E-BOOK Publishing Companies of 2018 : LEARNING FROM THE BEST

E-BOOK Publishing Companies of 2018 : LEARNING FROM THE BEST
on Aug 21, 2019

You’ve written your masterpiece and want to get it published. And in 2018, one of the best ways to do this is through ebook publishing companies. Gone are the days of sending manuscripts to book agents and publishing houses and waiting for them to, most probably, reject you. In today’s digital climate you can take matters into your own hands and make it happen. So how can you become the next Charles Dickens, Anne Rice or J K Rowling? TOP 10 EBOOK PUBLISHING COMPANIES We’ve compiled a list of 10 of the best ebook publishing companies out there right now, in 2018, just waiting for the talents of authors like you. 1. AMAZON Amazon is one of the best Ebook publishing companies. It’s also the reason why every author wants – and needs – to have their work on Amazon. And so it’s a no-brainer that publishing an ebook via Amazon books and Kindle is at the top of this list. Amazon is the biggest ebook publisher on Earth with 300 million potential readers out there waiting to read new books. It’s as simple as this: Set up an account, log in, upload your work within 15 minutes and be available to Kindle users across the planet within 24-48 hours. In terms of royalties, they’re also very competitive. On all Kindle ebooks priced between $2.99 to $9.99, you will get a 70% payout and ebooks priced between $0.99 to $200 will give you 35%. While Amazon doesn’t require exclusivity you can opt to have it via Amazon KDP Select which will ultimately give your book more exposure. 2. LULU PUBLISHING Lulu’s platform enables you to create and publish ebooks for various different ebook stores across the net. It’s got an option to create and edit free of charge, or there’s an option to pay Lulu to help you with it. You can then publish the book on Lulu’s site but are also able to format it so that it can be readable on other e-readers and apps out there too. Lulu has really gained traction in recent years and is especially convenient as it gives authors a widespread focus. It doesn’t pigeonhole authors or pin you down. 3. IBOOKS iBooks boasted the second highest ebook sales at the end of 2017. It’s widely considered the best platform if you are an Apple customer and use a mac. This is one of its flaws too – it’s only available to those using the Apple app store. iBooks royalty rates are simple: 70% for all prices and all countries. This is hands down the most lucrative platform on which to ebook publish, but you have a limited reach. Luckily, that reach is Apple. 4. SMASHWORDS Smashwords offers the largest range of online bookstores to their users and pays the highest royalties – 80%. This is only on Smashwords’ own store, however. If you go through other ebook retailers via Smashwords, its only 60%, but this is still a competitive rate. Another perk: Smashwords lets the user set up a pre-order listing up to 12 months in advance. This is great for authors who enjoy deadlines and gives an incentive to get that masterpiece finished. 5. KOBO Kobo is also one of the best Ebook publishing companies. It offers the user a 4 step ebook publishing process. You upload your manuscript and it will convert it to ae-publishingng file and has an outreach of 190 countries in 68 languages. An impressive feature to Kobo is its partnership with the American Booksellers Association which ultimately gets you a lot of exposure. 6. NOOK PRESS The US and UK are the biggest consumers of ebooks, and Nook is only available in these countries, as well as in certain parts of Europe: France, Italy, Germany, Spain, The Netherlands, and Belgium. If these are the areas you’re looking to exclusively publish then Nook Press is a great option. They advertise with the slogan “Bestsellers Start Here” and are a very established source as they stem from long-established booksellers Barnes & Nobles. Their publishing tools are very user-friendly and you have round the clock email support, as well as a simple dashboard to track your daily earnings. Their royalty scheme doesn’t differ greatly from Amazon’s. They do expect exclusivity to them, however. 7. DRAFT 2 DIGITAL If your manuscript is on a Word document, RTF, or any other type of document that Word can read then Draft 2 Digital is ideal. It doesn’t have any formatting specs, unlike other platforms. They will also work with whatever images you wish to feature, too. All of this is free, and they only ask for 10% of the retail price of your ebook. There’s also a vast reach with Draft 2 Digital, including Amazon, Scribd, Kobo and Barnes and Noble 8. PAYHIP PayHip is excellent if you are a social media influencer, have a large following on the likes of Twitter and Instagram or mostly use social media to promote yourself and your works. It may, technically, bring in fewer sales, but if you are the best promoter of your creative work, this could be a very lucrative option. The author pays just 5% per transaction when you make sales on PayPal or Stripe and you only pay when you get paid. There are no fees to get started, nor are there hosting fees or monthly charges. It’s also excellent for SEO strategy and you can set your own price. PayHip gathers buyers into an email distribution list for you, which is excellent should you go on to publish new works and want to tease them. 9. BLURB Blurb can convert your design into a fixed-layout eBook for $9.99 if you work with Adobe or BookWright. You can still use them without this software, however, using a text document (there are specs you’ll need to check, however). Your ebook can be sold through Blurb via Kindle or EPUB3 fixed-layout ebooks on Blurb itself, Ingram, Kickstarter and on the Apple iBooks. You will also receive a complimentary ISBN for every version of your book, normally worth $125. Blurb is arguably more of a complex platform to use when it comes to ebook publishing, however. 10. GOOGLEPLAY This is at the bottom of the list, purely for the fact that Google Play is currently accepting a limited number of new publishers to the Google Play Books Partner Programme. New authors are still able to express interest in joining the programme through their online interest form – so you’ve got nothing to lose if you’re a fan of this platform. GooglePlay is undoubtedly an excellent platform. It has 1 billion Android users, over 50 countries to distribute to and multiple platforms at its fingertips. What’s more, your works will show up in Google search easily and quickly for maximum reach.