Making sense of eBook Distribution
I’m finally getting into the #eBook business, and this is my first endeavor to list something online. The first challenge was finding out how to distribute my eBook. I started out making a list of all the eBook sellers and Aggregators and came up with the above chart. Before I could make heads and tails of the list, I had to learn some vocabulary:
- A retailer sells your eBook to its customers and pays you a royalty.
- A distributor sells your eBook to multiple retailers and pays you a royalty.
- An aggregator charges a fee to distribute your book to many retailers, passing the retailer’s royalties on to you.
After listing about 50 retailers, here are some of the key things I learned:
- Five retailers hold 98% of the market: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google Play Books, Apple Books and Kobo. The rest hold 2%.
- Retailers like eBooks to be priced at $2.99 or higher. Some Like them to be below $10.00. They give the best royalties in this price range.
- Royalties are typically 70% of list price.
- Most aggregators charge 10% of list price.
The question I am asking myself: Is it worth paying an aggregator 10% to get your book into 50 different retailers, or is it better to simply create an account with the top five and upload your eBook five times?
In further research, it turns out that the most popular choice for publishing your books is the following:
- KDP for print and eBooks that sell on Amazon.
- Ingram Spark for print everywhere else.
- Draft 2 Digital for eBooks everywhere else.
Story and Graphics by Jeffrey David Montanye
#JeffreyDMontanye #SelfPublishing
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