Ebook publishing via epub retailers

Give your ebook every chance of success

Ebook publishing with none of the hassle

If you’re finding the process of listing your ebook for sale overly complicated, why not let us do it? We’ll ask you for some basic data and then handle everything else. Just don’t forget to make use of our ebook design service first to rule out any conversion problems and to make sure your readers get a perfect reading experience.

Enjoy the freedom and control of self-publishing

Top-quality ebooks with good reviews can sell incredibly well. It’s an exciting and lucrative time for self-published authors so let’s help you make the most of it. We’ll list your book with Amazon, Apple, Google, and Barnes & Noble to help you reach the biggest audience you can.

  • 240 USD including one year's distribution

  • No hidden costs or commissions

  • Lists your ebook on Amazon, Apple, Google and Barnes & Noble

  • Keep 100% of your royalties

We're ready when you are.

Whatever stage your book is at, send us what you’ve got and we can go from there. Don’t have a manuscript ready just yet? That’s fine too! Simply ask us your questions, our team is happy to help.

How ebook distribution works

Your questions answered

what's in your ebook publishing package?

All inclusive fee of 240 USD

Our ebook publishing package is an easy way to list your ebook with the four major retailers—Amazon, Apple, Google and Barnes & Noble. Our package covers everything required to publish your book including an ISBN, registration with Nielsen or Bowker, a year of distribution, royalty handling and assistance with any issues along the way.

Relisting - 48 USD per annum after first year

Distribution fees included in this package will list your ebook for one year. After this year is up you will be sent a renewal quotation for 48 USD redistribution fees. Upon payment your ebook will be listed for a further year.

what about the ISBN?

Your ebook must have a different ISBN from your printed book. Publish with our Wordzworth imprint and we will assign your ebook one of our ISBNs. Publish under your own imprint and we will need to be sent an additional ISBN for your ebook version.

Occasionally, Amazon will request an email of permission from you to state that we are 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.

how do changes work?

It's not uncommon for an author to need to make a change to their ebook. Unlike print, the beauty of electronic format means that files can be updated and replaced very quickly. However, there are costs and other considerations involved so our advice would be—collect your changes together and only submit them when you have enough to make the process worthwhile.

design changes

Each file that needs updating at this stage will cost a minimum of 48 USD. It is advisable to allow time for any changes to be made. If you have other book formats (paperback, casebound) then you will probably want to update these as well in order to keep all versions in-step.

post-publication changes

Once your ebook has been published any change will be subject to a minimum fee of 96 USD - our design changes fee plus the re-submission fee to push the replacement file out to retailers.

data changes

The other type of change you may wish to make is an update to your book’s metadata, such as an alteration to the list price, author bio or wholesale discount. These updates are free but you will need to email us, clearly specifying the changes you require. Also, please note that not all metadata changes take effect immediately. In particular, a change in your list price takes 3-4 weeks to update with retailers.

how do I set my ebook price?

Your ebook does not have production costs like a print book so you have huge flexibility when setting the price. However, the way ebook sales work is both complex and rather frustrating, here is an overview.

list price

This is the recommended price for a retailer to sell your ebook. To choose this, consider what your book is worth to customers, the price of other books in the same genre, royalties and currency conversions. Larger ebook files with lots of images should generally be priced higher. Let's say we think the ebook is worth $10.

retail price

Retailers may use your list price as a guide to price but they may actually sell for any price they choose. And if Amazon see your ebook is sold cheaper elsewhere they can go into a discounting war. Unfortunately this is beyond your control. However, by selling with only the four main retailers, and no smaller ones, you reduce the chances of this happening. Maybe B&N decide to sell the ebook for $8 and Amazon discount to $7.

retailer cut

Each time a retailer sells your ebook, they take a cut and pass on 35-70% of the sales price (not list price) to you as royalties. Apple pay 70%, Google pay 52%, B&N pay 50% and Amazon pay 35% (or 70%) with a few caveats...

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 also 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.

Royalties = 30-65% of retail price

pricing in other currencies

You must provide a list price for your book in each market you wish to sell it in. If pricing is not submitted for a particular market, your title will be unavailable for sale in that market. As a quick suggestion, you can take your book price in your main currency e.g. $10, convert it at the current exchange rate to get prices in other currencies e.g. £7.80. Finally, we would further suggest rounding the prices in each currency to end in a neat .49 or .99. So in our sample case, $9.99 and £7.99.

In essence, this unfortunately means that unlike for a print book, it is impossible to calculate in advance how much you will receive in royalties for each ebook sold. All you can do is set your list price to something sensible and hope the retailers take this as a guide.

how do I get paid for ebook sales?

A customer buys your book online at the retail price. The retailer then pays 30-65% of this to us in royalties. You receive 100% of these royalties for each ebook you sell. We do not take any commission on your ebook sales.

Royalties are paid out to authors on the 15th of each month. There is then a 4 month rolling delay in receiving payments. So January royalties would be recieved in May, February royalties in June. 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 payment will be carried forward 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. Major retailers such as Amazon or Barnes & Noble will be itemised other retailers are shown aggregated as sales via Ingram.

where will my ebook be sold?

online retailers

Your book data will be broadcast to just four retailers - Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble and Google. The vast majority of ebooks are sold through these retailers and by not selling via any smaller ones, you reduce the chances of a pricing discount war between them. Your title should then be listed as available for sale on these websites, at their discretion, in around 7 days. Please note your book will only appear in markets for which you have set a selling price.

not on our site

There are a variety of reasons for this from not having permission to sell the Amazon proprietary format, to triggering a discounting war between retailers, to having to host the physical files to digital rights management and security. However, ebooks are listed with retailers much faster than books so there is less delay to them becoming available elsewhere.

how will retailers show my ebook?

An online bookstore is just a shop. The way they determine whether to list an ebook and how they list it is down to their discretion and not something we can influence. However, if your ebook looks good, has the right metadata and is priced sensibly, then you have given your book the best chance. The way each retailer displays data may then differ in a number of ways.

pricing

The list price you set for your book is just a recommended sales price. A retailer is then entitled to sell it for whatever they like. This can be a higher value or a lower value than the list price you set and cannot be influenced. 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. It is not possible to avoid this but 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.

combined with other formats

If the title, author and keyword metadata for your print book matches your ebook exactly then Amazon will typically show them paired on a listing. This way if a customer searches for your title they will see both the print book and ebook together.

look inside

Amazon will typically display a section of your ebook file on their 'Look Inside' feature. Please note they use the Kindle Previewer software to display this which attempts to mimic what the ebook will look like on a Kindle and it is a good attempt, but not perfect.

error

Finally, should you ever believe there is a genuine error with a listing, such as the book cover not showing with a particular retailer, take a screenshot, send it to us and we will have the feeds pushed out again.

what about ebook security?

If you read ebooks, you've probably heard the term DRM or digital rights management. DRM exists to control access to copyrighted materials by preventing users from illegally copying and using software and data. It effectively locks your ebook file so that only the person who purchased it can view it.

The ebooks we produce do not contain DRM as, in our experience, adding it can cause problems. It is intended as an anti-piracy deterrent but can cause issues for legitimate readers such as preventing them from reading the book on multiple devices.

what are your terms?

We do not have a written contract for you to sign. Instead we ask that you have read this questions answered section and accept our general terms and conditions which we have tried to make short and readable.

You keep ownership of everything but have access to our expertise. You get your ebook on the four major retail platforms — Amazon, Google, Apple and Barnes & Noble. You have the little details handled properly without needing to become an expert. You receive 100% of your royalties without needing to lift a finger. Our platform is the modern, smart way to distribute your ebook.

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