Leaving KU, Part III: Your Other Options – Smaller and Niche Retailers and Direct Sales, and Other Considerations
We're back again with another guide for your potential journey to spreading your wings and going wide. In Part I, we discussed the why and the basic mindset you need when being a “wide” author. Part II, we discussed aggregate publishers, the other major retailers, and library services. In Part III, we will go over smaller or niche retailers that might be suitable for certain readerships as well as going over some of my favorite choices for selling directly, and getting really excited about things like VAT and Merchants of Record. Sounds complicated, and it is at first. But once you know what you're looking for, it becomes a lot easier.
Niche or Smaller Option
Aside from the major retailers, there are many smaller ones that cater to specific genres or offer unique features that you won't find elsewhere. Having your books available on these retailers can help you bring in readers who are looking for something a little more unique! This list is by no means exhaustive, but it does include only smaller retailers that I have direct experience with and feel confident commenting on!
Campfire
If you have readers that love extras—bonus scenes, character sheets, maps, lore articles, etc—this is the platform you will want to send those readers to! You can even monetize these extras! You spent all that time worldbuilding; this retailer lets you show it off and earn some money from it. Plus, they have 80% royalties. That's better than every other retailer right now. You get regular payouts via Stripe.
They have their own dedicated reading app that works on mobile, tablets, and certain ereaders like boox!
They have a huge list of tags with everything from tropes to identity to niche sub-sub-genres, so readers who are used to searching for things via AO3 tags will feel right at home. They have a separate system that lets you easily apply content warnings, too. They allow pre-orders, and it's rather easy to put your book on sale or create a promo code.
One unique feature is the “home page” for the book that you can set up very aesthetically (check out Stars and Soil's home page!)! You can enable reader comments on the home page, which are separate from star-reviews. So, if you miss the kind of comments that you would get on AO3, you can still get that reader engagement here.
The readership here is still small, but it is growing every day. There is a very loyal cozy fantasy and cozy mystery reader base here right now, too. And their appeal to TTRPG writers is waxing, so if you write LitRPG, progression fantasy, or base your stories on your favorite DND games, this is a platform you should definitely consider uploading to!
One great thing about them is their community of readers and writers on Discord, and their amazing blog that features not just fun writing types and deep dives into genre, but promotes the authors and books on their platform, like this post about magic systems that mentions Stars and Soil, The Handler's Gambit, The Whisperer in White, and Lost Blades—some of my absolute favorite books.
They do allow on-going/incomplete stories, but you cannot monetize them. They do not allow genAI art or genAI writing. The staff manually reviews every story uploaded when you apply for monetization to make sure it does not contain any advocacy or endorsement for violence against marginalized groups. You aren't gonna have your book shelved next to fascist propaganda wrapped up in fantasy tropes. Their review also checks to make sure that you are not using art or images without proper attribution. This company is very conscious about protecting intellectual property rights and not inadvertently harming creatives.
You can only get on this platform directly. Currently, no third-party aggregator supports Campfire due to their unique system and extras. Here is a tutorial for the process and don't forget to make sure your work complies with their content guidelines. They do allow spicy books, but they do not allow erotica.
Fun Fact: Campfire started out as a writing app with tons of features to help writers keep track of their worldbuilding, their characters, their lore, and even their research! It's where I have written all of the Scions and Shadows series so far!
Fable
You can only get to this platform using Draft2Digital (read the blog post about this partnership), however, it's a well-worth it platform to be on. Readers form “clubs” and the app tracks everyone's collective and individual reading progress, letting clubs leave comments, highlight, and chat about where they are in the book. This is an amazing way to reach readers who prefer to read socially and treat it like a group sport rather than an individual pursuit. Some authors have started their own clubs and invite their super fans to join it so they can read not just their own book, but some of their favorites, too. A great way to support other authors in your genre and build rapport with super fans!
Unfortunately, I cannot find any details about author royalties on Fable.
Itchio
Itch.io started out as a platform for indie game devs and is popular for having diverse stories from marginalized game devs. It's also got a great fanbase of otome games and visual novels, which naturally leads to people who also enjoy reading! Since Itchio has opened their virtual shelves to authors to share their books, it's become something of a haven for LGBTQ+ novelists to share bonus materials, short stories, and even their own novels.
