Expanding my reach beyond Amazon

Many
believe that Amazon sells 67% of ebooks in the U.S., and they also
provide several perks for authors who choose to subscribe to KDP Select
and eschew all other retailers. On the other hand, different types of
readers tend to flock to different platforms, with Canadian readers
largely preferring Kobo, for example. Similarly, niche books may reach
their audience better on retailers other than Amazon, and many authors
have found that non-Amazon customers are willing to pay more for books.
Finally, how can you know whether your core readers are all hanging out
on iTunes or Google Play unless you give those sites a try?



For all of these reasons,
I'm currently experimenting with moving two of my ebooks out of the KDP
Select program --- "going wide" as some authors say. You can now
download The Naturally Bug-Free Garden on:

AmazonBarnes & NobleGoogle playiTunesKoboScribdInkterraSmashwords

And Permaculture Chicken: Incubation Handbook is available on:

Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Google playiTunesKoboScribd
InkterraSmashwords

On the other hand, going wide does
have growing pains that reach beyond formatting your book to match each
retailer's standards. One of the issues with going wide is that you
spread out your readers, which makes it harder to move up the
bestseller lists. In addition, indie authors have a harder time breaking
into some of the other sites (although reports are that Kobo is very
indie-author friendly).



Maybe you'd be willing to help me out? Since reviews on a book make
readers much more likely to take the purchase plunge, I'm currently
begging for anyone who's read either of these books to copy and paste
your review over onto some of the other retailer sites. And I'm even
offering limited-time free copies (and a bonus prize!) for those of you
who haven't read the two titles in the past. Head on over to my other blog for details, and thanks in advance for helping me gain traction on non-Amazon sites!