Welcome back,  let’s dive right into the list of top publishers. These are not in any particular order and you are not limited to one.

KDP – Kindle Direct Publishing

Amazon owns the KDP program that allows authors to publish and retail their eBooks for reading on Kindles or devices with the Kindle app installed. Amazon may be the one publisher that independent authors can’t push to one side given that around 80% of all eBook sales in the English language happen on the platform; just over 40% of those sales are self-published.

Provided you are prepared to allow Amazon exclusive rights to distribute your book for a period of 90 days, you can also join KDP Select. Another marketing program for authors, KDP Select is more of a marketing platform than the standard KDP, providing countdown deals and discounts to help authors promote their books. Should the platform work for you (and it can’t be denied that discounting does work) then you can enroll in KDP Select as many times as you need or want to. This also puts your book under the noses of those who subscribe to Kindle Unlimited and the Lending Library available to Amazon Prime members. This means that depending on the number of pages a reader reads in your book, you also get extra payments.

Kindle books are in the MOBI format and tools such as Caliber can be used to convert Word or PDF docs to .mobi.

KDP will pay royalties of either 35% or 70% of the list price.

CreateSpace

CreateSpace is the publishing platform Amazon uses for print books and it makes use of print-on-demand publishing – no books are held in stock, only printed when required.

If your book has been published using CreateSpace, it will be sold on Amazon exclusively unless you join the CreateSpace Expanded Distribution program. This allows your books to be available to both online retailers and offline, like Barnes & Noble, and to IngramSpark, Baker & Taylor and other distributors. Once your book has been added to their catalog, it will show up in their ordering system, available to libraries, retailers, academic institutions, and more, fully available for order from any of those places.

With Amazon, customers get a much better browse and purchase system because both the digital and print copies of books are linked.

Amazon will take a commission of 40% for regular sales and 60% for any made through the Expanded Distribution program. This is on top of their fixed charges.

iBooks

iBooks is owned by Apple and is second only to Amazon in book retailing. iBooks account for 10% of the book sales in the top 5 countries and their eBook store provides authors with some unique benefits. Authors can set different prices for their books for different countries and can set their prices in the different currencies. You can also schedule discounts and free book offers any time that you want. On top of that, you don’t give Apple exclusive rights to your book.

You do need a Mac to publish your books straight to iBooks or you can go through an aggregator. Apple will pay a flat rate of 70% in royalties.

Read part 3 for more top publishers.