Episode 109 - Wide Retailers and Aggregators: NOT the Usual Suspects with M. K. Williams
December 7, 2021
M. K. Williams of Author Your Ambition describes some of the retailers that authors, especially in the US, might not think of, and the aggregators you can use to reach them … the importance of having a plan for your distribution strategy … and considerations for balancing the access and opportunities that going direct to the retail platforms provide against the time it takes to learn and optimize those platforms. M. K. cautions against feeling like you have to be everywhere as soon as possible, and advocates for picking monthly focus for your distribution planning.
M.K. Williams writes suspenseful literary fiction for the contemporary reader. Her fiction work includes NAILBITERS, an apocalyptic science-fiction thriller, ENEMIES OF PEACE, a cautionary tale of the American Dream gone awry, and THE INFINITE-INFINITE, the first in a series of sci-fi adventure books. Her non-fiction work includes writing and self-publishing guides, a budgeting and planning workbook, and THE FIOLOGY WORKBOOK: YOUR GUIDE TO FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE. She recently launched GOING WIDE: SELF-PUBLISHING YOUR BOOKS OUTSIDE THE AMAZON ECOSYSTEM (Author Your Ambition Book 4).
"When you hit the panic button as an author and you upload to every aggregator and every direct retailer, and you have duplicate listings and issues, that's where things go bad." —M. K. Williams
Are you getting value from the podcast? Consider supporting me on Patreon or through Buy Me a Coffee!
[00:00:00] Matty: Hello and welcome to The Indy Author Podcast. Today, my guest is MK Williams. Hey MK, how are you doing?
[00:00:06] MK: Hi Matty, I'm doing great, thanks for having me back on the show.
[00:00:09] Matty: It is my pleasure. Just to give our listeners a little reminder of your background, MK Williams writes suspenseful literary fiction for the contemporary reader. Her fiction work includes NAILBITERS, an apocalyptic science-fiction thriller, ENEMIES OF PEACE, a cautionary tale of the American Dream gone awry, and THE INFINITE-INFINITE, the first in a series of sci-fi adventure books. Her non-fiction work includes writing and self-publishing guides, a budgeting and planning workbook, and THE FIOLOGY WORKBOOK: YOUR GUIDE TO FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE.
[00:00:37] And, her most recent book is GOING WIDE: SELF-PUBLISHING YOUR BOOKS OUTSIDE THE AMAZON ECOSYSTEM. That's Author Your Ambition book number four, and that's going to be sort of the background of our conversation. We'll talk about that more in just a moment, but I did want to mention that MK is a previous guest, she was on Episode 71 - THE PROVIDER SIDE OF AUTHOR SERVICES and was one of the contributors to Episode 82 - PERSPECTIVES ON WRITER'S BLOCK.
[00:01:03] And so, what I wanted to do, because I think we've had like a pretty good representation about the philosophical and business reasons for going wide. And so I didn't want to just hit that, but instead I've sort of spun this topic as, why retailers and aggregators, not the usual suspects? And by 'usual suspects,' what I mean is that I think a very common approach for indy authors to take is that if they're going wide for e-books, they're on Amazon KDP and let's say Draft2Digital, that's what I use. If they're going wide for print, they're on KDP Print and Ingram Spark. And if they're going wide for audio, they're on Amazon ACX and Findaway for audio.
[00:01:46] Was that your initial lineup? Talk a little bit about your evolution towards some of these more unusual suspects and then we'll get into the details of those.
[00:01:55] MK: Yeah. So I guess for me, my usual suspects look different. So when I started self-publishing in 2015, I was alone on this island. For some reason, though I'm a millennial and I should have been on Facebook and Twitter and connecting with people. I was just like, I'm alone. Nobody else is doing this, who can help me? And so I did a lot of just research on my own, and so my mix when I started was KDP Amazon and Smashwords.
[00:00:06] MK: Hi Matty, I'm doing great, thanks for having me back on the show.
