Is anyone familiar with "e-publishing"?

[kentuck]

I have almost completed my book and I am looking for the best way to get it published?

Thanks for any information you might have.

[DavidDvorkin]

1. I've done a lot of it

Both for myself and for clients. I'm currently writing a book that I hope will help people do it themselves, so that they don't have to hire people like me.

Ask away.

[TheBlackAdder]

4. ...and your answer is?

[villager]

2. Hey, Kentuck -- do you want eBook only, or print-on-demand "physical" books, too?

There's Amazon's own CreateSpace for POD books.

Kindle Direct for eBooks.

https://www.bookbaby.com/ is also a helpful site.

[TheBlackAdder]

5. While there are a plethora of POD and self-publish sites, I hate to admit Amazon is the first choice

[kentuck]

6. Thanks!

I will check it out.

[UtahJosh]

3. Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing is the biggest

https://kdp.amazon.com

Plenty of info there. You can begin the process of uploading your book, just to see what it looks like and what kind of formatting issues you have, without having to publish until you're ready.

[kentuck]

7. Good info!

Thanks!

[metroins]

8. What is the benefit of publishing?

I've written 3 books and I sell them on my website. I looked at Amazon publishing but they wanted like 20% of all sales or something.

[kentauros]

9. Amazon gives authors a 70% royalty.

That is the highest royalty given by any publisher. The big "legacy" publishers give authors, at best, a 25% royalty. Usually, it's about half that.

And yes, while publishing them directly from your website ensures that you get 100% of the profits, you also don't get as wide a view from all possible readers as you would on Amazon and other such sites.

Best is to put your book up for sale through all of the non-legacy ebook publishing sites and gain that many more readers and fans

You might also see if you can get your books represented in eBooks Are Forever so that they can then be bought by libraries and loaned to people.

[metroins]

12. Do you pay amazon

If you sell the book yourself?

So I publish with Amazon, are they entitled to money for sales not on amazon?

[kentauros]

13. Amazon is simply another point of sale.

They only take their cut of books sold on their service.

[metroins]

14. Ah

I will publish on there then.

[kentauros]

15. I would also recommend having a look at this author's blog:

A Newbie's Guide to Publishing by J.A. Konrath

Much of it is about the publishing industry and how they treat authors, but every now and then he writes about self-publishing. Plus people post good info in the comments, and there are often links to other great blogs on self-publishing (like for all of the other places to publish. I only remember one: Smashwords.)

[UtahJosh]

16. Smashwords is one option...

There's also iTunes, Nook, Kobo, and several others.

Gotta be careful though, if you participate in Amazon's exclusivity program you can't publish elsewhere (including your own website). You can always opt out, though, and publish wherever you like.

[kentauros]

17. Yeah, I've heard about that with Amazon.

Nice to have the reminder, and for the benefit of everyone else

[UtahJosh]

10. Visibility, for one thing.

If someone is looking for a book, they're likely to be looking on Amazon. And if your book becomes popular, it starts to show up on best-seller lists, which in turn leads to more sales.

[Katashi_itto]

11. Consider marketing on both. Amazon gives you visibility. Work on your webpage as a blog

so people become encouraged to come to it to read your pithy pronouncements.

The company I built has about 100k reach a month on facebook and we plan on a % of than being directed to amazon when the movie gets released.