How to Self-Publish Your Books to Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Google, and Kobo

If you’re self-publishing a book, you have two options. You can work with ebook aggregators or self-publishing platforms that take your finished manuscript, format it appropriately, and upload it to the major ebook retailers, taking a percentage of your sales. Or you can do all of this yourself.

Since you can create EPUB files from your Scrivener projects, which include your entire manuscript, cover art, and the necessary metadata, you might want to do all of this on your own. It’s a bit of work, but you can make more money than you would going through an aggregator.

In this article, we look at how you can self-publish your book to the major retail platforms.

The main ebook retailers

The title of this article lists five major e-book retailers in alphabetical order, and it’s just a coincidence that Amazon, the largest e-book seller, with around two-thirds of the market, is at the head of the list. Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing is your gateway to the biggest self-publishing platform in the world, allowing you to sell your ebooks and print-on-demand books on Amazon. If you are planning to self-publish a book, you may not need to publish through all the platforms we discuss in this article, but Amazon is the most important one.

Apple’s search is much more limited. Books Apple sells are only available through their Books store in their Books app. There are no print-on-demand options, and this app is only available on Apple devices: iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

Barnes & Noble is a US retail bookstore chain that also sells ebooks, and has about a quarter of the ebook market in the United States. Selling ebooks through them gives you access to people with Nook ebook readers and Nook apps on iPhone, iPad, and Android devices, as well as print-on-demand sales online and through their network of 600 stores, but only in the United States.

Google sells books through its Google Play store, and these can be read on Android devices using the Google Play Books app. While not easily readable on ebook readers, these books, which use Adobe Content Server Message DRM, can be converted to be read on some Kobo and Nook devices, but it’s not something that most people will do.

Finally, Kobo sells ebooks that can be read on its devices and its mobile apps. Kobo also offers print-on-demand books. They are the second-largest ebook retailer worldwide, with a strong presence in Japan, where their owner, Rakuten, is located, as well as in some other countries.

These five services work differently, and each one has its own niche. When self-publishing, it’s best to make your books available to as many people as possible. You may not choose all five of these retailers, but you should be aware of their strengths and weaknesses.

Assets you need to publish your ebook

It’s pretty simple to compile your Scrivener project as an eBook. Using Scrivener’s Compile feature, you can generate an EPUB file, which is the standard for all publishing platforms.

In addition to your manuscript, you need to create cover art, and you need to obtain an ISBN, or International Standard Book Number, which ensures that your book is listed in databases around the world. In the US, you can buy ISBNs from Bowker and in the UK from Nielsen. For other countries, search online to find the appropriate company.

While you can buy a single ISBN, if you plan to continue self-publishing, you might want to buy a group of 10, which costs about two or three times the price of an individual ISBN, depending on where you buy them. Some online platforms provide ISBNs for your books, but if you are uploading books to multiple platforms, it’s best that you buy the ISBNs rather than get them from a retailer, such as Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, so you can use the same ISBN everywhere.

Other metadata you need for all publishing platforms are:

• The title of the book
• Your author name: This could be your real name or a pen name.
• A description of the book: This is a marketing text, not a summary of the book. Think of this as the text you want on the back cover of a book to grab readers.
• Keywords: These can be genres, topics, locations, story types, etc., and could be individual words or phrases. Different retailers treat keywords differently.
• Your book’s category: You will choose multiple categories for your book. For example, Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot is listed on Amazon in Paranormal Suspense, Horror Fiction Classics, and Psychological Horror. Different retailers use different categories, and may apply categories incorrectly if you don’t choose your own.

Self-publishing with Amazon

Note: I spend a bit more time describing the process on Amazon, as it is similar on all five platforms, rather than repeating it for each one.

To publish books on Amazon, you use Kindle Direct Publishing, which lets you sell your book in ebook format, as well as print-on-demand paperback and hardcover. You must have an Amazon account, then you go to your Bookshelf and add your book.

A form that asks to enter information about your book:

The form is fairly self-explanatory, and Amazon has a number of support articles to help you fill it out.

You enter details about the book, upload the file, and then choose a price. The best format to upload is EPUB, though Amazon offers several options.

You then choose a price for your ebook. On Amazon, there are two royalty options, 35% and 70%. With the 70% option, your ebook cannot be priced above $9.99 or under $2.99. You also pay some delivery charges. The 70% option is best for most people; see this Kindle Direct Publishing support article for more on these options. You also choose which territories you want to sell the book in. Amazon currently has 14 country stores, though anyone can create an Amazon US account to use with a Kindle if their country doesn’t have a local Amazon presence.

This article, How to Choose the Right Price for Your Ebook, can help you determine the best price for your book. But you can also change your price later, if you want to run a promotion.

Amazon also offers KDP Select, which allows your books to be eligible for Kindle Unlimited. This subscription service – sort of like music streaming – pays you according to the number of pages of your book that subscribers read.

You also choose if you want to make the book available immediately or allow pre-orders for up to one year. Allowing pre-orders is good because all pre-orders are counted on the day the book goes on sale. This means that if you can generate a fair number of pre-orders, your book may jump up on the bestseller lists. In most cases, you might want to allow one month of pre-orders to give you time to start marketing your book.

