I’m going to talk a little bit about the different platforms on which you can publish ebooks, because if you’re an indie author, you’ll want to know about how to publish ebooks. Ebooks are the easiest, cheapest way to get your work out there.
[00:00:23] When it comes to talking about ebooks you need to understand that you have 1) direct publishing and 2) publishing through an aggregate service. Direct publishing means going directly to the platform provided by the company or retailer, whether it’s Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, or Google, versus distributing through a company that takes your book and sends it to those retailers.
[00:01:05] Let me start off by just telling you what the platforms are. You have, of course, Amazon, which everybody knows. You have Barnes & Noble’s Nook. You have Apple Books, Kobo, and I think it’s Google Books, but I’m not sure about that. [It’s actually Google Play.]
[00:01:34] It used to be Google Play Maybe it still is. [It is.] In any event, by the time this video comes out, maybe it’ll change again. But the thing is, I’m kidding. Maybe. The thing is that you can publish direct to most of these platforms. I’m not sure about Google. And the other alternative is to publish through an aggregate service. These include old standbys like Smashwords and what has become, I think, an old standby, Draft2Digital.
[00:02:18] There are other companies as well. PublishDrive is one. StreetLib is another And you can find these by going online and Googling them. But I will provide a list of resources with this video in the link below that you can check out for yourself, and see what your options are in terms of places to publish your work. And I will also, at some point, discuss how to actually go about uploading your books to these different platforms.
[00:03:06] Let me also explain here that there are two different types of files that you’re going to need when it comes to uploading to different platforms. When you see the term .mobi,, it refers to the type of file that can be read on a Kindle. There’s also another type that I can’t remember. [It’s .azw.] But just remember that if you have a .mobi file, that’s what’s compatible with Kindle. Every other platform uses what’s called .epub. Dot-epub, like it sounds.
[00:03:50] And that can be used on any of the aggregation companies, as well as with the individual retailer platforms. So I’ll give you the information on that when I give you the information on the different distribution channels. And stay tuned for some upcoming tutorial videos on exactly what you go through when you upload your books as ebooks. It’s very, very easy. So, with that, I’ll just say, I’ll talk to you later.
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Additional image credit: Photo by James Tarbotton on Unsplash