One of my favorite things about Itchio is the customization! You can make your “shop page” any color combination you want (checkout mine!), and the sales pages for your books are also able to be customized from the font style, to size, to color. I've set up my pages to match the color pallets of the covers.
They also frequently have “jams” that you can join, which are games and books bundled together that share a common theme or genre. These bundles are then sold for one price, and the proceeds are split among all participants. Some of these bundles are even for charities. This is a great way to get greater exposure and get your books into the hands of readers who may not have heard of you before. Full disclosure, I've never participated in a jam, but I've purchased them before.
If Amazon pulls out the rug from under LGBTQ+ creators or erotica/erotic romance authors, then itch.io might be a viable alternative. They have a tagging system specifically for NSFW games and a system in place to make sure that the games only show in discovery to those specifically looking for them.
Itch.io does have its own discovery system and an active base of users who know the value of supporting indie creators and value creative works by people from diverse backgrounds.
Itch pays out either via PayPal or Stripe. PayPal and Stripe are a $0.30 fee plus 2.9%. They have two different payout modes, one where the money is collected by itch and paid out to you, and one where the payments go directly to you. In the former, the payout method, itch is the Merchant of Record and handles VAT, taxes, and fraud detection. It is liable for chargebacks and will issue refund payments on your behalf if necessary. This payout method also allows you to participate in bundles. This is the method I suggest and the one I use. I do not have the spoons to worry about VAT!
The one downside of this method is you do not get your funds automatically and there is a minimum $5 threshold you must meet before you can request a payout. If you choose the “direct to you” method, you get your funds as soon as they clear from the person purchasing your book. I suggest reading their page on payments for more details.
A unique thing about Itch is it allows revenue sharing. If you co-authored a book or want to share revenue with an illustrator, this allows you to do so.
Going Direct
This is my favorite part of being wide. I get the best return, I can release editions with bonus stories, glossaries, or maps that would otherwise eat up my royalties on Amazon due to their “delivery fees,” and offer my most loyal fans discounts and promotions via exclusive codes only found in my newsletter.
With most direct sales methods, you will also get the customer's email address. Most will let customers choose whether or not they also want to join your newsletter at checkout (if you don't have a newsletter, please start one). They also will usually let you customize your sales receipts so you can include a discount code for the next purchase, include a personalized thank you, and maybe even a pet photo or your digital signature.
By having a direct sales channel, you are creating a more personalized and customized experience for the reader; you are offering something that you can't in KU: access to you. I always encourage readers to reach out if they have any issues with their purchases and give them my address. I've gotten several who have emailed me to let me know they finished reading it and enjoyed it!
I'll never forget when I found Sylvia Louise Engdahl's email on her website and she encouraged readers to write to her. I was a middle schooler and had just finished reading “Enchantress from The Stars” after I checked it out from the library. That's the book that made me want to be a fantasy author. I told her as much in my email and I never expected to get a response, but I did! I wish I still had that email, but she was very grateful that I enjoyed her book and wished me luck on my author journey. It's up to you if you want to use your direct sales channel as a way to connect with readers. Everyone has different boundaries when it comes to readers and authors. You don't have to make this an avenue for reader connection, but it opens it up when you can't expect that much on KU.
StoryOrigin
I got to be in the beta launch of this and troubleshoot for Evan Gow, the (singular!) developer behind Story Origin, and I was thrilled with the results. I upload my manuscript to StoryOrigin's Direct Sales option, set up the API token from LemonSqueezy, and set up a listing on LemonSqueezy, and it will connect the two and create a landing page for readers to purchase the book directly. There are several great tutorials for how to set all this up, no code required. This is the one I will be going into the most detail about as it's the one I have the most experience with.
Here's my page for Stars and Soil that Story Origin made automatically. Because I connected my domain name, it also lets me add branding colors and a custom URL address.
This integration means that when a reader purchases the book, StoryOrigin will send them the download link, and StoryOrigin (Evan Gow) will handle technical support if anything goes wrong in this process. Savvy readers know how to side-load a book, but for some, this might be their first time, and there are detailed instructions for how to get the files onto your e-reader of choice.
