The pitch is that giving away free ebooks will entice people to leave you a review on the platform they downloaded it and on Goodreads. If this were true I would have over 4,000 reviews for my books on Amazon alone since 2009 when I first joined KDP to distribute Tea & Sprockets. It seems most people just download free ebooks and never read them, but they certainly don’t bother reviewing them.
I also reformatted Tea & Sprockets on Smashwords at some point prior to 2013, having a charge of $3.99 for a store-provided ISBN on my account. When I found out about Kindle promotional deals, I removed my one book from Smashwords in 2013, and was exclusive to Amazon until about 2021 when I read the book Wide for the Win by the founder of Draft2Digital, an Oklahoma distribution company, which convinced me that worldwide distribution was the pathway towards success.
Perhaps, it’s only fiction authors in popular genres that win by going wide because in 4 years I only had a little over 100 downloads on other ebook services reaching markets on nearly every continent. I priced my ebooks as a free download and gave out printed materials advertising them at gigs. This way anyone in my audience who couldn’t afford to buy a paperback book from me in our inflation saddled economy would have access to my poetry.
I chose to distribute via StreetLib, Smashwords, Draft2Digital, and PublishDrive. Through an online deal I had purchased from PublishDrive what was supposed to be a lifetime membership with no extra charges. PD recently changed their policies, stating that if I want to release anymore more ebooks with them, I need to pay $50 per month to cover my catalogue of 20 ebooks. Mind you, all of these ebooks were being offered for free. Therefore, I couldn’t justify the expense of $600 per year.
About a year after I went wide Draft2Digital purchased Smashwords. By combining the two systems, the ISBN charge from Smashwords wiped out what little royalties I had earned from library sales. I’ve never actually been paid anything from Draft2Digital or Smashwords as a result. Much like the author promotion clubs across the web, the services they deliver to rarely ever have special sales aimed at promoting poetry.
Therefore when on top of taking a cut of royalties Draft2Digital recently instituted a $12 annual penalty for not making $100 or more in ebook sales, I delisted all of my books in their system. If I haven’t even made the amount of the penalty in 5 years of using their service, it hardly justifies paying it. Also they distribute to about 50% less platforms than the other services I am using.
This means that unfortunately my ebooks will no longer be available through BookShop, BorrowBox, cloudLibrary, Fable, Smashwords, or Vivlio anymore. I apologize if you previously downloaded them there. I distribute directly to Amazon, so all of my books are on KDP for purchase, but not on Kindle Unlimited, since I am not exclusive to them.
I can reach Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Everand, Kobo, Overdrive, and Tolino through either StreetLib or PublishDrive, and I will remedy that as soon as possible. I will figure out where I need to add new distribution channels for existing ebooks once I have allowed the services to delist the Smashwords/D2D versions. This could take quite a bit of time in some cases.
For example, having read in Wide for the Win that compilations sell better than individual titles, I had made two compilation ebooks called The Fourth Evolution and The Poet Laureate Years back in 2021. These books were too large to have print versions. I ultimately delisted them in summer 2023 due to lack of sales. Three years later some services still have the compilation ebooks available like CNPereading, so if you’d like to read my first eight books for free, China has your back, and I hope you enjoy them.
Which brings us to ISBNS… Unlike other services PublishDrive also does not provide free ISBNS, so I don’t currently distribute to Baker & Taylor, Bibliotheca, Ciando, Empik, Gardners, Hoopla, Mackin, or Perlego through them. I could reach Perlego through StreetLib which does provide ISBNs for ebooks in their system. In order to distribute 20 books to the 8 services that require an ISBN for ebook titles, much like with republishing my paperbacks elsewhere, it would cost me $600 upfront.
Should I ever bite the bullet and spend $1200 to fully test out PublishDrive and have my own ISBNs, I certainly cannot provide free ebooks anymore. In a genre like poetry, I doubt many indie poets are making that much annually on a regular basis which is another reason why poets should be paid honorariums for speaking engagements.
Heaven is Portable was the last book that I converted into an ebook for mass distribution. Not all of my ebooks have made it onto all of the services despite my efforts. Theoretically, you can find my books internationally on AppleBooks, Google Play, Kobo, Nook, BookMate, CNPeReading, Everand, formerly Scribd, Odilo, Overdrive, Storytel, Tolino, Voxa, and 24Symbols through PublishDrive. You should also be able to find it on Bidi, CasaDelLibro, Hoepli, Il Giadrino dei Libri, Libreka, Liberia Universitataria, Libri, Uni Libro, Webster, Bookbeat, Dreame, Leamos, Media365, Ubook, YouScribe, Media Library, and Sebina through StreetLib. BuscaLibre, Olibro, Porrua, LaFeltrinelli, Agapea, fnac, also have listings for some of my books. And of course, Amazon KDP. Get them free while you can because I will be changing prices soon.
Or you could just visit bookshop.org and order a paperback from your favorite local bookstore. Alibi, BookShop Benicia, and Revolution Books have some of my titles on their shelves if you’re local.
Paperbacks ensure your indie author friend doesn’t have to worry about books disappearing or perhaps, never appearing in the first place on digital platforms. Unless you decide to resell my books on ebay for twice the amount, which is another perk of having a paperback version outside of autographs.