Dax Murray

“Going wide” in industry parlance is a choice that not many indie authors make and one that is often seen as less lucrative that enrolling your book in Kindle Unlimited.

Yes, right now, most readers are on Amazon, and many of them are enrolled in KU and rarely look for books outside of that. But read that sentence again, paying close attention to that dependent clause right at the start. Right now.

What is happening right now, however? Many readers are considering ditching their Kindle Unlimited subscription and taking their business to non-Amazon places. Honestly, I do not blame them. I have never been a KU subscriber myself; I am more likely to get my books via Libby and Hoopla using my free county library card or purchase the book outright.

Yes, I have had readers tell me they are disappointed that my book isn't in KU since they only read KU books. But since I am wide and do not, therefore, have to abide by an exclusivity clause, I can tell that reader, “Would you like a free copy? You can request a review copy from this link.” I get a review, a reader gets a book for the price they are willing to pay. We all win.

But you know what? I've had more readers thank me for having my book available on (retailer of their choice). More readers have thanked me for having my book on Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Fable, Everand, Apple, Google Play, etc, than have expressed disappointment that I am not in KU.

And I have made more money in royalties being “wide” than I ever did when I was in KU.

Why I Left KU

Story time. When I first published my book, I did publish widely. And then my life took a turn for what seemed like the worst and became a mess. I had to change jobs, I had to move, I was dealing with post-concussion syndrome, and my brother had cancer and I uprooted everything to sleep on his couch so he would have a ride to and from his daily chemo treatments. I pulled my books out of other stores and threw them in KU. I didn't have time to market, I didn't have time to promote my books or keep up with a regular newsletter. Throwing them in KU was a “set it and forget it” tactic that I hoped would pay off.

It didn't.

Later, when I was preparing to release my next book, I found out that Campfire Writing, the software that I use to do my worldbuilding, was opening up the platform for selling books, not just writing them. And they were offering 80% royalties. Yeah. But that would mean I couldn't release in KU. And then I heard about these other storefronts that had opened up over the years and thought it might be time to go wide again. I knew it would involve a very different approach to marketing, but it's been worth it.

Why You Should At Least Consider Going Wide

I don't know your situation. I don't know how many spoons you have in a day, I don't know how many books you have enrolled in KU, I don't know how much you make from it. But I've seen a LOT of indie authors panicking over readers leaving KU, some even going so far as to beg readers NOT to cancel their subscriptions.

I'm sorry, this is capitalism. I hate it, too. But you gotta meet your readers where they are at. And if they are at “I'm switching to Kobo, it's $2/mo cheaper,” then if you put on your business hat, you might have to at least weigh the choice about going to Kobo, too.

I'm not gonna pretend that it isn't a pain to upload my manuscript to Amazon, Kobo, Barnes and Nobles, Google Play, my direct store front, Itchio, Gumroad, Kofi, IngramSpark, BookVault, and Draft2Digital. If I want to make changes to my back matter or fix a typo that somehow myself and all my editors and beta readers missed, it can eat up a whole day. I'm disabled, I have limited spoons, I have to plan that shit in advance based on the weather and what else I have to do during that week. Maybe this isn't a headache you want to add to your plate (or a headache you don't want to inadvertently create). I get it. But please, hear me out.

You've probably heard the idiom “Don't place all of your eggs in one basket,” and last year—heck, last month—it probably seemed like Amazon would be that basket that would never break. And it probably won't, to be honest. It's still gonna be a juggernaut. But it's a juggernaut that a LOT of readers are reconsidering. And if enough of them do so, does it make sense for it to be your only basket?

They just killed Vella, and the payout per page has only been going down and with so many AI slop books being added to KU, your book isn't going to stand out. The cost of advertising via AMS is only going up, and the time spent finding keywords and competitor ASINs and whatnot might not be worth it anymore.

If you are wide, you have the potential to reach readers who otherwise never would have picked up your book. There are countries that Amazon doesn't reach, countries that places like Kobo does reach. And if you are wide, you can use storefronts like Itchio, which is full of weird and wonderful indie creators who make books and games that might not do great on Amazon because they are so niche or outside of the norm. You can use places like Campfire, which also let you share bonus materials like maps and character profiles and so much more!

And if you are an LGBTQ creator? Well, Kobo isn't headquartered in the US and isn't owned by a guy who voted for a president that wants to outlaw any and all queer media. If you are LGBTQ+ or create stories featuring LGBTQ+ characters, I'm sorry, but Amazon might not even want to publish your works. Doubly so if you create books featuring NSFW scenes.