[00:00:09] Matty: It is my pleasure. Just to give our listeners a little reminder of your background, MK Williams writes suspenseful literary fiction for the contemporary reader. Her fiction work includes NAILBITERS, an apocalyptic science-fiction thriller, ENEMIES OF PEACE, a cautionary tale of the American Dream gone awry, and THE INFINITE-INFINITE, the first in a series of sci-fi adventure books. Her non-fiction work includes writing and self-publishing guides, a budgeting and planning workbook, and THE FIOLOGY WORKBOOK: YOUR GUIDE TO FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE.
[00:00:37] And, her most recent book is GOING WIDE: SELF-PUBLISHING YOUR BOOKS OUTSIDE THE AMAZON ECOSYSTEM. That's Author Your Ambition book number four, and that's going to be sort of the background of our conversation. We'll talk about that more in just a moment, but I did want to mention that MK is a previous guest, she was on Episode 71 - THE PROVIDER SIDE OF AUTHOR SERVICES and was one of the contributors to Episode 82 - PERSPECTIVES ON WRITER'S BLOCK.
[00:01:03] And so, what I wanted to do, because I think we've had like a pretty good representation about the philosophical and business reasons for going wide. And so I didn't want to just hit that, but instead I've sort of spun this topic as, why retailers and aggregators, not the usual suspects? And by 'usual suspects,' what I mean is that I think a very common approach for indy authors to take is that if they're going wide for e-books, they're on Amazon KDP and let's say Draft2Digital, that's what I use. If they're going wide for print, they're on KDP Print and Ingram Spark. And if they're going wide for audio, they're on Amazon ACX and Findaway for audio.
[00:01:46] Was that your initial lineup? Talk a little bit about your evolution towards some of these more unusual suspects and then we'll get into the details of those.
[00:01:55] MK: Yeah. So I guess for me, my usual suspects look different. So when I started self-publishing in 2015, I was alone on this island. For some reason, though I'm a millennial and I should have been on Facebook and Twitter and connecting with people. I was just like, I'm alone. Nobody else is doing this, who can help me? And so I did a lot of just research on my own, and so my mix when I started was KDP Amazon and Smashwords.
click here to read more
[00:02:18] So for me, my primary goal when I was self-publishing was, I want my books available in the library. I'm a super frugal person, I know we talked on the last episode about my financial independence journey. So for me, my thought was I know the people in my network want the frugal option, they want to get my book at the library, I love the library with my books there. And so at the time, when I was doing my research, Smashwords kept coming up as an option to get my book into Overdrive, Baker and Taylor, and the networks that you need to be in for libraries to find and distribute your book.
[00:02:48] So for me, I was Smashwords from the beginning and I'm still a Smashwords evangelist. And it was years later, I learned about Draft2Digital, and I thought, oh should I switch? And then I realized, oh no, I get pretty much the same coverage at Smashwords that I do at Draft2Digital. And that's actually some of the issues I've seen of late with this new push to go wide.
[00:03:08] There's a lot of authors who've been in this space for a while, Amazon only, they want to go wide. There are authors who are just starting out, they're like, yep, I've heard of wide, I want to do wide. And they're like, I know I'll sign up with all the platforms, all of them. And then the issue is, some of these aggregators, Draft2Digital and Smashwords, I would say there's a 90% overlap of what they cover.
[00:03:29] There's maybe a few on Draft2Digital that are different, a few on Smashwords that are different. And so if you've picked one, you really probably don't need the others, unless you're really set on one specific retailer, in which case just pick that other one. So for me, Smashwords has always been my go-to, and I love just, it's very web-1.0-looking, but it's super simple to figure out.
[00:03:49] And I like that. It's no frills, so that's been part of my mix from the beginning, and I added in StreetLib a couple years ago and that's even one that I'm learning more about every day. So those are two that you don't hear talked about a lot, but I think they could be a big benefit to authors.
[00:04:04] Matty: So Smashwords is one of those ones that very early on, in 2012, 2013 let's say, when I was getting ready to publish my first book, Smashwords came up a lot, but not one you hear about much anymore. So if somebody is starting into the indy author adventure now, is Smashwords a platform that you would recommend them looking at for their initial foray in 2021?
[00:04:27] MK: Yes. I still think they offer a great service, and so this is where in going wide, I talk about the pros and cons of each platform, and that's why each author needs to understand what their goals are for going wide, what they want to get out of that. And then that's going to help them decide the platform, right?
