- Would you like to know how to self-publish a book
without using Amazon KDP?
That's right, if you're looking for an alternative
to Kindle Direct Publishing,
then this video's for you.
Stay tuned.
Hey, I'm Dale, I'm a best-selling author
as well as a self-publishing advocate.
And if you'd like to learn how to publish books that sell,
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So, let's talk about how to self-publish a book
without using Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.
Yeah, we can see a fair share of royalties and profits
through the Amazon platform,
but there might be a variety of reasons
of why you don't want to use Amazon KDP.
So, why would you go without Amazon KDP anyways?
Well, there's a few reasons I can think of
off the top of my head.
One, you had a terminated KDP account
and you're not able to go back over there.
Two, you're anti-Amazon.
Maybe you just see that they're taking over the world
and you don't want to be any part of that
and that's okay, that's fine.
Or third, you just want to be independent.
You don't want to rely on any one source.
I think I've heard it once said
that you don't want to build a property on rented land.
So in this instance,
we kind of think about being independent.
So, I'm gonna give you some other avenues
and some of them you do have to rely on a platform
but if you stick around to the end
I'll tell ya how you don't have to rely on any one platform.
Let's start it out with the big four Amazon alternatives
and includes Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Google Play.
These four are considered competitors by Amazon.
Why is that?
It's because they're able to dominate a pretty good portion
of the publication profits, you know, world wide.
And to be clear,
Amazon, sometimes when they do a price match for a region,
so let's say that you've published your book on KDP
and you've published it over on say, Apple,
and you mark it down to say, free on Apple.
Well, Amazon is gonna follow suit
because they are going to price match that region.
Now, if you try the same thing
for anything that's going to be a smaller platform
below those big four Amazon alternatives,
then they're not gonna price match.
I've actually tried this and Amazon's like,
nah we reserve the right to actually price match,
that's not on you.
So, let's look at these four alternatives.
And now keep in mind,
I've actually done of couple videos about these
and there's gonna be some links
inside the description below in a few other areas also
as we're kind of going forward.
Know that I'm gonna have some other videos
I'm gonna send you to,
rather than saying it here in the video.
Let's start out with Apple.
And the pros and cons of Apple is this.
You actually get a pretty good royalty
per sale
and that's about 70%.
Now, it used to be I thought 80% at one point or another,
but I had to double check before I shot this video.
And no, it actually is just 70%
which that's not underwhelming,
because if you were a trade published author
you're probably gonna see way less than that.
And they're actually considered
the biggest competition to Amazon at this point,
because there are some regions that Apple reaches
that Amazon's not able to
and Apple actually dominates in that region.
Now, the cons of Apple includes the fact
that it's only for e-books
and yeah, you can actually do audio books
but you're not able to distribute it through Apple Books.
And again, we're kind of discussing more
about the alternatives to Amazon KDP
which only offers e-book and print book.
So, we're gonna kinda put audio book
off to the side for another video.
And the other sticky little point
is the fact that actually it's an IOS exclusive platform,
meaning you actually have to have Apple products
in order to utilize it.
Now, there's probably gonna be some nerds
that are gonna be like typing away going,
oh technically if you can get like a cloud share service
you can actually use like a virtual Apple Mac.
Okay that's great, you can use that.
So, there are some workarounds
that you're able to upload to Apple Books.
All that to say, this as you need to actually
have a Mac based program in order to utilize that platform.
What about Barnes & Noble?
Now, Barnes & Noble is not too bad.
They actually have a pretty good e-book royalty at 65%
and their print books are at 55%.
But the cons are they're limited in distribution.
In fact, they primarily just cover you U.S. only.
Now, if that's your point,
you wanna get on over into U.S.,
that's all you're wanting to shoot for
then that's fantastic.
The other part,
they're a little fickle on the print process.
I talked about it in an unboxing video once
and you know, once you get it right, the books look stellar,
they're fantastic.
But again I still kinda go back to the limited distribution
and I really wanna see my books on more avenues
and to more regions.
So, if you're okay with U.S. only
then Barnes & Noble might be for you.
Now, there is Kobo, it is the next one.
And the big pros about Kobo is they have a very wide reach.
In fact, it's actually owned by the company Rakuten.
And Rakuten's going up and they're acquiring
all of these different assets and businesses
and one of the relationships they acquired
was one with Walmart.
So, this means that when you are able to go through Kobo,
you have the opportunity
to get into a very large retailer in Walmart.
And their e-books have a stellar royalty rate at 70%.
Not freaking bad.
But here's the cons of using Kobo.