The payment processor behind this is LemonSqueezy, seller of digital goods and subscriptions. LemonSqueezy accepts payments from 135+ countries, has local currency support, and accepts credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Diners Club, JCB and China UnionPay), PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, AliPay, WeChat Pay, Cash App Pay, Bank payments, and more. They handle all sales tax, and you can choose whether your prices are inclusive or exclusive of sales tax, and they will calculate accordingly. So, whatever the retailers above don't cover in terms of payment methods or country/currency support, you're likely going to get it with LemonSqueezy and many of the other direct sales methods.
They also have “Pay What You Want.” This lets your readers choose to pay you more than the suggested price. About 25% of the time, a reader who purchases on my direct store will choose to pay a higher amount.
But how much do I get to keep? LemonSqueezy takes 5% + $0.30 per transaction. For $0.99 books, that means I get $0.64. Way better than what I get on Amazon. For a $4.99 ebook, I make $4.44. And there are NO delivery fees! My lengthiest novel, Stars and Soil, I make $3.31 after they take out their $0.26 delivery fee! I make over a dollar more on the same book when a reader purchases direct.
If you do know how to code, it's rather easy to embed a “buy” button from LemonSqueezy directly on your website that will open a pop-up modal for purchasing. This is what I do on my main website's book pages. It still triggers the email from StoryOrigin for them to get their files. If you don't want to do that, you can use StoryOrigin to build a storefront using book collections and link collections (mine is here), and LemonSqueezy also has a store builder. The LemonSqueezy store builder doesn't let you store products, but it does let you do a lot of other customization and use a custom URL (you can find my LemonSqueezy storefront here.
If you do like coding, I wrote a tutorial on getting the “buy button” working on your own website.
One thing to note: you DO have to pay $10/mo to use StoryOrigin. But there are a LOT of other services and features it offers. I was already using StoryOrigin to organize author swaps for my newsletter, group promos, delivery my reader magnet, distribute ARC copies, get my manuscript to beta readers, and more! I could go on for hours about how much I love StoryOrigin!
BookFunnel
Very similar to StoryOrigin. BookFunnel lets you upload your book, and connect it with several different payment processors. They let you integrate with Gumroad, Payhip, PayPal, Shopify, Thrivecart, Woocommerce, or Zapier (Zapier is more of an integration that connects two different services, so you'd use Zapier to reach an otherwise unsupported service).
I have used BookFunnel to participate in promotions and am about to use it to deliver digital goods to Kickstart supporters, but I haven't used it for direct sales. I do know plenty of authors who have used it for such, though!
It's mostly the same deal, the payment processor does the payment processing, and then BookFunnel delivers the book and provides tech support with getting it onto a reading device.
Further, however, BookFunnel has its own reading app, and readers can create libraries to host the books they've purchased directly and any of those free reader magnets they got from signing up. This is a feature that I wish StoryOrigin had. Maybe one day.
Because BookFunnel integrates with several different payment processors, I am not going to get into all of the details of that here, since some of them I will mention on their own. But suffice it to say, among your options, you have plenty of countries and currencies you wouldn't otherwise have access to using only the standard retailers.
Same note as I mentioned for StoryOrigin, but BookFunnel is between $10 and $15/mo depending if you want direct email service integration. It has a ton of other features, including organizing author swaps, group promotions, and newsletter reader magnet delivery.
You can use both StoryOrigin and BookFunnel with other services, however. Both allow you to create download pages, and you can link your receipts from the other services to these download pages. You would have to consider how to keep that page private and only available to people with verified sales.
PayHip
For a long time, this was the go to way for indies to sell direct. It integrates with BookFunnel, but you can also upload your own files. They report and pay digital EU & UK VAT. They have a “Free” plan that is $0.49 per transaction if using Paypal and $0.39 if using Stripe, plus 5%. At $29/mo, that transaction fee is only 2%. You'll have to weigh whether or not you think you'll be losing more to that additional 3% or not. If you are first starting out and go with PayHip, I would suggest starting with the Free plan and moving up only once you have a well-oiled machine.
