10 Best Platforms To Sell Ebooks In 2024
Wondering where to sell your ebooks?
There are plenty of platforms you can use to sell ebooks online. It’s easier than ever.
In this article, we’re comparing the best platforms to sell ebooks. Some of them allow you to sell ebooks from your own website and keep 100% of the profits.
Others are marketplaces that give you access to a built-in audience but will take a cut from your earnings.
Where to sell your ebook online – TL;DR
Before we get into the list, here’s an overview of our top picks:
- Sellfy – The best platform for selling ebooks with zero transaction fees. Use Sellfy to create an online store or sell ebooks directly from your website. You can also sell physical products, subscriptions, and print-on-demand merchandise.
- Podia – The best ebook platform for those who want an “all-in-one” approach to selling digital content. Sell ebooks, courses, webinars, and more. Email marketing, customer communication, and affiliate marketing are built-in.
- Shopify – Do you want to create a full ecommerce store to sell ebooks or other products? Shopify is the best option.
- PublishDrive – Use this platform to automatically distribute your ebook to online marketplaces such as Amazon and Apple Books.
#1 – Sellfy
Sellfy is the perfect ecommerce platform for selling ebooks online. With Sellfy, you can create your own digital storefront and start selling ebooks, POD merchandise, and much more.
As ecommerce platforms go, Sellfy is extremely user-friendly, making it perfect for beginner authors looking for an easy way to self-publish their work. It takes just a few clicks to set up your first online store.
Once you’re all set up, you can customize the look and feel of your store, add products, and set up your payment options. With Sellfy, you can sell just about anything, from digital products like ebooks, to subscriptions and even print-on-demand merchandise.
Once your book is published and you start to make sales, you can use Facebook and Twitter tracking pixels to keep track of paid ad campaigns. You can also use Sellfy analytics to track your store’s performance or integrate a third-party analytics tool like Google Analytics. It also has built-in email marketing features too.
Sellfy also has some useful features that can help keep your customers and your products safe and secure. You can use features like limited downloads to stop buyers from illegally sharing your books, and you can accept secure payments using PayPal or Stripe.
Sellfy also allows you to sell your digital products with 0% transaction fees, making it perfect for solopreneurs and blossoming authors.
Pricing:
Paid plans start from $19/month.
Learn more in our Sellfy review.
#2 – Podia
Podia is an all-in-one sales and marketing platform that makes it easy to sell ebooks and other types of digital products.
The platform is perfect for entrepreneurs looking to get started with selling digital products. You can use Podia to easily set up your own ecommerce store, and you have a ton of freedom when it comes to what products you’d like to sell.
For example, you can sell a wide range of downloadable products including ebooks, templates and presets, audio files, and more. Podia also has webinar and online course features built-in.
What’s great about Podia is that it also comes with tons of marketing features out of the box. You can manage email marketing campaigns, messaging, embeds, and even affiliate programs all in one place.
It’s also extremely easy to design and customize your online store thanks to Podia’s wide selection of optimized templates. Overall, Podia is an intuitive and full-featured platform that’s perfect for businesses that want to sell a diverse range of digital products.
Pricing:
The Podia Mover plan starts from $33/month and includes the creation of unlimited webinars, courses, and downloadable products.
Podia have a free plan for one product with 8% transaction fees; includes Podia’s website builder, community and email marketing.
Podia also offers a 14-day free trial.
Read our Podia review.
#3 – Payhip
Payhip is an ecommerce solution that’s great for selling ebooks online. This easy-to-use beginner-friendly tool will allow you to create a professional and attractive online store in just a few minutes.
You can then customize your store, add your ebooks or other digital products and start making sales. Payhip can also be used to sell products such as online courses, and digital memberships.
Payhip comes complete with a range of useful sales features including Pay-what-you-want pricing, coupons, and affiliate marketing options. These features make it super easy to boost conversions and increase sales.
