- what's in your ebook publishing package?
-
All inclusive fee of $240 USD
Our ebook publishing package is an easy way to list your ebook with the four major retailers—Amazon, Apple, Google
and Barnes & Noble. Our package covers everything required to publish your book including an ISBN, registration with
Nielsen or Bowker, a year of distribution, royalty handling and assistance with any issues along the way.
Relisting - $48 USD per annum after first year
Distribution fees included in this package will list your ebook for one year. After this year is up you will be
sent a renewal quotation for $48 USD redistribution fees.
Upon payment your ebook will be listed for a further year.
- what about the ISBN?
-
Your ebook must have a different ISBN from your printed book. Publish with our Wordzworth imprint and we will assign
your ebook one of our ISBNs. Publish under your own imprint and we will need to be sent an additional ISBN for your
ebook version.
Occasionally, Amazon will request an email of permission from you to state that we are authorized to distribute files
on your behalf. This is rarely necessarily and is not required for any other retailer. It appears to be a random
check by Amazon for copyright purposes. Where this occurs, we will request a simple email of authorization.
- how do changes work?
-
It's not uncommon for an author to need to make a change to their ebook. Unlike print, the beauty of electronic format
means that files can be updated and replaced very quickly. However, there are costs and other considerations involved
so our advice would be—collect your changes together and only submit them when you have enough to make the process worthwhile.
design changes
Each file that needs updating at this stage will cost a minimum of
$48 USD. It is advisable to allow time for any changes to be made.
If you have other book formats (paperback, casebound) then you will probably want to update these as well in order to
keep all versions in-step.
post-publication changes
Once your ebook has been published any change will be subject to a minimum fee of
$96 USD - our design changes fee plus the re-submission fee to push
the replacement file out to retailers.
data changes
The other type of change you may wish to make is an update to your book’s metadata, such as an alteration to the list
price, author bio or wholesale discount. These updates are free but you will need to email us, clearly specifying the
changes you require. Also, please note that not all metadata changes take effect immediately. In particular, a change
in your list price takes 3-4 weeks to update with retailers.
- how do I set my ebook price?
-
Your ebook does not have production costs like a print book so you have huge flexibility when setting the price.
However, the way ebook sales work is both complex and rather frustrating, here is an overview.
list price
This is the recommended price for a retailer to sell your ebook. To choose this, consider what your book is worth
to customers, the price of other books in the same genre, royalties and currency conversions. Larger ebook files
with lots of images should generally be priced higher. Let's say we think the ebook is worth $10.
retail price
Retailers may use your list price as a guide to price but they may actually sell for any price they choose. And if
Amazon see your ebook is sold cheaper elsewhere they can go into a discounting war. Unfortunately this is beyond
your control. However, by selling with only the four main retailers, and no smaller ones, you reduce the chances
of this happening. Maybe B&N decide to sell the ebook for $8 and Amazon discount to $7.
retailer cut
Each time a retailer sells your ebook, they take a cut and pass on 35-70% of the sales price (not list price) to you
as royalties. Apple pay 70%, Google pay 52%, B&N pay 50% and Amazon pay 35% (or 70%) with a few caveats...
To qualify for the 70% Amazon royalty the ebook must be priced $2.99-$9.99 or £1.99-£9.99 and be at least 20%
less than the print book. The customer downloading the ebook must also be in a qualifying location. Amazon also
apply a delivery fee of $0.15/£0.10 per MB for ebooks in this 70% bracket. For large ebook files with lots of
images this will therefore quickly reduce royalties so the 35% royalty bracket is often a better option anyway.
For ebooks sold abroad, retailers will convert to your home currency using a fixed exchange rate of their choice.
Royalties = 30-65% of retail price
pricing in other currencies
You must provide a list price for your book in each market you wish to sell it in. If pricing is not submitted
for a particular market, your title will be unavailable for sale in that market. As a quick suggestion, you can
take your book price in your main currency e.g. $10, convert it at the current exchange rate to get prices in
other currencies e.g. £7.80. Finally, we would further suggest rounding the prices in each currency to end in
a neat .49 or .99. So in our sample case, $9.99 and £7.99.
