Wordzworth is a team of expert book designers. We produce fabulous print-ready files for books and convert these to create high-quality ebooks. When our customers increasingly asked for help with ebook distribution we then partnered with an ebook aggregator to offer this as an add-on service.
We are not a traditional publisher, we provide supported self-publishing services. This means the ebook is entirely yours. You own it, you market it and you receive all the royalties. We just provide a simple way to help get self-published ebooks that we have designed to market.
Purchase our ebook publishing package to have our experts manage your files from design layout through to upload, changes, submission, distribution and sales. We make the process absolutely painless and you won’t have to become an expert in the process – because we already are.
Ebook formats
The industry standard ebook format is epub and it is accepted by all major ebook retailers.
epub files can be viewed on iPads, iPhones, Nook, and Android, they are sold by Barnes & Noble, Apple and Google. Amazon accept the epub format which they will then convert to their own proprietary format for viewing with Kindle software on a range of devices.
Some authors will also have an ePDF version of their ebook. However, the text in an ePDF is not reflowable, the fonts and sizes do not adapt for small screen devices, so it is therefore not considered a true ebook format. As a result, the ePDF cannot be distributed as retailers will not sell it. However, we know many authors who offer their ePDF for sale on their website or blog directly.
ISBNs and copyright
Your ebook must have a different ISBN from your printed book as it is a different format. This is assigned to the epub file. Amazon will assign their own ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number) which they will use to list your title.
For most ebooks we will provide an ISBN and publish under our Wordzworth Publishing imprint. Alternatively you can white label our services to publish under your own imprint. To do this you will need your own registered publishing company and your own ISBN.
Occasionally, Amazon will request an email of permission from you to state that our ebook partner, Mint Associates, is authorized to distribute files on your behalf. This is rarely necessarily and is not required for any other retailer. It appears to be a random check by Amazon for copyright purposes. Where this occurs, we will request a simple email of authorization.
Pricing and metadata
Once you’ve reviewed your ebook and you’re happy with it then it’s time to login to your Authorzone and approve it. Here you will enter the key metadata like the title, summary and author bio. You will also make two sales decisions.
Your ebook price. This is the recommended retail price for your ebook. Your ebook does not have production costs like a print book so you have more flexibility here. It is a good idea to research the price of ebooks similar to your title. The price must end with .99. It must be a minimum of 0.99 and should be set individually in each currency. Larger ebook files with lots of images should generally be priced higher. We can provide help but as the author you have total control over this decision.
Your book classification. These BISAC or BIC codes are used to list your book and indicate to readers what it is about, so it’s important to select the right ones. You want at least two codes to best reflect the content and you want to make them as specific as possible, “general” codes are pretty useless. You should select the same codes for the book and ebook formats. And, as a tip, you cannot combine juvenile and adult codes for the same title. So, select your audience and then choose the most appropriate classification codes.
Distribution
We do not distribute ebooks ourselves, we use an aggregator called Mint who have years of experience listing with the major retailers.
Once you have approved your title the data will be pushed out into distribution. It will typically then start to appear online in around 7 days. There are a couple of things to consider here:
The good. The fact that big named retailers like Amazon and Apple allow independent authors to sell ebooks on their sites, is great news. Your ebook suddenly becomes available to a huge global audience of customers that you could only dream of having access to otherwise.
The ugly. While in many cases your ebook will be sold at the list price, it is possible for the sales price to be set much lower. In fact, it is entirely up to each retailer to decide how to price your book and they can essentially sell it for whatever they like. In particular, if Amazon spot your ebook is being sold cheaper with another retailer they will discount or price match against each other and can get into a pricing war reducing the sales price considerably.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to avoid this. However, to reduce the chances of it happening we distribute only to the four major retailers – Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble and Google. Some of the smaller retailers or ebook sellers are the most likely to discount ebooks so we do not list with them.
One year of distribution is included in your package. This can then be renewed for an annual fee of $80 USD/ £50 GBP/$100 AUD per title.
Royalties and ebook sales
Each time a retailer sells your ebook, they take a cut and pass on 35-70% of the sales price (not the list price) to you as royalties.
Apple pay 70%
Google pay 52%
B&N pay 50%
Amazon pay 35% (or 70%)
To qualify for the 70% Amazon royalty the ebook must be priced $2.99-$9.99 or £1.99-£9.99 and be at least 20% less than the print book. The customer downloading the ebook must be in a qualifying location. Amazon also apply a delivery fee of $0.15/£0.10 per MB for ebooks in this 70% bracket. For large ebook files with lots of images this will therefore quickly reduce royalties so the 35% royalty bracket is often a better option anyway.
For ebooks sold abroad, retailers will convert to your home currency using a fixed exchange rate of their choice.
We receive your ebook royalties from our ebook distributor and we pass on 100% of these royalties to you. These are paid on the 15th of each month with an initial four month delay in receiving your first royalty payment. This is industry-standard for all book sales as it takes time to collect money from individual retailers. All royalties are paid via PayPal directly to your email address. Where the balance is less than $20 USD/£15 GBP/$30 AUD then payment will roll to the following month.
Ebook sales data takes at least one month to filter through from the various retailers and be shown in your Authorzone. At this point the data is available for you to either view online or download in .csv or .pdf format for your own records. All sales information is aggregated. No details of an individual buyer will ever be shown for privacy reasons. Each of the major retailers will be itemized individually.
Resubmission and changes
Once your ebook has gone into distribution you might decide there are changes you want to make. The beauty of an electronic format means this is entirely possible but there are two main considerations.
Design fees. Where there is a print version of your book available we always recommend making the changes to this first. The ebook is supposed to be an electronic format of the same content so it is always best to keep all your formats in step and up-to-date. Minor changes will be made for our minimum changes fee. Major design changes or hundreds of edits may require the ebook file to be reconverted from your updated print book file. Changes that are big enough to constitute a new edition of the book may require a new ISBN.
Metadata changes. You may also want to make a change to your book data such as the list price. This is free to update but once your book is in distribution you will not be able to make the changes yourself in the Authorzone, just email us the changes you require and we will make the adjustments. Please note that metadata changes will not update instantly, something like a change in list price will take 2-3 weeks to update with retailers.
Our contract
We have no old-fashioned printed contract for you to sign. We simply ask you to click to accept that you have read this page and our terms.
If for any reason you need to cancel, our agreement is not exclusive so that’s fine. We just need 90 days notice to sort out your royalties and any files that contain our details. Please note that where we have provided an ISBN this is assigned to our company and must not be used if the ebook is then published elsewhere.
In order to publish a title we incur a number of costs from purchasing ISBNs, to file submission fees as well as administration charges for completing registrations. All publishing package fees are therefore non-refundable.