You're Thinking About Leaving, But How?

One book at a time. Seriously. You can use aggregate publishers like Publish Drive and Draft2Digital. Upload your manuscript once, and it will do the work of getting your book into storefronts like Barnes and Noble, Kobo (including Kobo Plus!), Apple, and even libraries like Overdrive (the backend system for Libby). It also gets you set up on smaller platforms like Fable and international storefronts like bol.de! Draft2Digital takes 10% cut of your royalties and PublishDrive has a monthly subscription instead of taking your royalties. There's pros and cons to both models, but it might be worth it to you if you don't want to deal with the hassle of uploading everywhere.

I, personally, upload directly to Kobo, Barnes and Noble, and Google Play. Those are the retailers that I find easiest to navigate and that I see the most sales from outside of Amazon, so I want those royalties. I let Draft2Digital handle the rest.

I also upload directly to Campfire, Itchio, Gumroad, Ko-Fi, and my direct store, but more on that later.

If you want to start moving out of KU, I suggest starting small. Start with a standalone book. The reason for this is that readers who pick up books in Kobo and then find out that they have to go to Amazon to read the rest of the series can feel like they were subject to a bait & switch. Likewise, if a reader in KU finds that all but ONE of the books is in KU, they will also feel betrayed.

All of the storefronts allow you to select publication dates in the future. So if you are moving a series out of KU, I suggest picking a date a few weeks to a few months out. Set up one book per day or one per week, but slowly start getting your books on other platforms, but don't publish yet. Set all of them to publish on the same date in the future.

If you have an on-going series that has been in KU for a long time, a good compromise is to start it as KU exclusive on release but do NOT set it to re-enroll automatically. Those first 90 days, let it stay KU exclusive for your KU audience. Then, once those 90 days are up, publish it widely.

You're going to want to let your readers know in advance that you are doing this. If you have a newsletter, this is the time to make it work. Tell them “In 2 months, I will be taking my books out of KU, so snag them now and get them on your device. Here is why I am doing this, and here is what you can expect going forward.” Be honest and transparent about your choice and why this is the best decision you can make that lets you continue to bring them the books they love.

One thing I've heard again and again is that you only need 1000 true fans. Those true fans will follow you anywhere. If your readers are true fans, they will still buy your books. If they only read your books because they were in KU, that does suck. You will have that. But by widening your net, you are more likely to catch the kinds of ride-or-die fans that you want.

But What About Readers Who Can't Afford to Read Outside of KU?

This is an argument I hear a lot. For just $11.99/mo, readers can have unlimited books, and KU is great for readers on a tight budget. But there are some readers for whom that $11.99 is too much. They rely on libraries, and when you're in KU, you can't get your ebooks into libraries.

By being a “wide” author, you can get your books into digital libraries very easily and still make money. The common advice is to set your “library price” to 3 times your retail price. I set most of mine to $9.99. When a library purchases my book, I get that $9.99, and they can lend the book out X many times before they have to re-buy my books. Honestly, no matter what that X amount is, I'm still making more money via the library than I would with page reads in KU on that book.

When your book is in Overdrive/Libby, readers can find it in the app and if the library doesn't have it, they can submit a request. I always mention when I bring up libraries that readers can request indie books and that librarians are willing to purchase indie books. Traditionally published books can charge up to $50, so a lot of libraries would rather get 4 or 5 indie books that are highly requested over a barely requested trad book. Tell your readers to request your book at their library and you can start seeing library sales.

I'll never forget the day a reader emailed me to show me a screenshot of their Libby app displaying A Lake of Feathers and Moonbeams. They used a library in a major city that has a rather conservative population, but there it was. My queer book was purchased by their library system and this reader who had felt alone and isolated and afraid to spend money on a queer book lest their parents find out could read it.

There's also Hoopla. It's like an auxiliary to libraries. If you have a library card, you can sign up for Hoopla. You can check out 10 items per month and they have more than ebooks. They have audiobooks, magazines, movies, TV shows, music albums, and more. Unlike Libby, you don't have to wait in line for other patrons to return copies, and it's perfect for if your library hasn't purchased a book. My local library doesn't have any of my books right now, but using that library card, I can log in to Hoopla and check out all of my books instantly.

