Whether you’ve written a memoir for friends and family, or you’re hoping to market your thriller online, or you want to turn your professional expertise into a how-to manual, ebooks are a great way to get your story out of your desk drawer and into the world. Here’s a rundown of three services which allow you to publish your ebook for free and quickly make it available to potential readers, as well as one fee-based but more comprehensive service.
Smashwords: The beauty of Smashwords is that it’s one-stop ebook publishing, if you follow the guidelines to a tee, your ebooks will be available not only through major retailers, but also through independent bookstores and indiebound on eraders like the Kobo wireless eReaders. While formatting your book for Smashwords can be a bit tricky, once you’ve successfully uploaded your book, Smashwords makes it available on Google ebooks, Kindle, Nook, Ipad, Kobobooks.com
, and Sony E-reader. If you’d like to save yourself the hassle of dealing with multiple publishing platforms, Smashwords may be your best bet. Your book will have a dedicated link on the Smashwords website, giving users the opportunity to download it in numerous formats, or even to read it online. (Click here to see an example of a Smashwords landing page.)
With Smashwords, as with other platforms, you set the price and keep a big portion of the profits. Publishers receive 85% of the net sales proceeds for books purchased on the site. Keep in mind, however, that when Smashwords distributes your book to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobobooks.com, and other channels, you share the royalties with Smashwords. My biggest complaint with Smashwords, oddly enough, is that the complicated formatting guidelines are only available in an ebook; while free, the ebook is maddeningly difficult to navigate. I hope this is a bug that Mark Coker will fix soon!
Barnes and Noble Pub-it: If you want to make your book available in the world’s largest bookstore, Barnes and Noble Pub-it is for you. This platform allows you to publish on Nook. If you are going to the trouble to publish on Kindle, you should also publish here. Nook has been receiving rave reviews from the tech world, and, anecdotally speaking, everyone I know who owns a Nook is hopelessly devoted. There’s no denying it’s prettier than the Kindle, with its white frame, color graphics, and touch screen capabilities. Publishers receive 65% royalties on books priced between $2.99 and $9.99, 40% for books priced below $2.98 or greater than $10.00. Click here to see an example of a Nook product page.
Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (formerly known as DTP, or Digital Text Publishing): It’s refreshingly easy to publish on Kindle. Simply upload your book as a .doc file to the KDP website, upload your cover image as a .jpeg file, enter a book description and a few key words, name the author, and choose your price. This is a much easier interface than Smashwords, but the downside, of course, is that anything you upload to Kindle is available only on Kindle. You’ll have to publish your book separately to make it available for Nook or other ereaders. Books published on Amazon KDP appear in about 24 hours in Amazon’s extremely popular Kindle Store. Publishers receive 70% royalties on books priced at $2.99 and higher. For books priced below $2.99, publishers receive 35% royalties.
Lulu: Long before ebooks became the belle of the ball, Lulu was helping people self-publish books the old-fashioned way: in print. Not surprisingly, Lulu now offers ebook publishing services as well. With a cleaner interface than the rest, Lulu is easy on the eyes. Its simple 3-step process gives the competition a run for its money, although Lulu is pricey in comparison (Amazon and Barnes & Noble are free). An added bonus is the fact that Lulu ebooks can be quickly made available on the ibookstore, and let’s face it, anything that begins with the lower-case i is just a little bit cooler.
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