Have you written a book with the intention to self-publish? Great! But where to publish? Read on to discover 6 great options, 3 of which I use myself. In this article, I’m going to answer your question about where to sell ebooks online.
Before putting any book up for sale online, it’s always a great idea to have it really thoroughly checked over and edited. No place online is going to be good enough to sell an eBook that isn’t good quality.
There are some very helpful ways to get this done before you put your eBook out for sale on the various online marketplaces.
Since the internet is such a big place, there is nothing stopping you from leveraging multiple sites to sell your content on.
Before we go into where to start selling, take note that most sites that allow you to sell your eBooks will take a small cut from each sale you make for the privilege of doing the selling for you.
Ok, let’s dive in. Here are 10 places you can easily sell your eBook online.
#1 Sell your eBook on Amazon KDP
Want to get your book in front of a massive online audience? Amazon has a whopping 300,000 active users! It is an easy process to upload your eBook on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).
Amazon KDP allows you to sell your book in both digital and hardcopy format.
All you will need to do is go to Amazon KDP and follow the steps provided to get that book up for sale.
With Amazon, you might be wise to start with a relatively low price to kick off your first few sales. Meanwhile, you may get some positive feedback if your book is valued by customers.
After that, you can increase your price a few notches and hopefully get even more positive ratings and reviews. Since Amazon is such a big place however, you will need your book to be well targeted, catchy, good quality and within pretty much everyone’s budget.
Make sure you spend time on generating a good front cover! They say ‘don’t judge a book by its cover,’ but you and I know people do it all the time anyway.
#2 Sell your eBook on Payhip
You can host your eBook on a site called Payhip.com and take advantage of their promo tools to set up promotional campaigns which will allow you to get maximum eyes on your offer.
PayPal is available with Payhip which is always handy and free of complication.
The company takes a small 5% commission on each sale you make, allowing you to really stack up profit.
Some authors get other affiliates or bloggers to promote their offer using this site and in return pay them an agreed commission rate.
#3 Sell your eBook on Apple Books
Apple books has a wide readership and people buy and read books on various Apple devices.
While Amazon is larger, you will be able to make more money per sale on Apple Books than you would with Amazon.
Frankly, Apple customers are less price sensitive than Amazon customers and that can be a real bonus for you as a seller on Apple Books.
Also, unlike with Amazon, Apple Books doesn’t have a royalty cap on books that are priced any higher than $9.99.
You always get 70% royalties no matter what your price is.
When uploading and selling your ebook, you can go through an aggregator, such as Draft2Digital. An aggregator acts as a middle man who will distribute your work on multiple retail sites. However, you will still need to pay them something for doing this work for you.
Alternatively, you can just upload directly to Apple Books which is a fairly simple process:
- You create an iTunes Connect account (if you don’t already have one)
- Login to your Apple account and connect it by clicking on the blue button in the right lower corner
- It will ask if you are an individual or an organisation (select whichever applies to you)
- Fill in the details for your iTunes Connect account under Agreements, Tax and Banking (you won’t be selling on iTunes Connect but you need this to get paid once Apple approves you)
- Upload and publish your book on Apple Books
For more detailed instructions on this process, just head over to the site and follow the steps provided. They will provide all the information you need.
With Amazon you can choose 2 categories for your book but with Apple you can choose up to 3 categories.
It is a good strategy to choose 2 subcategories that have different parent categories so that you can rank higher in your selected categories.
You can possible get some people to pre-order your book if you know how to drive some buyer traffic. This will give it a big boost and increase your chances of getting more eyes on your book moving forward and generating more sales.
#4 Sell you eBook on Barns & Noble Press
Barnes & Noble Press is a website that allows authors to submit and publish their ebooks.
It’s a nice, tidy and professional site with multiple book publishing options.
N&B Press has millions of readers for you to get your book in front of and they have an fast and user-friendly self-publishing service.
You will get 70% royalties; sell an ebook for $9.99 and you will receive $6.99. They will take $3.00 for retail and distribution.
After creating an account, all you need to do is follow the steps shown on the site to get your ebook published ready to be sold.
N&B Press are a real authority when it comes to self-publishing services and you get good value if you choose to work with them.