I know of a book club that only reads books available in Hoopla. Not even joking. They all have library cards and pick their books based on what's in the Hoopla library. They don't bother with KU because they don't want to exclude anyone who can't afford a $11.99 KU subscription.

Aside from libraries, when you are wide you can also put your books into other subscription services like Everand and Kobo Plus. Neither of these have exclusivity clauses. And honestly, both come out to being cheaper than KU when you consider that both charge $11.99 for access to ebooks and audiobooks. That $11.99 KU price only covers ebooks.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, without the KU exclusivity clause, you can give out your ebook for free. I usually do this via a dedicated page for readers to request review copies, but you can also use your direct sales platform to create discount codes to give out. If you use Draft2Digital, you can set up coupon codes for Smashwords. Barnes and Nobles also lets you create promo codes. Same with Google Play. Kobo lets you run promotions, too. Campfire lets you do price promotions. Gumroad, Ko-Fi, Itchio and others let you do a “Pay What You Want” model. And all of these places let you do promotions more often than every 90 days. You can do them any time you want.

But Marketing?

Yeah, you're gonna have to figure out some new marketing tactics. You might not get stellar returns from AMS ads if you aren't getting those KU pages reads, too. If you're running Facebook ads, how do you direct people to all your store fronts at once?

I don't run ads, so, that's something I can't really help you with, unfortunately. But I can give you some advice.

UBLs (Universal Book Links)

One of the big things of “going wide” is you'll have to keep track of all those links for where your book can be found. There are a few services that will do this for you, including StoryOrigin, BookLinker, BookFunnel, and Books2Read. But you can use things like short.io or linktree if you want. And I promise you, you'll want these links front and center on your website. If you want to do a book signing at Barnes and Nobles, for example, they will probably check out your author website. If they see one button that says, “Buy on Amazon” and then another that says, “Other Retailers,” they will likely feel uneasy about letting you into their store if they don't see you making an effort to drive sales to them.

I, personally, use the “Link Collection” feature in StoryOrigin to make my list of all the places you can find my book. When I make promo graphics, it is that link collection that I advertise at the bottom. When I post links to buy my books, it is that link that I post.

Here is my link collection for Stars and Soil that I made using StoryOrigin, here is the link collection that I made using Shortio, and here is the one that I made on Books2Read—each have their pros and cons, with the Link Collection on StoryOrigin, I can add ALL the retailers, ShortIo comes with cool picture capabilities and is free. Books2Read is also free, but you can't link to smaller retailers or some direct storefronts. Books2Read remembers reader selections, so if they click Amazon once, it will always take them to Amazon and bypass the landing page with other retailers. StoryOrigin also has this feature in their Universal Book Links, but I don't use it as it is limited in which storefronts you can add.

Additionally, if you are making those sweet promo-graphics, you can add the icons for all the retailers you have your books on, instantly conveying to people that they have a choice, something that the anti-Amazon readers LOVE to see and something that other retailers pay attention to. They see your Universal Book Link and they see their logo on your graphic accompanying it, you are getting their attention. This will be touched upon further in a later section.

There are pros/cons to each option, and there are more options than I listed here, but I hope this gives you an idea of what you can achieve with Universal Book Links.

Newsletter Promotions

If you use newsletter promotions like Fussy Librarian, BookBub, Free Booksy, etc, you might be thinking, “But if I am a 'wide' author, I won't have access to Kindle Countdown Deals! I won't be able to make my book free!”

And no, you won't. You'll have to manually lower your price to $0.99 and accept only 30% royalties for the book if you're doing a price promotion. Yeah, it sucks. But other retailers don't do the whole '30% if you're under 2.99' thing. And maybe you get less clicks/downloads, but you ARE making money from it.

Plus, BookRaid, one of my favorite places to promote, did a little bit of digging into their numbers and found that books which have multiple retailers get more clicks than books which only promote Amazon. They did more digging, and their conclusion was that a reader believes a book is more “legit” and “higher quality” if it's available at multiple retailers, even if they ultimately purchase the book on Amazon.

Plus, if you have a direct sales channel, a lot of retailers are now letting authors link to that too. I recently had BookDoggy, Bargain Booksy, Fussy Librarian, and BookSpry all linking to my direct sales page. And I had sales. I make $0.66 on direct sales vs. $0.34 on Amazon. And yeah, when someone purchases via my direct store, it doesn't help me “climb the ranks” and get a higher Amazon Best Seller Rank. But I'm a 'wide' author, the ABSR isn't the be-all, end-all of my marketing strategies.