You can also use PayHip to integrate with BookVault if you plan on selling physical books, too. I think that's a nice bonus! It used to be that the BookVault <–> Payhip integration was done via Zapier, and I tried it and it didn't work too well. But! Now they have a direct integration and it's fantastic. I'm getting ready to move off of Shopify as my store front for my Special Editions and onto Payhip!
They also let you upload a free preview file. If you want readers to be able to have the first two or three chapters, you can do that! I don't think I know any other platform that does this. They also do PDF watermark stamping, so you can track down anyone who might go on to distribute that PDF without your permission. You can also set download limits.
It integrates with Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Diners Club, and JCB cards, PayPal, and Stripe for accepting payments. It also has easy integrations with most Email Marketing services including ConvertKit, MailChip, SendFox, and Zapier and is GDPR compliant.
My original direct store was via PayHip, and while I liked it, I wanted the customer support that came with StoryOrigin.
If you do know how to code, it's rather easy to embed a “buy” button directly on your website that will open a pop-up modal for purchasing. But they also have a very robust no-code store builder for free.
Gumroad
This is technically a retailer, but a lot of authors use it as either the payment gateway for BookFunnel, or directly as their direct store. It's super easy to set up. I've had a Gumroad store for a long time, and it has some fantastic discovery tools. I don't advertise that I have a Gumroad shop, but I still get sales on it. It lets you know if the buyer found your product via Discover. It's full of not just books, but also Notion templates, fan arrangements, Canva templates, Excel templates, and more! There is a thriving audience on Gumroad, as I've found, for Notion Templates. My Chronically Ill Author Notion Template is actually my top seller, with more sales than all of my books on the platform combined—yes, I have it listed for free, but people still pay me for it!
It lets you use your own domain if you choose, and it lets you organize your products. If you checkout my store, you'll see that I have my books separate from my author tools.
Gumroad takes a 10% flat fee and has no other transaction fees or payment processing fees, and no monthly subscription fees. This is one of the higher fees out of these options, and a large reason why I do not make it my “main” direct store and instead direct people to my StoryOrigin/Lemonsqueezy store. But I do like the organic discovery options on there. There is the option to have a small fee taken out of any sales you make to have your product more prominently featured in Discover. It's like an Amazon AMS Ad type situation, except you pay per sale, not per click. Also, unlike Amazon, they do not have an “Also Boughts,” so when a customer is on your page, they will not get distracted by other books being shown.
It also lets you create 'Variants,' so you could make a “regular” edition of your ebooks, and then a “Special Edition” variant that contains tons of bonus content, deleted scenes, etc. Another fun aspect of Gumroad is that it also allows a “Pay What You Want” model. As I alluded to before, my Chronically Ill Author Notion Template is “Pay What You Want” with the suggested price of free, but people have paid me $10 when they wanted to.
If you are afraid of piracy, this platform does allow you to apply digital rights management and watermark your pdfs. Another safeguard is you can place download limits on the products.
The one thing I dislike about setting up products is the weird dimensions they have for thumbnails and product images. I always confuse them when it comes time to make them!
They also pay out weekly! No other platform does that!
Ko-Fi
You probably know this one from authors, artists, musicians, and other creators using it for tips, and sometimes artists using it for commissions. Did you know that you can set up a store now, too? If you check my ko-fi page, you'll see that right under the “buy a coffee” box is a “shop” box. You can see thumbnails and prices for each of my books. You can also link people directly to your shop and set up tags to sort your books.
Ko-Fi lets you set a “Pay What You Want” model. When a reader purchases a book on my shop, it links them to a download page that I've set up on StoryOrigin. Some authors have it link to a dropbox file, others upload the mobi's and epubs directly to Ko-Fi.
There is no monthly fee to use Ko-Fi, but there is a 0 – 5% platform fee. 0% is for any tips or donations, and 5% on Memberships, commissions, and selling products. I mentioned in Part II about authors using Ko-Fi to set up their own subscription services, and this would involve setting some of your books to “Members Only.”
Ko-Fi accepts PayPal, Venmo, all major credit cards, Apply Pay, Google Pay, Cash App, and more.
You can choose to get paid via PayPal or Stripe. You get paid instantly, there is no threshold and it's not a “once a month” thing.
