Would it be Amazon (paid only, with some five day free slots available)?
A couple of years ago, I would have put Amazon first, first, first and first. It was all I could see. It was, to me the ONLY place I wanted to see my books. It was a symbol of having become a serious independent writer. And it was a brag shelf bar none.
Or Google Play Store (paid and free)?
Now … I’m not so sure. I started on Google Play Store last year and I am sooo happy with the results. I like that I can set the first book in a series free if I want. And I am surprised just how many downloads they are getting.
The other thing that I find absolutely great is that in only a few months the books have begun to garnish reviews and stars on Google Play.
However, Google has not been in my best books ever since they axed Google Plus, which was my preferred social media site and one I had put a lot of effort into. I lost over five thousand followers and a lot of time, and that experience has taught me to distrust their loyalty to their clients.
But I am going to leave that sort of thing, and politics out of this. I know many people have issues with all of these huge online platforms, and I do sympathize, but I am still in that euphoric state of ‘look, that’s MY book up there’!
Barnes and Noble and Kobo (paid and free)
I have had all my books up on Barnes and Noble (The Nook) and Kobo for years, and I don’t think I have ever received a royalty payment. And both of those have the ability to set your books free, if you want to.
I also tried Bookpatch, with similar results. I would have tried Smashwords, but I never found a way to do that because I finish all my books in Indesign which is a format that is not accepted by them. I never found a way to get through their style guide and gave up.
Wattpad (free)
I have the Ammonite Galaxy up on Wattpad, which has been interesting but a little slow recently. They changed their algorithms a few years back and I lost a lot of readers. I leave them up there in a legacy sort of frame of mind, just because I can.
iTunes and other audiobook sites (free)
I have had a lot more success with the audiobooks/podcast books. These took a lot of time to narrate, and the podiobooks site where they were originally posted disappeared years ago. Through Libsyn they are still available on the iTunes site for download. As they are free, they seem to have also found their way onto several other free audiobook plaforms. I came across one a few months back and was absolutely amazed to see that some of the Ammonite Galaxy books had hundreds of well-starred reviews.
Conclusions:
So my list of best places to self publish ebooks in 2020 is
| 1. Google Play Store |
| 2. Amazon |
| 3. Barnes and Noble |
| 4. Kobo |
| 5. Wattpad |
| 6. iTunes |