There's also BooksGoDirect, which is another newsletter promo that only features links to authors' direct stores. They cost $10 a spot right now, and I've always made my money back on it.

So yeah, you won't be getting tons of downloads if you can't set your price to Free on Amazon; you won't be hitting the top 100 in various categories. But that's not your ultimate goal when you are a 'wide' author.

Other Retailer Promotions

Because there aren't as many books in other retailers thanks to the KU exclusivity clause, you aren't competing against as many authors on other platforms. Kobo and Barnes and Noble both have their own promotional efforts that you can sign up to be part of. If you start sending enough sales to them, they will start featuring you in their “best of” lists and round-ups. I think Apple does, too, but Apple is the platform I don't pay that much attention to since I am not part of the ecosystem at all. Twice a year, Smashwords has a huge sale that they heavily promote, and I always end up with loads of new readers from it.

As I mentioned earlier about those promo graphics, if you follow other retailers on social media, they will pay attention if you shout them out. I made a graphic once showcasing that all my books are enrolled in Kobo Plus. Guess who shared that post? Yeah, exactly.

I've shouted out that my books are available on Campfire with tons of extras. Guess what? Yeah, exactly. Smaller retailers / indie retailers will promote you when you promote them. They aren't the faceless entity of Amazon. (Also, they just have way better customer support, seriously. I do not get anxious if I ever have to reach out to them!)

Your Own Newsletter

If you don't have a newsletter already, why not? For real, though, if you have a newsletter, you can do group promotions and author swaps. I use StoryOrigin, primarily, to find author swaps and group promotions. But I've also used BookFunnel, MyBookCave, and a few others I can't recall right now.

I use group promotions to promote my universal book links and also to promote my reader magnet and get more newsletter sign-ups. this has been, by far, the most effective strategy I've found for increasing sales outside of Amazon. I team up with other “wide” authors, knowing that their readers will choose whatever retailer works best for them.

If you don't have a newsletter, please look into it. Create a reader magnet, advertise the reader magnet at the end of your book and get those ride-or-die readers in one place. You don't have to worry about fighting an algorithm to be seen or worry that you are spamming people's timelines. Your newsletter should be comprised of people who WANT to see your name in their inbox. Readers who look forward to seeing an email from you and can't wait to open it. Give them free short stories, bonus materials, maps, and things they can't find anywhere else, and it won't matter if you have Amazon showing your pre-order on the front page.

What is this “Direct” thing?

My favorite part. This is something I've seen so many authors lament is “nearly impossible” or “only for people who can pay a web developer.” That couldn't be further from the truth. Yes, I am a former software engineer and know my way around a few different programming languages. But my direct store sales page? I made that with zero code. I actually have several “direct stores.” I use StoryOrigin, Gumroad, Ko-Fi, Shopify, Itchio, and I've used Payhip in the past. None of these solutions require code. Itchio and Gumroad even have their own discovery feature, so you can tag your books and have them show up in search results.

What about taxes? What's nexus? Do I have liabilities? On some of those platforms, yes. On some of them, no. Some of them take 10% of your sales, some of them take 5%, some of them you have to pay monthly to use, some of them you don't.

I don't know what exactly your needs are, but by going direct, I take home more money on all of the platforms. So far, this month I've made more money and more sales on my direct store than I have on Amazon. Since the election, I've had readers tell me that they specifically purchased on my direct store because of it. They've previously purchased some of my books on Amazon, but they decided within the last week that they are done with Amazon, and my direct sales via StoryOrigin/Lemonsqueezy is currently my top sales channel.

I will tell you why I chose StoryOrigin/Lemonsqueezy as my “main” direct sales channel.