You can set up discount codes for your shops.
There are easy-to-use widgets and code snippets that allow you to integrate it directly onto your own website if that is something you are interested in doing. I use their “tip me” widget on my website.
I like Ko-Fi a lot, but I have heard that some creators of erotica and erotic romance have run into issues, largely around PayPal being weird. You can read more about their NSFW policy in their Content Guidelines.
I think every creative should have a Ko-Fi to ask supporters for tips, and even if you stay in KU, Ko-Fi might be a good place to sell bonus materials and short stories and could be an alternative to Patreon if you are unhappy with Patreon's new (Apple-enforced) rules.
Shopify
The Big One. The one with all the moving parts, add-ons, apps, and more. It's got several tiers if you are concerned about payment. The very limited $5/mo starter tier, and the “basic” plan $29/mo, all the way up to “Advanced” at $299/mo.
Most authors that I know that use Shopify pay the full $29/mo and use its store builder. My friend Liz Sauco has a beautiful Shopify shop, and she uses their POS system to sell her physical books at conventions and maker markets.
If you are an author that has or wants to have merchandise like mugs and bookmarks, you have a ton of special editions, or you see yourself wanting to create lots of bundles (either series bundles or you want to bundle ebook, audiobook, and print book all into one), this might be what you want. It integrates with BookFunnel and BookVault. It has a “starter” tier that is $5/mo, but if you want to go all out, you're gonna be paying $29/mo.
I user the $5/mo starter tier. Shopify is what I use for my special editions. I use their “Buy Button Sales Channel” and copy and paste the widget code into my website. This code creates that button directly on my website and creates a shopping cart, too. It is integrated with BookVault. This works for me for now. I know how to put the code I want directly into my site and don't have to worry about the higher cost and maintaining another store front. I will be re-evaluating this as I go.
Shopify supports 23 countries at this time. It also supports over 100 different payment methods, depending on your country. In the US, it has all the standard Paypal, Credit Cards, Stripe, Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc.
I think it's currently the only one on this list that accepts Afterpay, Affirm, Klarna and other predatory “buy now pay later” methods. They also have their own payment methods, Shop Cash and Shopify Payments. They also support some crypto currency payments, if that's something you think your readers prefer. (Mine don't, so this isn't a selling point for me, it might be a selling point for you, though.)
Each of these payment gateways have their own fees and pricing structures, it doesn't cost you anything on Shopify's end to integrate them, though.
Transaction fees on the Starter Plan are 5%, the “Basic” plan is 2.9% + $0.30, and the percentage goes down the higher tier plan you are on. The higher tiers also offer things like shipping discounts, and the ability to add “staff” accounts so you could give certain privileges to a virtual private assistant if you use one without having to give that VPA your password.
Do I think this is a good option if you're just getting started in direct sales? Not really, unless you have a large backlist and are selling a lot of products. If you are just trying to start by selling ebooks direct, I don't think this is the smartest option. If you're wanting to do what Liz Sauco does and offer multiple bundles as well as merch? And/or you like to do a lot of in-person selling? This is a good option!
Other Options
Other options do exist. BookFunnel also integrates with ThriveCart and WooCommerce. But I've never used ThriveCart before, so I can't comment on it, and I don't know anyone who does use it to ask them. Do your own research, keeping in mind you want to consider transaction fees, supported currencies, supported payment methods, and supported countries. As for WooCommerce, that is a WordPress plugin. And I do not mess around with Wordpress. That way lies much evil. I do not recommend it. If you are already using Wordpress and like it, great. But if you aren't already using it, it is not my recommendation for website creation at this time.
I am sure there are some I missed! Ask around to other authors and get their feedback, do some DuckDuckGo searching, find some Indie Author discord groups or facebook groups and see if any of the stores you come across in your travels speak to you.
Other Cool Features To Look Out For:
Some things you might also want to consider when choosing a platform since I can't get into every feature of every platform.
- Abandon Cart Emails – You think they sound annoying, and you personally don't like them? That's fine. But they do have a track record of bringing in sales.