You get no print option yet,
but judging by the history of Rakuten,
I have a feeling they're probably gonna work on it next
because they do have the e-book feature
and they have the audio book feature,
but I have a feeling
they're gonna eventually pivot to print.
Now, this is all speculation on my behalf.
And if you don't price within their sweet spot
or their price range,
you don't get the 70% they actually drop you down to 45%.
But if you compare that to KDP,
where they drop down to 35%,
you get 10% more so that's not too bad.
And then there's Google Play.
Now, I've talked about Google Play numerous times.
They've actually paid me pretty well over the years.
Pretty happy about Google Play.
The pros include the fact that you have indexable content.
Anytime that you have some type of sampled content,
like a see inside, that's actually index
which will make you more searchable
through the Google engines.
And just this year,
they actually rolled out a 70% royalty rate
in select regions.
This is a great time for me to transition into the cons,
because again, much like the previous options
I had mentioned,
if you're not putting inside a specific price range,
they will not honor that 70%.
It actually drops down to roughly 52%
which isn't terrible, again.
And Google Play doesn't have any print options.
I don't see them doing it at this point.
It might be just a little bit too much of a risk
for them to take on.
So, I'm sure if you've got any kind of speculations,
I'd love to hear from you in the comments.
And also the other real pain in the rear end
is they actually have an application process.
It used to be that if you had a pulse, that's it, you're in,
you know, you're part of the Google Play Books.
But now, you kinda through this argulus process
of putting an application in.
Now, I've heard some people have gotten in right away
and there's some people that never hear back
from Google Play Books for whatever reason, not really sure.
Okay, so let's just say for instance that you're like,
look man, those are a few avenues and I wanted to get more.
There's also what I call aggregate publishing.
Now, here's how aggregate publishing works,
is you upload it to one platform that represents you
and sends out your work to various avenues.
Now, this can be anywhere from like half a dozen to a dozen
or even like, dozens of different platforms.
And some of the bigger aggregate publishers
I've spoken about,
include Ingramspark,
Lulu,
Smashwords,
Draft2Digital,
PublishDrive, and the list goes on.
Now, the pros when it comes to actually
using aggregate publishing.
I've heard some people that kinda poo poo
all over the whole process of using aggregate publishing,
but what they're forgetting is it really helps
cut down the time that it's going to be required
to sending it out to all these different platforms.
Yeah, I can go up there,
now let's just say for instance I need to change my e-book.
Like, I found an error in it and I want to upload it.
Well, I'm gonna have to upload it
to all those different platforms
and that's going to eat up time.
Not to mention, you actually have just one dashboard,
rather than multiple dashboards,
you're gonna have to login every single time
that you're wanting to check out your sales reports
or update any kind of metadata.
It can be quite time consuming
if you're trying to upload to each one
of these platforms individually.
The other pro is the fact that you get one tax form.
That's right.
So, if you're utilizing all the big four Amazon alternatives
and some other smaller platforms,
you're gonna have to collect all of those tax forms
and file that every year.
And that is not fun.
Now, the biggest cons that I have foresee is of course,
since they're going to be sending out your work
to all these different platforms,
they typically collect a certain percentage
otherwise known as revenue share.
So, for instance a platform like PublishDrive,
used to do revenue share at one point or another
and they actually only took about 20% of all revenue
that was brought in from all the different platforms
in exchange for just their time in representing you.
Now, they actually switched more recently
to a non-revenue share model.
And that means actually you ended up paying a subscription
for the certain number of books
that you upload to their platform and they send out for you
and you collect 100% of the profits.
Now, you know, there's definitely some pros and cons
when it comes to that and PublishDrive.
Draft2Digital's a different case,
SmashWords is different,
IngramSpark, Lulu, and so on and so forth.
And here is the real sticky part.
If you go through an aggregate publisher,
you wave the right for advertising
natively on each one of the platforms.
So, say for instance you want to publish to Apple
and you do it by way of say, Draft2Digital,
you are no longer able to actually advertise
on Apple's platform.
Now, if you upload directly to Apple
then you have that opportunity
but going through an aggregate publisher, you do not.
Now, there's one exception to the rule.
And that would be if you're publishing
through PublishDrive to Amazon,
then you can actually use Amazon advertising.
But that's really nothing to do
because we're not wanting to go over to Amazon KDP.
That's what this video's about.
The next place to self-publish a book
without using Amazon KDP,
would be doing it yourself.
Now, the next couple of options I'm gonna be talking about
is gonna be about DIY..
And the very first one's going to be crowdfunded.