Payhip uses PayPal and Stripe to manage payments, so you’ll need to sign up to PayPal or Stripe and connect your account to start taking payments. You’ll be charged 0-5% transaction fees depending on the plan you choose, as well as PayPal or Stripes standard transaction fees too. Overall, Payhip offers a simplistic but affordable way to sell ebooks online.
Pricing:
Payhip offers a free forever plan but charges a 5% transaction fee on sales. The Pro plan starts from $99/month and has 0% transaction fees.
Read our Payhip review.
#4 – Shopify
Shopify is an extremely popular ecommerce solution that can be used to create large-scale online stores. You can use Shopify to sell just about anything from digital products like ebooks, to physical products.
This powerful ecommerce platform comes complete with a visual editor for creating and customizing your online store, as well as tons of flexible selling options.
In addition to store creation features, Shopify is packed full of useful marketing tools that can help you to start your ecommerce journey and scale up as your business grows.
It’s very much an all-in-one solution that can be used to manage your online store and run large scale marketing campaigns. Therefore, it’s best suited to individuals or businesses that are planning to sell a wide range of digital or physical products and want a customizable solution that can scale alongside their business.
Pricing:
Try free for 3 days then pay $1/month for the first 3 months. Plans start from $5/month afterwards (save 25% with an annual subscription).
Read our Shopify review.
#5 – SendOwl
SendOwl is an all-in-one platform designed to make selling and delivering digital products like ebooks simple and efficient for creators. The platform supports the sale of tons of digital products including ebooks, photography, memberships, tickets, and more.
You can use SendOwl to create your own ebook store, and there are tons of features built in to help you market and deliver your products to your customers.
For example, SendOwl has codes and license key features that can help you ensure that people don’t duplicate your content. They also have a Drip feature that would allow you to release your ebook chapter by chapter, which can be a good way to market your story and make more sales.
Overall, SendOwl is a great option for self-published authors that want an ecommerce solution with a selection of ebook-focused features.
Pricing:
Sendowl starts from $15/month for up to 30 products. There is also a 30-day free trial available.
#6 – PublishDrive
PublishDrive is an ebook distribution platform. You can’t sell your ebooks through PublishDrive directly, but you can use it to distribute them to thousands of digital libraries and marketplaces all across the world and to reach global marketplaces.
Once you sign up, as an author, you can upload and sync your books across multiple stores. Then, PublishDrive will distribute your ebooks far and wide to instantly list them across stores like Google Play, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, and many more. This allows you to tap into an enormous market of over 2.5 billion potential readers.
It’s much quicker and easier than distributing your books to each platform individually by yourself. Plus, PublishDrive’s global network allows you to reach niche channels and hard-to-reach markets in places like China.
Pricing:
PublishDrive offers several plans starting from $9.99/month. You can also sign up for a 14-day free trial.
#7 – Amazon
No roundup of the best platforms to sell ebooks would be complete without mentioning Amazon. As the biggest online retailer in the world, the ecommerce giant dominates the eBook market and is responsible for a whopping 68% share of all ebook sales.
And with hundreds of millions of users, it gives you access to a much larger potential readership than you could hope for listing on your alone. It goes without saying that if you want to reach as large an audience as possible, you need to list your ebook for sale on Amazon.
To do so, you’ll first need to sign up for Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). Next, go to your Bookshelf and click Add New Title to start publishing your book. It’ll walk you through the process and shouldn’t take longer than 10 minutes or so. You’ll need to upload the eBook in Kindle format, but if you only have it in a PDF or Word file, Amazon can convert it for you.
Of course, there are some downsides to selling ebooks on Amazon. The biggest downside is that you won’t make as much money per sale as you would on a platform like Sellfy as Amazon take a pretty big chunk.
Pricing:
It’s free to list your books on Amazon through KDP but you’ll pay a sales commission per sale. You can choose between 35% royalty and 70% royalty, depending on the price of your book.
#8 – Apple Books
Apple Books is another essential platform to sell your ebooks on, especially if you’re hoping to tap into the mobile market. The Apple Book Store the go-to source for reading inspiration for iPhone and other Apple device users.