- Bundles – Some platforms allow you to bundle items together
- Upsell Emails – Some platforms let you email customers a week after they've bought the first in your series to remind them that you have ten other books they could buy
- Affiliate Marketing – Some platforms allow for Affiliate Marketing, meaning if you give your affiliate link to another author so they can promote your book in their newsletter, that other author gets a cut of the revenue. And likewise, if you promote another author using their affiliate link, you get a cut of that sale, too. This is great if you frequently do “Author Swaps” in your newsletter!
Other Considerations
So, now you have all these retailers, sales channels, and income streams. How do you keep track of all of it?
ScribeCount
I started off using an Excel spreadsheet but got overwhelmed quickly. Now I use ScribeCount. It's $9.99/mo. Yes, I know, another subscription. But this uses a cool browser plugin that pulls your sales data for you. It automatically pulls in your numbers from KDP, D2D, Kobo, BN, Apple, Smashwords, as well as your numbers from IngramSpark, ACX, and Shopify. It also allows you to import sales from other places. I import my sales from LemonSqueezy at the end of the month. It also can be used to track the effectiveness of your email campaigns by integrating with EMS services like Mailerlite, and if you do run Amazon Ads or Facebook Ads, it can pull those numbers in, too.
You can also use it to track expenses. I also use it to keep track of my promotions on places like BookSpry and BookDoggy, adding the cost of those promotions to the Expense Tracker. I also track my expenses for covers, editing, and any software I purchase. I can then assign those expenses to a book and figure out when I've made back my initial investment and how much profit I have.
Absolutely, this is worth it. And I'm saying this as someone who loves a good spreadsheet (just look at the one I give out for free, it's got xlookups!)
It's got a 15-day trial, and I waited to do the trial until about 2 days before I had a large multi-day promotion where I was expecting a lot of sales. My book would be promoted that week in Fussy Librarian, Book Doggy, Bargain Booksy, EreaderIQ, and it would be part of the “Queer Your Ereader,” event, the Naratess Indie Sale, and the Beloved SFF Indie Sale. I wanted to see this thing in action before I pulled the trigger. So a few days before that hullabaloo, I signed up for the free trial, and only checked ScribeCount on the promotion days. And I was impressed. It was, indeed, impressive.
Metadata
Metadata is the information about and surrounding your book. It's the title, the publication date, the author name, and so much more.
You have blurbs, publishing dates, epubs to keep track of, dates you last revised or updated those epubs, and more. And you gotta keep track of it because you need to be updating it across multiple sales channels. How do you do that? Some people use a spreadsheet; others use a Word or Google doc.
I created my own system in Notion.
The Chronically Ill Author's Goal Tracker
I made a very nice Notion Template to track my goals, my progress, my spoons, my health, and my word count all in one place. And that includes keeping track of all my books Meta data. The Notion Template is FREE if you want it, and you can just grab the metadata tracking pages if that's all you need.
I made this for people with chronic conditions and disabilities, but anyone who does want to track their health can use it.
Wide Wizard
Another option is this browser extension. You fill in your books' metadata once, and it will auto-populate the details when you are on a retailer's website. It works for most major retailers, but some smaller ones, you will have to manually fill in. I have it installed and it works decently. I still prefer to keep my metadata in my Notion so I never lose it and have access even when I'm not at my PC.
Back Matter
Backmatter is where you want to list your author bio, your “Also By” page, and any sneak previews for your next book. If you are uploading to multiple retailers, you will want multiple versions of this. Draft2Digital is not happy if it sees an Amazon link anywhere in your book. Apple will outright reject it. What should you do, then?
I create a version of my backmatter for each store I am uploading to directly. I use Atticus to do my initial formatting and Sigil to do the finishing touches (Sigil requires that you know the basics of HTML and CSS). In Atticus, is use “Master Pages” to have set of backmatter for each store I upload to individually. Amazon backmatter links to Amazon pages, using a UBL to ensure it opens the right store geographically. Kobo gets Kobo links, BN gets BN links. I can assume that if a reader has purchased a book from that specific store, they will purchase from that store again and likely have a preference for it.