It’s free to publish on their site, they give you decent royalties and you can get your book published in three formats:
- eBook
- Paperback
- Hardback
Although they have a lower readership than other places, you still get an audience that’s in the millions and it’s just another platform among others where you can publish your works.
For what it’s worth, you do get publishers say it adds a little extra level of prestige to say your book is published on Barnes & Noble and I agree with them.
B&N existed before Amazon dominated the market but still, authors say you can come across as a touch more impressive and authoritative if you are published on B&N Press.
#5 Sell your eBook on Gumroad
Gumroad is a place where you can sell a wide variety of things including ebooks. They give you plenty of ideas for other things you can sell as well.
It’s a good choice if you don’t want the hassle of dealing with VAT for your customers. Gumroad will handle all of that for you.
They do charge a bit more per sale you make than other places but the benefit is that it really is very easy to publish ebooks on the site. Plus you can make good money selling on Gumroad.
You will normally need to do the marketing yourself to make sales but it’s always a good idea to do your own marketing no matter where you’re book is being sold.
That said, if you pay them a commission, Gumroad have a thing called ‘Discover’ where they recommend things such as your ebook. This is optional, something you might want to try out to boost your sales but that will be for you to weigh and consider.
Also, the higher the commission you give them, the more they will boost your book. For example, if you gave them 20% of the sale, they would boost it but not as much as if you offered them say 40-50%.
Here’s an easy-to-follow video that will explain the process of getting your ebook uploaded on Gumroad:
#6 Sell your eBook on Kobo Writing Life
Kobo was started in Canada 2009. It is a retailer of ebooks and audio books. It is available in 200 countries.
It’s actually so big and successful that it comes 2nd in the ebook market, just behind Amazon.
Kobo Writing Life is the platform where you can upload and sell your ebook.
It is a matter of following the instructions on the site which are user friendly and easy to follow.
#7 Sell your eBook on Shopify
Shopify can be good, especially if you already have a Shopify store. It is a highly popular and effective ecommerce store.
To sell your ebook on Shopify, you will need to follow a few steps. Once complete you’ll be good to go. Shopify is certainly regarded as a highly efficient e-Commerce platform.
#8 Sell your eBook YouTube
Ok, this one is mostly for anyone who is already managing a YouTube channel, however, it’s not actually essential to have your own channel in order to sell to the enormous world of YouTube.
Wherever your eBook is stored online, there will be a link to it. If you have it up on Amazon for example, all you’ll need is a redirect link to Amazon where you eBook is up for sale.
Either leave a link in your description videos and mention to your subscribers, or get in contact with other YouTubers and see if you can make a deal with them to promote your eBook link on their channel. Alternatively, it is also possible to drop your link in the comments section of videos that are related to the subject matter of your eBook.
However, I don’t especially advise or encourage this since it can be difficult not to come across as a spammer and there’s no guarantee that your comment and link won’t be removed. Finally, if you have the budget for it, you could create a short video advertising your eBook and then run some YouTube Ads aimed at your target audience.
However, with this method, you’d want your eBook to have a high enough price so that you could actually make a profit after paying for the ads.
#9 Sell your eBook on Online Forums
There as forums online with hundreds of thousands of members where you can participate, engage with people and potentially sell your eBook.
One place for example is Find A Forum. Pick a niche relative to your eBook and join some of the discussions. After some time, you can leave a link and some helpful comments, offering people the value contained in your eBook and with so much free and targeted traffic, especially if you manage to avoid looking spammy, you have every chance to generate sales completely for free!
#10 Sell your eBook on Your Own Website
One of the best and probably the best place to sell your eBook is from your own website. If you do it right, one website can give you free traffic to your offers in huge numbers every single day!
You will of course want your book to be relevant to your blog’s niche
There are many ways to sell your ebook from your site such as displaying it as a side widget or referring to it within your blogposts.
But your book normally needs to already be on some platform such as one or more of the above. Maybe you have a book on Amazon but it’s not yet being noticed. Well, your blog could be the answer. It’s a simple matter of sending your website traffic to your book.
I hope this has been informative and useful.
Wishing you the best and don’t hesitate to leave a comment any time!