Apple Books offers authors generous royalties of 70%, regardless of the listing price. There are no hidden fees or limitations on offering free books, and no third-party ads!
You’ll need to create an iTunes Connect account to publish with Apple Books directly. Once you’ve signed up, you can publish your books in EPUB ebook formats using either iTunes Producer (if you’re using a Mac device) or Publishing Portal (Windows). If you need to convert it from a Word Document to an EPUB file first, you can use Pages.
The publishing process is straightforward and will walk you through everything step-by-step. And once it’s done, you’ll be able to reach a huge new market of potential readers.
Pricing:
It’s free to sell ebooks on Apple Books. There are no listing fees but Apple will take a cut of your revenue, meaning you’ll only earn 70% royalties per sale.
#9 – Google Play
Google Play is Google’s digital distribution channel. Android users use Google Play to download games, apps, and-yep, you guessed it—books! This makes it another great platform to sell your ebooks on and can help you to expand your reach even further into the international mobile market.
Google doesn’t require authors to grant them exclusive rights, so you can list your books on the Play store as well as other retailers. From the Partner center, you can then choose the countries you want to sell in, set your list prices, and more.
Google will take care of everything else for you and handle the hosting, sales, and distribution. Once it’s there, readers can find it by browsing the Google Play Store or through Google Books and start reading it in the app or web browser.
Pricing:
There are no upfront costs to sell on Google Play, but Google will take a share of the revenue of each sale you make. The exact revenue share depends on the sale price.
#10 – Audible (audiobooks only)
Audible is Amazon’s audiobook service. It’s probably the most popular audiobook service in the world and has thousands of users. This makes it the best place to sell your ebooks in audio format.
To sell your ebooks as audiobooks on Audible, you’ll first need to have them narrated. Most people choose to hire a professional narrator for this, but if you want to save money, it’s possible to do it yourself. You’ll need to pay for some equipment first, though, such as a decent microphone and soundproofing equipment if you want to record at home.
To get your audiobook listed on Audible, you’ll need to go through a distribution channel like ACX (Audiobook Creation Exchange). The service walks you through the whole process, including having your book narrated if needed, and distributes it to Audible, Amazon, and iTunes. You can then receive royalties of up to 40%.
The great thing about turning your ebook into an audiobook is that it opens up a brand new market. There’s a huge market of people who only listen to books that you just wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise. Plus, audiobooks have a much higher average selling price and typically cost $20-$30, meaning higher profit margins for you.
Pricing:
If you want to keep full royalties and pay for audiobook production, you can check out the Pay for Production program. Costs will depend on the length of the finished audiobook but you’ll retain full control and royalties.
Alternatively, you can produce the audio yourself and upload the files to ACX for free, then receive monthly royalty payments of up to 40%.
Selling Ebooks FAQs
Before we wrap up, here are the answers to some frequently asked questions about selling ebooks.
Should you sell ebooks direct or via a marketplace?
Selling ebooks direct from your website allows you to keep all of the profits and build your brand. Without unnecessarily sending your audience to marketplaces that will take a cut for the privilege.
Marketplaces will take a significant cut of your profits but they offer access to their audience, giving you more reach.
But if you’re just going to be sending your existing audience to a platform like Amazon, you’re sacrificing your profits when it isn’t necessary.
The best approach? Sell ebooks direct from your website AND via marketplaces like Amazon.
Use marketplaces only to reach a new audience and expand your existing audience. Don’t use them to facilitate sales to your existing audience (e.g. your email list). Then, use a platform like Sellfy or Podia to ensure you keep 100% of the profits from direct sales.
This approach will give you the best of both worlds.
How much can you make selling ebooks?
The sky’s the limit when it comes to selling ebooks. You can make plenty of money, but it all depends on the price you sell at, your profit margin, and how well your book sells.
For example, if you sell your book for $2.99 through Kindle Direct Publishing, you’ll earn around $2.09 per sale. That means that if you only sell a hundred copies, you’re not going to make much money—probably not even enough to cover your time investment.
