There's a lot of good sites you can find online. Find out below what is the best site for self publishing that excels on the internet today.
Today's question has three answers. The third answer is the reason why the best site for publishing is the best site. It's a little bit surprising for reasons you might not imagine.
Let's get into it. The question that was sent to me and I get this question quite often and that is, what is the best site for self publishing?
Many people when they first get started with their publishing journey, they're trying to figure out, should I publish on Amazon? Should I publish on let's say, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, Lulu, Ingram Spark, and many of the other sites?
Check out this related article: Is Lulu Press Self Publishing A Good Idea
May be publishing just on your site. Or publishing on one of the sites where you can just have, like a blog and putting your work out that way. There's a whole pile of different ways.
I even remember somebody saying they bought a house. Based on selling books on Fiverr which I've also tried and made some sales. People were happy with the books I sold there.
But not anything near as much as the best site. Before we get into the answers, check out my free Self- Publishing Secrets Checklist.
When I first started self- publishing, I was following several books that I have read on the subject. I realized the largest bookstore in the world was Amazon. So I decided to put my books on Amazon. But was that the correct choice?.
Well, I initially made no sales at all. My books were doing terribly. I wasn't getting anything, I mean I would see a sale here or maybe a couple a week later another sale there.
It was doing downright awful. That was because I was breaking a whole series of key strategy rules. That most authors do when they put their books on Amazon.
But it made me wonder, maybe I had my books on the wrong site. Now, later I went into other sites, I tried Smashwords. I sold my books as I mentioned on Fiverr. I moved my books also to Lulu and Ingram Spark. And a whole other places to test out where exactly.
Well, I mean to answer the question of what is the best site for self publishing? And what did I find? Let's
get into the answers.
The first thing is, Amazon is by far the best site to start when you're self-publishing your books. It is where to start. The reason for that is because Amazon is such a massive library.
Amazon Is The Best
It has in terms of the number of people, the customers that are coming in. The library is enormous and the people on Amazon are only there because they're interested in buying.
It's not that they're there to just be entertained by looking at a bunch of books. No! No! Those people have their credit cards already attached to their accounts.
They're interested in buying. You have both the intent, the willingness, and they are one button away from clicking. Then they search and they find your book.
Check out this related article: Where Can I Find Amazon Self Publishing Login?
They're not looking at the books just for fun. They want to buy and so this is a fantastic site. There is no other site in the world that will give you that flexibility.
However, answer number two, Amazon may be the best site to start at but you should experiment with all of the other sites. For example, you should be getting your books into hardback versions this is for Lulu.
That's where we do that, they supply the ISBN and then you pay for $20 to $30. And you get a draft of the book. A proof copy that you can check quickly. And you can go from there to get those books already out. They're pumping out those Lulu books well. Then it turns to show up back on Amazon.
Also, you should go to Ingram Spark. Which gives you the ability to have even additional distribution that will cost you ISBN. If you don't have a code for their site, you'll have to pay a fee of $50 to have them.
They'll take a look at your book and at your manuscript then what you're submitting. To make sure it fits in with their rules and their policies. It's a little price here but it gets you a very wide distribution.
That's something you do not want to discount. The final thing you need to consider here is that Amazon has been well known to shut down accounts and to create all sorts of problems for publishers. You do not want to be left there with no revenue coming in.
Because they've decided to mess with your account. If they do give you a warning you need to reply immediately. Often everything's done by computers.
So it's not like you're even dealing with a person. No response means you admit that you're guilty. I've heard of many people where they just wait a couple of days before they respond.
And that can cost them the entire account. Just a little bit of a heads up on the Amazon front, make sure you respond if they give you a warning. I have not received any of those warnings but I have seen many people who have lost their accounts.
And if you have your books on other sites, not the best sites but other sites, you will still continue to have your royalties coming in. Even if your Amazon site happens to be threatened.
Register To KDP
Let's move on to the secret answer of the day. That is answer number three. Here is the key issue here, you can't run ads against your Amazon book if they're not in KDP Select. This is an incredibly important point.
You might be thinking, "I have no intention of running ads". My question to you is do you have no intention of selling books? Well, we, of course, are looking to sell books.
So if you want to see your book sell. Then you're going to need to make sure they're registered on KDP Select. That's just the way that it is to get the books in front of people.
Unless you're a famous author already. And if you are, why are you watching me? You've already sold enough books.
You don't need any help. Otherwise, you're going to need to be able to have them in KDP Select. And you're going to need to run ads against them.
Check out this related article: Where To Start With Self Publishing For Kindle?
You're going to need to do this pretty quickly once you've got your books out there. But if you only have books out there, don't worry about the ads. Just get your books to register in KDP Select.
Then we can come back to that at a later time. But the best site is Amazon in combination with running ads on Amazon. For which I found amazing success.
We're talking five times more money than the cost of the ads. It's crazy how much money you can make even though I regularly see people sending "Oh it's getting harder and there's more competition".
They are correct it was much easier before. If only I could go back in time and run these ads earlier. But now is the time to do it.
The tool that I use when finding keywords is Publisher Rocket. That's the tool that I use. I have a list of all of my tools because I think it's important to understand the toolset.
But you don't have to run any tools. You can just say, that's to find the keywords. You can just run it on automatic.
Tell it to bid down, pick a price and bid 15 cents whether it's euros or pounds or whatever it might be. 15 cents is generally where I like to start. Then bidding allowing it to have flexible bidding downward.
Set a budget a hundred dollars a day and you should be okay. Well, what is the best site for self- publishing?
What have you found? Have you found that there's a better site than Amazon? I've been looking around and Amazon is the best for me.
But maybe you found something. Go and let me know below in the comments. Check out my other blogs and videos that will answer your self-publishing questions.