play is such an amazing ebook publishing platform is that with Google Play, you get access to a market much larger than any other platform. Even Amazon kindle falls short in competition when it comes to the market size. Moreover, using Google Play will make your ebook better compatible with Android devices. Your ebook will be accessible to anyone who uses Google.
Even if someone uses an Apple product, you will benefit from how familiar the user is with the search engine. The enhanced UI will allow Google to give your ebook a preference over others.
For instance, if you have published your Ebook in both Google and Amazon (do not try this, since you agree to the exclusivity clause on the ‘terms and conditions page), your Google ebook will always be on Google Books first.
3. iBooks Author
If you want to go Apple exclusive and want to target the audience that uses Apple, you can choose to go along with iBooks Author. To most people’s surprise, the application here is completely free. Although, you will have to pay some amount of your proceeds from each sale to Apple.
You will gain access to thousands of ebook templates in this app. There will also be some other design tools in Apple’s library. Publishing is as easy as just clicking one button. You also have the liberty of setting your price here. Be aware of the percentage you will have to pay when setting up the price. Remember that customers will have to pay the full price, so increasing doesn’t always make it more profitable.
This app is best known for its simplicity when it comes to publishing an ebook. You can publish directly from the Pages app. Furthermore, you can categorize your books to target a specific audience/ market on iTunes U.
4. Smashwords
Smashwords is probably the only platform that can give the market leaders a challenge without being one of them. You can edit, format, market, distribute, manage metadata, and have sales reports of the ebooks with this free tool. This app also provides you with the facility to publish if that is the only thing you are looking for.
You will gain full control over your book with Smashwords. This is something that even the print-authors desire. Further, you not only get to set the price of your ebook but also how the ebook is going to be marketed. For example, you can set up the sample size.
With all those free tools, you will also have the privilege of keeping a big percentage of the sales to yourselves. If your ebook is sold at any major retailer, you will keep 60% of the amount, and if sold at the Smashwords store, you will get up to 80%! Smashwords is integrated with almost every ebook store there is, including:
- Kobo
- Oyster
- Google Books
- iBooks
- Amazon
- Barnes & Noble
- Aldiko and several others.
Other than the free supply chain tools listed, other features Smashwords provide unlimited updates, free formatting, free ISBN, ebook conversion tools, and much more.
5. NOOK Press
Barnes and Noble is another book store that helps hopeful writers publish their ebooks free of cost. It provides two platforms where you can publish your books; The NOOK e-readers and BarnesAndNoble.com. NOOK Press is their publishing site.
Besides being completely free, NOOK Press also gives you full control over how much you are willing to charge for your ebook. Again, this can have an impact on your royalty rates. Keep in mind not to overcharge for your ebooks. Keeping it simple is the best way.
Every tool required to publish an ebook is provided by the NOOK Press, such as a formatter.
6. Tradebit
There is a lot more to Tradebit than just publishing ebooks. You can also upload short stories, poem compilations, novella, or a professional ebook for the whole world to read. And doing that is quite simple as it only requires a single click once you have registered. With Tradebit, you can use the traditional ebook publishing ideas and entangle them with the salesy attitude of the internet.
After you have published your ebook, you can then also choose to either make it appear on the front page of your store or not. Further, you can pay a little more money in order to feature it on the front page of the website! If you make a sale from the front page of your own website, Tradebit will keep a commission from around 25-30%, based on the location you are from. However, if the ebook is sold on Tradebit’s own front page, the commission can increase.
You can get a lot more creative when selling with Tradebit. Just like Amazon, Tradebit, too, has some affiliate programs that will help you in marketing your ebook. In addition to that, Tradebit is completely integrated with social media. This will help you a lot in marketing your products without worrying about any limitations. If you want, you can use eBay to sell your ebooks as well.
You have the freedom of setting your price on Tradebit. Again, make sure to consider customers’ perspectives when making such implementations.
When you sign up with Tradebit, you get up to 10 GB worth of storage. This will allow you to publish various content, including products and even videos. If you find it difficult to market your ebook, you can use the marketing tools that Tradebit offers. This will help you reach a larger audience.
7. Gumroad
Gumroad offers you tons of selling options. You only have to pay a fee of 3.5% on every sale you make. Gumroad’s membership costs just $10 per month. The concept of Gumroad is quite similar to many other ebook publishing platforms. Gumroad allows you to set up a shop of your own and sell your ebooks from there. When compared with some other platforms, Gumroad is a lot cheaper with just as many options.
Although, Gumroad’s market share is quite low when compared to other platforms, so keep this in mind when publishing your ebooks. Gumroad gracefully moves away from the traditional way of publishing ebooks.
Not only you can customize the outlook of your book and the pages within it, but also craft membership and subscription plans for specific user groups. You can offer discounts, promotional codes, and direct sales. The amount of customization Gumroad offers is amazing.
8. Selz
Where a traditional bookstore would be, customers would go through various collections of ebooks and purchase the ones they are interested in. Selz is a platform for sellers to create their free account, build their stores, and sell their ebooks there.
You can gain access to proprietary analytic tools, fraud prevention tools, and widgets on top of five custom listings with Selz. All you have to do is upload your ebook and begin selling. However, it is not like a traditional publishing option as there is no ISBN attached to your ebook.
You can get a premium membership of Selz for just $12.99, which offers unlimited listing and a large variety of customization options for your ebook selling store.
9. Payhip
Payhip is one highly recommended ebook selling and hosting platform. Payhip includes various features such as marketing, analytics, affiliates, discount codes, and customer management. Here, you can give a good commission to other bloggers and marketers to promote your ebooks.
Payment can be handled with PayPal or Stripe. You must be aware that other than the small charge fee, there will also be PayPal or Stripe transaction fees when you sell your ebooks. There are three plans for how you can choose to price when using Payhip:
Free Forever: 5% transaction fees, including Stripes or PayPal transaction fees.
Plus: $29 a month, 2% transaction fees, including Stripes or PayPal transaction fees.
Pro: $99 a month, no transaction fees; however, Stripes or PayPal transaction fees included.
Another advantage of using Payhip is that they will report and pay EU VAT for you. Payhip is quite a user-friendly site. Although it lacks some selling options, it is a platform that is very easy to use and has a lot less hassle. Payhip has helped people make thousands of dollars.
10. Blurb
Not only you can publish and sell your ebooks on Blurb, but also actually create your ebooks with the amazing features of Blurb. With Blurb, you can create, promote, and sell your ebooks. You can choose to sell your ebook either on their platform or on Amazon, Barnes and Noble platform, and the Apple iBooks Store. This website offers some great features that will help you create and style your ebooks before you can promote them and sell them to your targeted market. Besides ebooks, you can also create high-quality printed books and magazines with Blurb if you wish to. Therefore, if you already have an ebook and are looking to take this a step ahead, give this service a go.
Conclusion:-
There are tons of more ebook publishing platforms available out there on the internet. The only thing stopping you from becoming a published author right now is you. In case you have a hard time finding the motivation or getting the time, you can always look to hire professional ghostwriters that can help write, edit, format, publish, and market your ebooks. All you need to do is start working for your goals. Becoming a published author is not as hard as it seems.
The Last Few Words:-
We hope you found this article helpful. Definitely give all of the mentioned websites a check before choosing where to sell your ebook. If you think a better platform was not included in this list, let us know your thoughts about it.
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