Julie Broad compares publishing ebooks directly to stores like Amazon and Kobo versus using aggregators like Draft2Digital. Direct uploads give you more control and higher royalties but mean managing multiple platforms; aggregators handle distribution to libraries and smaller stores for a cut. Her advice: go direct to the big two, then use an aggregator for everything else.
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Amazon Kindle definitely has the market for ebooks cornered in the United States, but it's not the only player in the marketplace. If you're a nonfiction author about to publish an ebook, you might be wondering where you should upload your book for distribution. If you are, stick around. Hi there, I'm Julie the Book Broad Award winning author and founder of Book Launchers, your professional self publishing team that will help you write, publish and promote a money making impact. Creating Nonfiction book We help authors take an idea and turn it into a fantastic business and brand boosting book and then when it's done, we help them get distribution and attention for that book. Authors like Gautam bade, Carol Sanford, Dr. Mark Lindholm and Thomas Gabor. As part of that, we're also helping them create print books and ebooks and a discussion that comes up is where their ebooks should be distributed and how to get it there. So first, where? That largely depends on who your readers are and where they're located. We've talked about going exclusive with Kindle before and it's not what I typically recommend. So I'm assuming you want distribution more than just Kindle. If you are on Kindle, you're hitting a pretty good chunk of the US market. But it's not everyone and US is only one country in the world. If you want to capture Canada and other English speakers around the world, you really should look at including Kobo, Apple and if you want library distribution Overdrive, you're going to need a way to access all of these. Unless you're willing to go direct. Well, the ones that you can go direct overdrive, you need a way to get there. So the first decision is where do you think your readers are going to look for your book? Then once you've decided where you should be, the next decision is how to get there. Now there's two options for getting ebook distribution direct and this works for most of the platforms, but not all. Like Overdrive, the library system, or the second option is through an aggregator. Now before I get into the big details around this, I want you to know this is a gigantic rabbit hole and you can get lost in the details. I'm going to stick to the the high level, most important points. But if you do want to dive into finer details of everything, I'm saying I've got a great post by David Wogan who broke down the different aggregators and the pros and cons. It's a touch out of date in terms of a few details, but it's a Great overview. If you like traveling down rabbit holes. I love rabbit holes. So what is direct versus an aggregator? Direct is uploading your ebook direct to each provider, so going on to kdp and then if you have a Mac, and only if you have a Mac, uploading your ebook to Apple, then ko, Barnes and Noble and Google, and filling in each of the forms and uploading your files directly. The upside of doing this is you can adjust the finer details of your book. That's the metadata to be specific to that channel, and you will make more money because there's no middleman. The downside is pretty big. The effort it takes to upload to all those channels is one part of it. But now if you have to update or make a change, you have to update it everywhere. And then checking your sales and getting paid from all these different places, which means more paperwork at tax time. That's no fun. That's where companies like Draft2Digital, Publish, Drive, Smashwords and others come into the picture. They are what are called an aggregator and what they do is act as the hub for your book to be distributed to many places at once. You upload your book once, select where you want it to be distributed and they take care of the rest. We've talked about aggregators before when we talked about ACX versus Findaway Voices. The downside of an aggregator is of course, less money and a little less control. The upside is a whole lot of reduced pain in the patootie. It becomes one place to see your stats, one place to make updates, etc. And they will reach a lot more than just the big players. So you really can connect with a reader wherever they are looking for you, including overdrive, which is the library system. Of course, for this you pay them a fee for their services, which is only fair. So ultimately, going direct or going through an aggregator is largely a choice between cost and convenience. Whatever you decide, know this. It is not the job of Cobol, Kindle, Apple or any distribution channel to sell your book. That is your job to get the book in front of readers. Some of these folks do a better job of helping you with this than others, and there are different benefits to each channel. But ultimately it doesn't matter how much distribution you have if you're not marketing your book. Also, if you have more time than money and you are okay with hassle, upload direct to the channels you want your book distributed on. This will make you the most amount of money. And most of the platforms are totally free to use. Finally, know that readers are loyal to a store if your book is not available on Kobo, and that is their e reader of choice. Even if they've heard great things about your book, they're unlikely to switch to a different app or device just to buy and read your book. So you will be missing out on some readers if you aren't widely available. But it's impossible to know until you do it whether or not it's a game changer for you and your book sales. My advice to most nonfiction authors who can't decide is is this Upload direct to KDP and Kobo and use Draft 2 Digital or Publish Drive for the rest. We set our clients up with Draft 2 Digital and are really happy with their services, distribution options and support. I'll link to them below. But I'm curious, what are you doing with your ebooks? 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