[00:04:43] So if you're going to Draft2Digital, okay, so maybe you want to have a nicer web 2.0 look and feel when you're uploading and that's important to you, okay. Then you're probably going to pick Draft2Digital over Smashwords. If you are looking for distribution, I know that Draft2Digital has recently added more retailers, so maybe you think, okay, well, I want to go with this platform because of these retailers, you would pick Draft2Digital.
[00:05:04] One of the things I really liked about Smashwords when I started is they do the auto-convert from your 93-07 Word doc into the EPUB and Mobi. And so for a lot of authors starting out, if they feel like, well, I didn't know about these softwares to spend money on, to write my book in to then convert and I don't have the budget to pay somebody to convert it, Smashwords is a great option for getting that conversion. I know Draft2Digital does that as well, but for me, when I was starting out, for some reason Draft2Digital just didn't show up in my research. And so, I really liked from Smashwords that they did that.
[00:05:35] And they also will send you your results, so if there's anything wrong with your file, they will tell you, which is great because I take that EPUB file and I use it on my other platforms. So I want to hear from them first, hey, you need to go specifically search for this, remove it, re-upload it. And I find that super helpful and it's actually helped me learn a lot about what needs to be in the documents, so they get formatted correctly. So I still think Smashwords is a great option for authors who just want to get boom, click, it's uploaded to the big names outside of Amazon.
[00:06:04] Matty: With that question, I took us down a path that was a little bit in a different order, because what I want to do is switch back to the retailers. Because I want to sort of look at the retail landscape and then talk about aggregators and how aggregators can help people get there. And, as an example, people of course think of Amazon and sometimes people just stop at thinking of Amazon.
[00:06:28] So, talk a little bit about some of the other retailers, and I think we're going to focus on ebooks. I think it makes sense to focus for our conversation on eBooks. What they offer and what are the benefits of getting your book, however you get it onto those retailers.
[00:06:42] MK: Yeah. So, there are so many retailers outside of Amazon. And I know for the two of us, we're in the United States, Amazon's king. Outside of the US, Amazon is still a big player, but not the only player. And so getting your ebook on multiple retailers is really important. And I think that's where a lot of authors get confused. Because I always get the question, how do I get my book on Amazon? And I always have to step back and say, okay, there's Amazon the retailer, and there's Amazon KDP, the actual self-publishing platform. And so KDP will get your book to Amazon. And these other aggregators can get your book to Amazon, the retailer. And so it's always figuring that out.
[00:07:17] The same goes with the other main online ebook retailers you think of, right? So there's Barnes and Noble, so you can go to B&N Press, the self-publishing platform to get your book on barnesandnoble.com, the retailer. Or you can go to Smashwords to get on Barnes and Noble, the retailer. You can go on Draft2Digital, Barnes and Noble, the retailer.
[00:07:36] So there's multiple ways to get there. The same with Kobo, the same with Apple. So some of the really big ebook retailers in this space all have a direct upload option. So that's Amazon, Google, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Apple, they all have a way you can directly upload your ebooks to them and put them on sale.
[00:07:54] I know Barnes and Noble also offers print as well. The options grow as you really go down that rabbit hole.
[00:08:00] But then you have the aggregators, and so one thing I always try to talk through with people is, what's more important to you, direct access, maybe cutting out the middleman fee or simplicity? Do you just want to upload to one place, and it goes out to all those retailers, or do you want to have a direct relationship with each of those retailers?
[00:08:19] And one of the things I do talk about in the book is the benefits of going direct are, you're not paying an extra fee to a service like Draft2Digital or Smashwords or any of the other aggregators.
[00:08:29] The downside is when you go direct, well, Barnes and Noble added on their press feature, because they were like, hey, we can make some more money! Same with all of those, I would say the only retailer that I would exclude from that kind of thinking is Kobo. They really built up Kobo Writing Life for writers. But most of the other ones, I see people complain even about Amazon KDP customer service. It's like, well, you're not their biggest problem. They care about the customer more than the content provider. And that's true with a lot of the direct retailers. So sometimes the customer service can be a bit slower, but that's because you aren't their customer, you're providing something for the customer to buy.