1. I was already using StoryOrigin to handle newsletter swaps, group promos, delivery of my reader magnet, and managing ARC sign ups and review copies. It's $10/mo I was already paying and getting value from.
2. LemonSqueezy is the payment processor for it, and it acts as the Merchant of Record, so I do not have to worry about VAT. It also accepts a TON of different payment methods, including ones that are very popular internationally.
3. No code! Yes, I am a former software engineer. I can charm any kind of snake with any kind of gem, not just pythons and rubies. But it's super simple to just get a sales landing page with StoryOrigin.
4. StoryOrigin handles delivery of the epubs/mobis/pdfs. Someone purchases my books, and StoryOrigin automatically emails them a link to download their files and provides customer support. If someone can't figure out how to side-load an epub onto their reading device, they email StoryOrigin, not me. StoryOrigin will get the tech support done.
5. StoryOrigin sales pages let me “upsell” easily. When you go to the Stars and Soil landing page, it asks you if, for just $2 more, you want to buy a bundle of the whole series.
6. It supports a “Pay What You Want” model. I can price my books at $4.99 and readers, if they want to, can choose to instead pay $10.99. And yeah, I've had that happen.
7. LemonSqueezy integrates with MailerLite, the email marketing service I use to send my newsletter, so when someone makes a purchase, they can choose right then and there to join my newsletter. I put them in a special group and offer them discounts often. I know they've bought directly from me before and will do so again.

No matter what method you choose, you are getting your customers' email addresses. You KNOW who they are! You can personalize your receipts and ask them to join your newsletter so you can send them very special offers in the future. You know who one of your ride-or-die fans are and how to get in touch with them. You will never get this on Amazon.

Gumroad, Kofi, and Itch let you do “pay what you want.” I think Payhip does, too. With those, you do have to worry about tech support, but none of those options have a monthly fee.

When you sell direct, you are selling to people who have Kindles, yes, but also people who have Kobos, Boox, Nooks, use their iPad, use an app that does text-to-speech, etc. You are broadening your audience by offering DRM-free epubs that can be used on the devices that readers find works best for them.

Does that open you up to pirating? Yeah, unfortunately, a little bit. But guess what? If your book gets put on a pirate site and you're in KU, Amazon can kick you out and ban your account. This HAS happened. If you aren't in KU and your book winds up on a pirate site, Amazon can't do anything to you. I know several authors who lost their entire KDP accounts because of pirates. My books have been pirated, but being wide also makes that less likely to happen. When I asked people why they pirated, I heard more than once that they wouldn't have done so if the book had been available in places that weren't Amazon. The more storefronts you are in, the better. And by making your book available directly from you, you are covering every base possible.

This article is just about ebooks, but you can sell your physical books directly, too. I use BookVault integrated with Shopify for this, but I'm not going to get into it any further than to say that I did this with zero code, too.

If you have any questions on selling direct, going wide, or wading through these waters to find out if you want to even do this, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. I am more than happy to walk you through things, help you set things up, troubleshoot, etc. Heck, if you want something fancy, I can do some coding magic to help you (ex: the little light boxes that pop up on my special editions page when you click “Add to Cart” did take a little bit of coding know-how from me, and I'm happy to help you with something like that, too. If you have your own domain and want to get it working on a direct sales platform, I can also help with that!)

Conclusion – More Verdant Fields

Listen, I'm still on Amazon. In late 2023/early 2024, I tried to experiment with having my latest release at the time not on Amazon. And yeah, it didn't go great. I did end up listing STARS AND SOIL, and later SMOKE AND STEEL, on Amazon. And if Amazon is still allowing LGBTQ stories in 2025, SHACKLES AND SECRETS will be on there, too. I am not saying abandon Amazon.

But Amazon might be getting ready to abandon you if you write stories that center on marginalized characters, and readers might be getting ready to abandon Amazon. A few years ago, it made a ton of sense to go exclusive with Amazon for ebooks and just make your paperbacks available widely. That's where the customers were; it was a well thought out plan. Go where the readers are.

But what about when the readers go somewhere else? You can beg and plead with readers to stay in KU, but you can't force them. Go where the readers are. And right now, a ton of them are telling you they are going elsewhere. It's your choice whether you want to be there, too.

And look, I'm very grateful that Amazon opened up the world of indie publishing. I'm grateful for what KDP has done to make self-publishing easy and affordable. But it's not the only game in town anymore and hasn't been for a while.

Greener pastures exist, more welcoming platforms are out there. Platforms that have promised not to censor, platforms that don't allow AI to flood the shelves. Retailers that care about author success exist. Amazon cares about selling any books, so long as they get their profits. There are retailers that care about creating a good experience for readers and authors.

I can't tell you what the best choice is for you and your author career, and I support you no matter what path you choose. But if you choose to go wide and/or to sell directly, I am more than happy to assist you in setting that up.

If you found this article helpful, consider leaving me a tip or purchasing one of my books. Thank you!

11/17/2024 Update: I've written two more parts to this series. Part II discusses some of the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of the other major retailers and library services. Part III covers smaller retailers more in-depth and direct sales.