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I use BookBaby and have hitherto been quite happy with them. However, they do now charge a larger fee - $299 per book (though it's a one-off fee, they help with formatting and they won't take a percentage afterwards). So I am thinking of going over to Lulu, which has always done my print books very well. You can buy a single ISBN direct from Bowkers but it is expensive. I do buy my own ISBNs, but I think Lulu will issue one if needed.
One pain about using an aggregator is that sales can take a long time to show up in your dashboard - typically 3 months from Amazon Kindle. The longest delay I have seen has been seven months for a sale through Scribd.
You can go with Smashwords to get into all of the markets you mentioned, including Kobo and Apple, along with a few more. Not to promote my website, but you can check out all of the markets I'm into just by uploading to Smashwords and Amazon: http://kendoggett.weebly.com/where-to... I went with Createspace for paperbacks and to Lulu for hardcovers, although I'm in the process of also placing ebooks on Lulu. You don't have to buy an ISBN or pay a fee for any of it, and the books become available within a week or two, often much quicker.
You really can't go wrong with the Kindle program and Createspace as its easy to use and convenient to use. When you use Createspace there is a step later that allows you to go onto kindle and process the book.I haven't used Lightning Source or Lulu but I've heard they are just as good and are very good companies as well.
We've been in KDP Select for over 2 years now and it's work well for us. We did look the places you mentioned initially, and decided against them for similar reasons. We (personally) did not find Smashwords appealing, but others do. Lulu has a good reputation with authors I know, but they didn't add much value for us. I do think some outlets work better than others, depending on what you write.
Thank you to all of you who have chimed in so far. I'm writing semi-cozy mysteries (I call the genre soft-boiled P.I.) and am working on the second book in the series. I've pretty much decided to stick with KDP Select (and CreateSpace for paperback) for the time being and see how things evolve over the next 90-day period.I'm a bit of a control freak about my work, and the idea of interposing an aggregator between myself and the retailers creeps me out.
Owen wrote: "We've been in KDP Select for over 2 years now and it's work well for us. We did look the places you mentioned initially, and decided against them for similar reasons. We (personally) did not find S..."That's who I use and they have always been really good to me. I think Createspace is the most user friendly. When I started this I didn't have a clue what I was doing, still don't, and they patiently walked me through the entire process, for a fee.
I have been with KDP select for some two years, and I'm quite satisfied. However, there are some books which do not seem to sell very well on Amazon, so I've pulled them out of KDP and put them on Smashwords, and they have started to sell better... so there is not a unique response. You might want to go for a hybrid strategy, like I have done.
I was wondering whether anyone has used one or another of the ebook aggregators to publish, and what the experience has been. Are any of the worth the 15% of net royalty that they take? Are there any that should be avoided like the plague?
Or should I just stick with the Kindle Select program and CreateSpace? I've sold between 40 and 50 copies (ebook and paperback) in just under three months.