Are there amazon alternatives? > Likes and Comments

Does anyone have experience with Barnes & Noble Press,Kobo, Scribd and Apple Books? Are they better than Amazon? I’m wondering if authors have more success with these platforms.

I published on Amazon and B&N simultaneously. I found little to no traction on B&N and it wasn’t until I switched my ebooks exclusively to Kindle Unlimited that I saw significant movement / sales. The ONE bonus I found using B&N is that you can contact your local store and request to have your books carried in store for their local author section. They may also be willing to host you for events (ie: book signings). As for the other outlets you mentioned, I’ve not utilized them.

I have been on Google Books for nearly six months and have yet to have a sale. Everything is coming through Amazon. The pro of Google is that it is easy to upload, the con is that it is not obvious how, or even if, the book is being presented to anyone. 6 months 0 sales would suggest maybe not. Another benefit of Google is that they can offer a select AI service to create an audiobook. Alas the format is not compatible with the Amazon Audible service so perhaps this is not the most useful post, but thought I would add anyway just in case it helps someone.

This is excellent information. I wasn’t aware that google offered an audiobook option.

Jessica wrote: "I published on Amazon and B&N simultaneously. I found little to no traction on B&N and it wasn’t until I switched my ebooks exclusively to Kindle Unlimited that I saw significant movement / sales. ..."

Hi Jessica :)

Have you had a good experience with your book being at B&N?

I've considered this option for my book, but once I've learnt about their books returns policy, it literally terrified me :( they seem to charge the author for any book that is not sold, EVEN if you allow them to destroy it- it still costs you. But may be you have an agent/publisher? in which case the latter will pick up the bill, the way I understand it.

Jasmine

I believe the Google Books Library is used by many AI services to discover books, generate blurb etc. Given that the days of keyword searches could be numbered, every indie author needs to be there.

By the way, you will not violate Amazon KDP Select exclusivity if you use the 'Offer a preview on Google Books only' option.

Google Books is complicated to use and delivered me zero sales, so I canceled it. I use Amazon, Draft2Digital, and also sell my eBooks in a Ko-Fi shop, which does surprisingly well.

Draft2Digital will give you an ePub copy of your book when you publish there. You can use that copy to sell on your own. I take it over to Ko-Fi. Here's my shop, if you want to see how that works. https://ko-fi.com/brassbright/shop

Lori. That’s good info. I use draft to digital too, but it might be worth paying for a better formatter. I’m thinking of trying Atticus next.

Julie wrote: "This is excellent information. I wasn’t aware that google offered an audiobook option."

Glad if this helps although I should say that I believe this is a beta test they are offering to random users at the moment. So, undoubtedly, if popular it will become paid at a later date I'm sure. More than anything, I found it really beneficial for finding a few typos that had been missed. Hearing another voice reading my book highlighted two or three cases of incorrect usage of homophone category words. Overall, It was easy enough to use but a little time consuming and lacked depth of emotion. However, the major point, as addressed by comments on this chat is, google books has returned zero sales. If it was a better market place for book sales then this would be the way to go.

K.B. wrote: "Lori. That’s good info. I use draft to digital too, but it might be worth paying for a better formatter. I’m thinking of trying Atticus next."

I usually do my own formatting and get it just how I want it, then upload to D2D. One of the 'styles' they offer is basically no applied style, so I choose that. I just looked at Atticus though, as I hadn't checked them out before. Seems good at first look - not overly bells-and-whistled, not gimmicky, it seems clean and clear to use. Good luck!

Lori wrote: "Google Books is complicated to use and delivered me zero sales, so I canceled it. I use Amazon, Draft2Digital, and also sell my eBooks in a Ko-Fi shop, which does surprisingly well.

Draft2Digital..."

Hi Lori, thank you very much for your answer! Do you use Ko-fi ads, or do the books sell by themselves?