[00:09:03] Whereas with the aggregators, like Smashwords, like Draft2Digital, their focus is you, the writer, they want you to be happy. They want you to keep bringing content to their platform and not go somewhere else. So I do find that what I've heard and what I've experienced is the aggregator customer service is a bit better because they're focused, they built it for the author.
[00:09:21] And so that's some of the differences you get between the backend of dealing with the retailer or the aggregator, but then on the front end to the end user, the reader, they don't know how you got it there. They don't care how you got it there, they just want the best price, they want the book delivered correctly. And especially if it's a print book, they want free shipping. So that's what the end user is worried about, and no matter which way you get to that retailer, as long as you're doing things correctly, and you have a plan and patience, they will not notice any issues.
[00:09:51] When you hit the panic button as an author and you upload to every aggregator and every direct retailer, and you have duplicate listings and issues, that's where things go bad and the reader notices, and that's not good.
[00:10:03] Matty: Do you have insight into what happens if you go on, let's say Smashwords and Draft2Digital and you're feeding the same platform, let's say, Kobo. I don't know if that's a realistic example, but what actually happens if you do that duplication by accident, one hopes?
[00:10:18] MK: So you usually get duplicate listings and then you need to go back and either ask the aggregator to please remove my listing from this retailer, or you need to go to the retailer and say, hey, there's multiple listings, I want this one to be the main one. But it's going to be an issue because, okay, well, there's three links, which one do I need to turn off? What's going on? Okay, you've already asked the aggregator to turn something off, I'm only seeing two. It creates kind of a customer service nightmare, where now as the author, you need to talk with potentially three, in that example you gave customer services, to figure out what's going on, all while there's moving pieces, because they're all doing different things.
[00:10:55] And so I've seen authors deal with some headaches, and they're asking me, oh, what can you do to help? And I'm like, I can't do anything to help at this point.
[00:11:02] Yeah, this is all on those platforms. And so I always emphasize to authors to make a plan. I know so many people are excited, let's go wide, let's do it, let's get the book out there, my sales are low, I want to get more sales right now, or I'm missing these opportunities on these sites. Upload, upload, upload! But taking even just a full day, just to map out the plan can save you from those headaches. And it's also knowing, IngramSpark is a big aggregator and I know most authors go with them for print, they do have the ebook option as well, but when you sign those agreements, when you first sign up for IngramSpark, you're telling them, yes, send my book to these retailers. So if you have a plan to also directly upload, that is going to also cause some headaches for you, if you were hasty, check, check, check, check, check, let me get to the upload part, and you're not actually reading through those items. It can cause a headache.
[00:11:49] I had an author who had two weeks back and forth trying to figure it out, and finally just said, I give up, I'm taking it off of Barnes and Noble directly because it looks bad, and I just wanted to launch the book. And I was like, okay, so next time we're going to make a plan, right?
[00:12:03] Matty: Yeah. I did have the experience of distributing to Kobo, which is primarily a retailer and they're based in Canada. I mean, they serve many countries, but I was feeding them through Draft2Digital, and then for reasons that I don't even remember anymore, I decided I wanted to go direct to Kobo. So I turned them off in Draft2Digital, and even though I was told I didn't need to do this. I waited for a little while, I waited for like a week before I then turned it on in Kobo, just in the hopes that the systems were sort of clearing out.
[00:12:37] But then the really nice thing was after I saw them up on Kobo, I got in touch with the super fabulous Kobo customer service, and I had reviews when these books were being fed to Kobo via Draft2Digital, is there a way you can move those reviews to the book now that it's coming direct to Kobo, and then they did do that. It took a couple of days, but that was one of the reasons I had held off on doing it because I thought, I think I'm going to lose all my reviews when I do that change. And you do systematically lose them, but you can get them back if you contact the retailer that you are distributing to.
[00:13:12] MK: Absolutely, and that's always part of the planning process, right? And I think that's great that you did that. I'm sure some authors would have just said, oh no, they're not there anymore. Let me go on Facebook and rant about it instead of, you know, taking it.