My books that get uploaded to Draft2Digital have another “Also By” page that uses my Link Collection that has ALL the potential retailers. I use my custom domain name for this link collection so that no retailers can get mad at me for linking elsewhere. This means that I have roughly 6 different versions of my book by the time I am done. It is a bit messy, and this is the longest part of processing my manuscripts for publication or updates.
If you don't want to do that hassle, just use a BookFunnel, StoryOrigin, Books2Read, or Booklink Universal Book Link. This will get the job done just as well. I promise.
What I Do Might Not Be What Is Best For You – And That's Okay
A quick overview of my process for promoting widely:
- I make my manuscripts. One for Amazon, Kobo, BN, GPlay, Campfire, Itch, Gumroad, Ko-Fi, and StoryOrigin. This takes me a day or two, depending on my health.
- I upload to the retailers and direct stores. This takes a day or two for a new manuscript, depending on my health, and half a day if it's an update I am making and do not need to enter in all the metadata.
- I monitor sales and track expenditures in ScribeCount. It sends me a report every morning, too, counting the previous day's sales.
- I use the promotional tools that each retailer has available, ex: checking the promotions tab in Kobo and searching Itchio for game jams, as well as seeking out promotions specifically for certain sales avenues, ex: seeing if BookFunnel or StoryOrigin have group promotions for Direct Sales. I am also pretty big on making those group promos on StoryOrigin if I can't find them.
- I seek out indie sales like Naratess Indie Sale or Queer Your Bookshelf and make sure to submit universal book links to them, not just an Amazon link.
- I use Book Promotion Sites like BookDoggy and BooksGoDirect that either focus on direct sales or allow you to submit a direct sales link. BookDoggy lets you post JUST your direct sales link if you want and BooksGoDirect is ALL about direct sales, no one else. Fussy Librarian, BookSpry, and BookRaid have all also let me submit direct links in addition to the other retailers. BookBarbarian, for Fantasy authors, doesn't allow direct sales links right now but does prefer books with multiple retailers. (Note: because you won't have access to kindle countdown, you won't be able to set your book to free! That's fine, though, FussyLibrarian charges less for bargain books. Another Note: BookSpry has two lists, one that is Romance-focused and one that is SciFi/Fantasy focused. Make sure you are signing up to promote on the right one! The SciFi/Fantasy one is called “sci-spry” and is $7, compared to the Romance list being around $40.)
- When I make my link collections, I always put my direct store link at the very top, and then I list the retailers alphabetically after that. I try to drive as much traffic as I can to my direct sales because I want that higher return and I also want those email addresses so I can build my newsletter.
- I do author swaps with authors in my niche and genre, promoting their books in my newsletter, and they promote mine in theirs. I always provide my link collections/UBLs so their readers can pick their retailers.
- Making promotion graphics that highlight as many retailers as possible, and also graphics that highlight one specific retailer and calling out a feature that you get when going to that retailer (ex: a graphic to promote my book on Campfire because of its bonus content, a graphic promoting my books on Hoopla to show readers where they might get my books for free.)
- Becoming an affiliate of as many other retailers as possible to double-dip on my sales
My process is tailored to how much energy I have on average, how much time I have in my day, and how much headache I am willing to endure for certain idiosyncrasies. You have to make your own assessment about what you value and what you want your daily life as a wide author to look like.
But guess what my day doesn't involve? Weekly re-examinations of my KDP keywords and daily re-assessments of my AMS ads. I don't bother to worry about my sales rank because it doesn't matter. I am not trying to hit the best-seller page because I know I never will since I am not in KU. I do not care. I do use Publisher Rocket to help select keywords when I first publish a new book, and then I re-evaluate them every six months. But I'm not trying to find “competitor ASINs” so I can add them to my ads and what not. That's not my game. My time is better spent writing since I know those royalties from KU aren't lost; they are just coming from my direct store instead. I need to convince fewer people to buy my book in order to make the same money from my direct store as I would from them reading it in KU.
These are choices you need to make. I hope this series was helpful to you. Maybe you are more firmly in the KU camp than you were before, maybe you've decided to take the plunge and go wide, maybe you need more time. Regardless, I hope this information is useful in your decision making process.
I didn't set out to write three parts, and who knows, maybe I will write a Part IV. But for now, this is it.
Thanks so much for reading.
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