However, if you sell a thousand copies at that price, you’d earn $2,000. If you sell 10,000 copies, that’s $20,000. And if you priced that same book at $9.99, you’d earn around $69,930.
Is selling ebooks on Amazon worth it?
Selling ebooks online is a popular option for new writers and ecommerce beginners. It’s easy to sign up and publish your books, and you can also get some good exposure for your work from Amazon visitors too.
However, despite its huge reach, it’s not the best way to make money. Amazon takes a percentage of any sales you make, which can have a big impact on your profits overall.
Although there are a lot of pros to using Amazon to promote your books, it’s a much better idea to create your own ebook store using a tool like Sellfy.
By doing this, you can be in complete control of your sales and you will also get to keep 100% of the profits.
What kind of ebooks sell best?
Based on Amazon bestseller statistics, the most popular categories of ebooks are romance, crime and mystery, and religious and inspirational.
However, if you’re looking to write a non-fiction book rather than a novel or short story, then other popular categories include business and money, and self-help.
But overall, any kind of ebook can sell well—as long as it’s well-written, professionally designed, and interesting. So whatever category you choose to write about, be sure to focus on creating compelling content and designing a professional and eye-catching cover.
How do free ebooks make money?
Free ebooks can make money in lots of ways. One way free ebooks make money is through the Amazon KDP Select program. If your ebook gets enrolled in the program, Prime members can read it for free but Amazon will still pay you based on how many pages they read.
Another way authors make money while giving away free ebooks is by using them as a vehicle to promote their affiliate products. If you advertise affiliate products within your ebook and readers make a purchase through your affiliate links, you can earn a commission per sale.
And of course, free ebooks make authors money by helping to generate exposure. One common strategy authors use is to make their ebooks available for free for a limited time only. This helps them gain some initial reviews and get readers hooked so that sales keep rolling in once they increase the price.
How do I self-publish an ebook?
There are quite a lot of steps involved with self-publishing an ebook. First, you need to write your ebook and prepare it for sale.
Once you’ve done that, you can then choose whether to publish a book via your own online store using a site like Sellfy, or publish it on marketplace sites like Amazon or Etsy.
Both are valid methods, but by publishing on your own online store, you’ll have more control over your sales, and you won’t have to pay any transaction fees or commissions.
Getting your ebook from the ideation stage to the sale stage can take a few weeks, however, it’s quite a simple process. We’ve written a full guide on how to create an ebook, and make money selling it online, be sure to check it out: How To Make Money Selling Ebooks Online: The Complete Beginners Guide.
How long should ebooks be?
Ebooks can be anywhere from 25,000 to 100,000 words depending on the genre. Some even fall outside of that range entirely.
Full-length fiction novels tend to be longer and are usually around 80,000 to 100,000 words, whereas non-fiction books are typically 50,000 to 75,000 words. And of course, short stories can be significantly shorter than that.
On average, ebooks have around 250 to 300 words per page. Therefore, a 50,000-word ebook will be around 182 pages long. A 100,000-word ebook will be around 364 pages long.
Choosing the best ebook sales platform for your needs
That concludes our roundup of the best platforms to sell ebooks. The ecommerce industry is thriving and there’s no better time to choose an ebook platform and start bringing in sales.
There are a lot of great options, but it’s important to choose one that’s a good fit for your needs.
With that in mind, here’s what we’d recommend:
Choose Sellfy if you just want the overall best platform with zero transaction fees. You can use it to build your online store from the ground up and sell ebooks, POD products, subscriptions, and more.
Go for Podia if you’d prefer an all-in-one platform that comes with everything you market and sell your ebooks out of the box. With Podia, you get access to email marketing, affiliate marketing, and customer communication tools in addition to the core ecommerce features.
And if you want maximum flexibility, go for Shopify. It’s one of the most powerful ecommerce platforms on the market and offers unparalleled design freedom.
It’s worth noting that with all three of these options, you aren’t just limited to ebooks. You can sell a wide variety of digital products such as music, audio files, video, and more.
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