In essence, this unfortunately means that unlike for a print book, it is impossible to calculate in advance
how much you will receive in royalties for each ebook sold. All you can do is set your list price to something
sensible and hope the retailers take this as a guide.
- how do I get paid for ebook sales?
-
A customer buys your book online at the retail price. The retailer then pays 30-65% of this to us in royalties.
You receive 100% of these royalties for each ebook you sell. We do not take any commission on your ebook sales.
Royalties are paid out to authors on the 15th of each month. There is then a 4 month rolling delay
in receiving payments. So January royalties would be recieved in May, February royalties in June. This is
industry-standard for all book sales as it takes time to collect money from individual retailers. All royalties
are paid via PayPal directly to your email address. Where the balance is less than $20 USD payment will
be carried forward to the following month.
Ebook sales data takes at least one month to filter through from the various retailers and be shown in
your Authorzone. Major retailers such as Amazon or Barnes & Noble will be itemised other retailers are shown
aggregated as sales via Ingram.
- where will my ebook be sold?
-
online retailers
Your book data will be broadcast to just four retailers - Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble and Google. The vast majority
of ebooks are sold through these retailers and by not selling via any smaller ones, you reduce the chances of a
pricing discount war between them. Your title should then be listed as available for sale on these websites,
at their discretion, in around 7 days. Please note your book will only appear in markets for which you have
set a selling price.
not on our site
There are a variety of reasons for this from not having permission to sell the Amazon proprietary format, to
triggering a discounting war between retailers, to having to host the physical files to digital rights management
and security. However, ebooks are listed with retailers much faster than books so there is less delay to them
becoming available elsewhere.
- how will retailers show my ebook?
-
An online bookstore is just a shop. The way they determine whether to list an ebook and how they list it is down
to their discretion and not something we can influence. However, if your ebook looks good, has the right metadata
and is priced sensibly, then you have given your book the best chance. The way each retailer displays data may
then differ in a number of ways.
pricing
The list price you set for your book is just a recommended sales price. A retailer is then entitled to sell it
for whatever they like. This can be a higher value or a lower value than the list price you set and cannot be influenced.
If Amazon spot your ebook is being sold cheaper with another retailer they will discount or price match against each
other and can get into a pricing war reducing the sales price considerably. It is not possible to avoid this but to
reduce the chances of it happening we distribute only to the four major retailers – Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble
and Google. Some of the smaller retailers or ebook sellers are the most likely to discount ebooks so we do not list with them.
combined with other formats
If the title, author and keyword metadata for your print book matches your ebook exactly then Amazon will typically
show them paired on a listing. This way if a customer searches for your title they will see both the print book and
ebook together.
look inside
Amazon will typically display a section of your ebook file on their 'Look Inside' feature. Please note they use the
Kindle Previewer software to display this which attempts to mimic what the ebook will look like on a Kindle and it
is a good attempt, but not perfect.
error
Finally, should you ever believe there is a genuine error with a listing, such as the book cover not showing with
a particular retailer, take a screenshot, send it to us and we will have the feeds pushed out again.
- what about ebook security?
-
If you read ebooks, you've probably heard the term DRM or digital rights management. DRM exists to control access
to copyrighted materials by preventing users from illegally copying and using software and data. It effectively
locks your ebook file so that only the person who purchased it can view it.
The ebooks we produce do not contain DRM as, in our experience, adding it can cause problems. It is intended as
an anti-piracy deterrent but can cause issues for legitimate readers such as preventing them from reading the
book on multiple devices.
- what are your terms?
-
We do not have a written contract for you to sign. Instead we ask that you have read this questions answered
section and accept our general terms and conditions
which we have tried to make short and readable.