There are other options available for your account, including how you are paid, identity verification, and more. For example, you can sign up for Expanded Distribution, which makes print-on-demand books available to bookstores, online retailers, libraries, and academic institutions. The KDP website has comprehensive support documents for all these issues.

Self-publishing with Apple

Apple’s foothold in the market is much smaller than Amazon’s, but it’s still worth publishing with them. While people who purchase ebooks from Apple can only read them on Apple devices, the popularity of the iPhone and iPad means that there are a lot of potential customers.

Apple’s approach is much simpler than that of Amazon, and they clearly differentiate themselves from their larger rival. Royalties are fixed at 70% regardless of price. There are no delivery fees, no placement fees, and no price matching.

Apple also offers “digital narration,” or audiobooks voiced by AI, something that Amazon doesn’t yet offer (though they will soon, through their subsidiary Audible).

To sell through Apple, start at Apple Books for Authors. You must first set up an iTunes Connect account. This lets you manage your books and payments.

As with Amazon, Apple can accept files in a variety of formats, but it’s best to use an EPUB that you generate from your Scrivener project. You upload this to Apple’s Publishing Portal, and add information about the book. You then set a price for the book and choose countries or regions where you want to sell it. Apple is present in just about every country in the world, so you can reach some countries where Amazon has no coverage. As with Amazon, you can set a book to be released in the future to benefit from pre-orders.

Apple provides a number of promotional tools, such as badges, logos, and QR codes with your book’s cover, along with attractive assets for social media posts.

For more on publishing with Apple, see this support document.

Self-publish with Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble has a network of 600 stores in the United States, and they also sell ebooks that can be read on Nook devices and apps. However, selling through Barnes & Noble limits you to this one country.

This process is done through Barnes & Noble Press, and listing books with Barnes & Noble makes them available through the company’s website, and customers can also order print-on-demand books and pick them up at any Barnes & Noble store.

Unlike other companies, Barnes & Noble presents a calculator on the main page of their self-publishing portal, showing authors how much they can earn.

Barnes & Noble offers more than just self-publishing. They have partnered with several companies that offer editing services, cover design, publicity, and more, to help authors prepare their books and market them. These companies don’t work for free, but if you do need some help with these services, they’re worth considering. Barnes & Noble offers a number of articles that help walk you through the process of self-publishing.

Self-publish with Google

The Google Play Store is where Google sells content, such as Android apps, games, music, movies, and ebooks. You can read ebooks and listen to audiobooks purchased from Google in the Google Play Books & Audiobooks app.

You manage books through the Google Play Books Partner Center. The company points out that they are present in more than 75 countries, and that there are more than 3 billion Android devices in service, but many of these are low-cost phones, for which users don’t buy much content.

While the other platforms covered in this article have information to help authors self-publish, design, and promote their books, Google’s portal is quite Spartan. They have extensive support documents, but nothing to motivate authors and explain why they should sell their books through Google.

If you don’t have a Google account, you must create one. Then, in the Google Play Books Partner Center, you enter information about yourself, payment information, and tax information.

Google’s How to sell a book on Google Play: a checklist goes through all the steps to submit a book. These are similar to other services, where you upload a book and its metadata, choose a price, and choose countries or territories where you want to sell it. You can then choose some options, such as whether you want to have DRM (digital rights management) on the book, how much of the book shows up as a preview, and more.

Self-publish with Kobo

Owned by the Japanese retailer Rakuten, Kobo is a major player in ebook readers. Second to Amazon, Kobo represents somewhere between 10% and 15% of device sales. Kobo also has a store that sells ebooks and audiobooks, and its Kobo Writing Life self-publishing platform is the gateway to this store.

The process of setting up an account and adding books is similar to that of the other retailers, but Kobo also allows authors to add their books to OverDrive, a company that Kobo owns that provides a library loan service. Pricing for libraries is different – books cost more, since they are sold with the right to loan them multiple times – so this can be a good source of income for authors. Also, library presence can help you get new readers who will look out for future books.

It’s worth noting that Rakuten has global partnerships, and “your books will be available around the world in the online bookstores of leading retailers in over 190 countries.”

You can learn more in the Kobo Writing Life portal, which features a blog and podcast.

Use affiliate programs

In addition to self-publishing on these five platforms, you can also join the companies’ affiliate programs to earn an additional commission when you drive sales of your books via your website or social media. All five of these platforms have affiliate programs specific to books, with payments of 5% to 7% for each sale. Commissions don’t just come from sales of your books, but also other books that the same reader purchases – or, with Amazon, other types of products – and generally cover about two weeks after a buyer clicks your link, unless they click another affiliate link before that period is over.

This is a lot of work…

… but it is worth it. If you want to self-publish, you could limit yourself to Amazon, the 800-pound behemoth, but you may miss out on sales in specific countries where other platforms are popular. Setting up accounts and uploading your first book on these five platforms will take a day’s work, but it can pay off over time. You’ll have to manage the different accounts and payments, and you’re in charge of promotion, but the process is pretty straightforward.

The more sales options you offer, the more chances you have of being successful when self-publishing. Being able to offer your books via links on your website or socials to multiple platforms may appeal to those who don’t want to buy from Amazon, which deservedly gets a lot of criticism for its control of the ebook market. And you may find that you have more success than expected on one of the other platforms, which can help you plan your marketing strategy for your next book.