Now, you've heard of crowdfunding
and this includes places like Kickstarter
or any kind of off brand
that's something like a Kickstarter.
And what it does is you actually reach out to an audience
that is willing and able to support you
through this process.
So, let's just say that you
have a social media following already
or you have enough friends and family
or networking professionals
that are going to really get behind you,
then using something like a Kickstarter platform
to crowdfund your project,
might be the way to go.
So, there are some pros and cons to this.
Now, the very first thing is the pros,
is it's proof of concept.
So, if people are willing to pay upfront
to fund your project,
then you really don't need to sweat
pulling out of your own pocket to pay for all this
only to discover that you've got a garage full of books
that no one's willing to buy.
And here's nice thing is, there's less risk for you
and it empowers your audience.
And they're gonna feel a little bit more invested
in the product that you're gonna be putting out.
So, if I for instance put $20 down to your upcoming book,
I'm gonna be very much interested
in getting that book in my hands.
And especially based on whatever the rewards
you're going to be offering
through this crowdfunding project.
'Cause that's sometimes how you're able to entice people
to part ways with their hard-earned money,
is you give some type of reward like you know,
we're gonna give you a special thanks
on the back of the book if you give $20 to this project.
I'll give you a shout out on YouTube for $50
and you'll also get the special thanks
in the back of the book.
Now, the cons include,
that there is going to be a lot more work involved.
You're gonna have to get out there,
you're gonna have to build awareness
about this crowdfunding project.
It's gonna take some time and some energy.
And really quite frankly,
just research and understanding your audience
and make sure that they're on board with you.
I actually interviewed somebody about a couple years ago,
her name is Naomi Vandoren,
and Naomi actually has not published on Amazon.
Now, she had her artwork featured on Amazon
by way of somebody else's publication
but it was not her book.
She actually has already released a number of books
by way of Kickstarter,
and run numerous successful campaigns for that.
And a big kudos to her.
And if you're gonna DIY, you might as well go ahead
and do it through your website.
Of course you're gonna need to do
site fulfilled transactions
when it comes to something like this.
And ultimately, I think every self-published author
needs to be aiming to building a website presence
and drawing in the audience to their website
to where they actually can fulfill orders there.
So, you can actually fulfill the orders there
and I would recommend something like say,
Paypal for order fulfillment
or Stripe, it's one of my preferred avenues.
And then when it actually comes to the order fulfillment,
you can either do it yourself,
but that can be very time consuming
especially if you start to have a very large audience
and get a ton of traffic,
so you're gonna wanna look into things
like a Shopify program
or any kind of program that's like that
that has a shopping cart
that will fulfill the print orders or the e-book orders.
One jumps off the top of my head.
It's actually called Lulu Express.
It's actually put out by lulu.com
and integrates with Shopify
and they really don't take any of the royalties from you.
It's just they fulfill through print runs,
so when somebody orders your book,
all they're going to charge is just the print fees.
You don't have to worry about a thing.
Or you can just order the print books in advance.
Maybe you go ahead and saddle the risk
or even for our Kickstart campaign,
you raise enough revenue
that you can actually have a back stock on hand
that you can fulfill it through your website
outside of the Kickstarter program.
And then there's cloud drive deliver for your e-books.
Now, here's what I would recommend is,
you're gonna get your e-books,
you're gonna format them in three different ways
and that would be of course through EPUB, MOBI, and PDF.
Why do we want three?
Because then it's going to be readable
across most any devices.
PDF is going to be readable about anywhere.
You got EPUB which is pretty much like the Apple readers
and the various ones like that
and then MOBI is actually for Kindle.
And you're gonna insert into the three of these
you're gonna put it maybe like as a read me file
that has instructions
and tells people exactly how they can read your e-books.
Zip it all together and put it in a cloud drive.
Now, if you're feeling kind of leery
about putting it in a cloud drive based system
without any kind of security,
you can always look into a program like Book Funnels.
I know Book Funnels has, you know,
pretty modest pricing per month structure
that they actually will fulfill the orders for you.
And you don't need to worry about someone
pirating your content just by simply purchasing it
from your cloud drive,
they go ahead and grab that cloud drive link
and they send it out to everybody,
and next thing you know it
you have thousands of copies out there with your name on it
and no one's paid a dime for it.
But still after I've offered all these different options
when it comes to actually self-publishing a book
without Amazon KDP,
I think we need to revisit the conversation,
is KDP still worth it?
In fact, I talk about that in my most popular video.
You're gonna go on down below right here.
I'm gonna visit ya on over there.
Until later, I'll see ya there.