Smashwords vs KDP

[Courtney]

I'm considering doing both only because Smashwords allows me to upload on Scribd. Either that or do the KDP Select for 90 days and do some marketing and then call back the "full-service self-publishing" company that wants $500-2500 from me too publish my book and give me 100% of the royalties and see if they publish on Scribd. I'm a reader. Having both accounts can say that the 'professional' books definitely appear more on Scribd than kindle unlimited. My book is a grim's fairy tale with a modern urban fantasy twist. I guess I just want to be known more in the professional circles even while indie publishing. Does anyone have any experience with books posted on Scribd? What are the royalties like?

[Eric]

For whatever it might be worth, I publish (myself) at AMZ, Smashwords and Draft2Digital. I use Calibre to create the epub version, which I then upload to D2D and SMW.

Scribd is one of the places D2D sends to. The rest that my books go out to through D2D are Vivlio, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Tolino, 24 Symbols, OverDrive, Bibliotheca, Baker & Taylor, Apple and Hoopla.

And respectfully, why would you spend $500-$2500 to publish an ebook, when you can do it yourself for so much less?

Just my USD .02.

Eric Alan Westfall

[Courtney]

Eric wrote: "For whatever it might be worth, I publish (myself) at AMZ, Smashwords and Draft2Digital. I use Calibre to create the epub version, which I then upload to D2D and SMW.

Scribd is one of the places ..."

I get to keep 100% of the royalties versus 60-70%. I'll only do it if my book has a good outlook and monthly readership. And they supposedly handle the marketing so hopefully, it can only increase in popularity. I'm nowhere near publishing-ready yet, I just like to have long term plans.

[A.]

Besides amazon, I use both Smashwords and D2D. They both go to B&N, Kobo, Apple, scribd and others. I find when my books aren't selling much on amazon, they make up the difference and I like SW for their coupons during sales, and I like D2D when I can set a dated promotion.

[Luna]

The last I looked Smashwords and D2D take a 10% cut. Am I correct? Last time, I used BookBaby to distribute to 9 or 10 retailers EXCEPT Amazon which they advised (rightly) I upload myself in order to have access to the Amazon dashboard for royalty payments and to adjust the price. I think I paid BookBaby $200. The bulk of sales 100 to 1 is via Amazon print and Kindle. Even readers on an iPad purchase on Amazon (Website) to read on the Kindle app. In 5 years I have had less than 10 books purchased on Kobo! Next book I may just do the same, or do it all myself. I am interested in what other authors are doing - so please comment!