[00:13:23] So it's really good that you did that. And that's always an extra consideration. For me, I've thought multiple times, maybe I should just go direct, then I can have access to the extra tools and advertising options, if I go direct with Kobo and Apple and Barnes and Noble. But then I think, that's a lot of energy and I get there from Smashwords and I'm okay with that right now, and maybe in a couple of years I won't, but I think that's where it's important, again, for having the specific reasons. Every author has a different plan, and it's good to understand the implications and then take action on that.
[00:13:54] Matty: And I do think that based on admittedly a very skewed sample of one, me, I haven't seen a huge difference in customer service between platforms I'm going to direct and platforms I'm going to through an aggregator.
[00:14:08] And I'm sure there might be little tweaks or little considerations, but in the big picture, even when I was distributing to Kobo through Draft2Digital, if I got in touch with Kobo with a question, they still got in touch with me. It's not like you're ostracized if you're not distributing to them directly.
[00:14:23] MK: Yeah. That's why I will say, they are the one exception for the direct retailer who does it better than the other direct retailers. They were definitely built with authors in mind, whereas the others, it seems like they added it on, cool, let's make some money. But Kobo, I will always say they are the exception to that rule. They are much better.
[00:14:38] Matty: Yeah. So I think we've talked about Kobo, Barnes and Noble you hit on. Apple, any particular specific advice or considerations for going to Apple as a retailer?
[00:14:50] MK: So Apple is interesting. They're the other big tech giant, right? So we have like Amazon, the behemoth, Google, the behemoth and Apple, the behemoth. And they all exist to do so much more than books, but obviously for us as authors, we care about the books portion.
[00:15:03] So for Apple, going direct, I know there's a lot of really great benefits as far as advertising that you can do direct, whereas if you go with an aggregator to get onto Apple, you're not going to get access to that.
[00:15:13] One of the things that I will say that is interesting with the biggies, and I included it in the book because it particularly grinds my gears as a US author when I don't get a 1099 at the end of the year. So Amazon is great with that. Google, they have a very small threshold to meet to get that 1099, Apple, that threshold is huge. So you have to be selling a lot of books on Apple to get that 1099.
[00:15:34] Now, for most authors you think, okay, so what do I do come tax time? Just download all your reports. It's a small inconvenience, but it's one of those things where it's just nice to get a 1099 from Smashwords because then I just send that off to the accountant and I don't worry about it. So that is one thing I found that was particularly different, was that you have to sell a lot.
[00:15:51] Now, some people are listing like, oh, well I always get one, I sell a bunch of books. Great for you!
[00:15:55] Matty: Sure.
[00:15:56] MK: Everybody's there, especially when you are going direct to all these retailers and all of that income is diffused, which is what you want with going wide. You want to have multiple streams of income, but then that's multiple streams to market, multiple promotions that you have to do, so there's added work there and you may think, okay, I'm doing well on Amazon, I'm going to go over to Apple and instantly get all of these extra sales. And it does take a lot of work, just as much work as it took you to get all of the sales on Amazon. Therefore, unless you're really hustling, that 1099 is probably not coming through.
[00:16:29] Matty: Yeah. The same kind of question with Google Play. Google Play was the first ebook platform that I distributed to, other than Amazon, not through Draft2Digital, because at the time, and maybe still when we're recording this September of 2021, Draft2Digital does not support Google Play because I think Google Play was making them jump through too many hoops. But I find the Google Play interface was quite easy to use. So, the hoops, they were making an aggregator go through, don't let that be a deterrent to you as a user to do that. Any advice specific to Google Play and getting on them as a retailer?
[00:17:03] MK: Yeah, so Google Play, I find is nice, especially for the ebook distribution. One thing I wish that they would do that they don't is that you can get your audio book onto Google Play through FindawayVoices, but you can't just upload it directly. And I'm just like, why can't I? You already have the ebook, just do that a little bit simpler. So that is one thing that I do find is a little frustrating. You have to bring your EPUB file to Google Play. So where some of the other platforms you can upload a Word doc, like I know you can still upload your Word doc onto Amazon, you can upload your Word doc to Smashwords, you can upload it elsewhere and it'll convert it for you. Google, you need to bring your EPUB file. And so if you're somebody who doesn't have the money for formatting, you're like, how do I get an EPUB file? That's going to be a bit of a challenge at first, so you do have to remember to bring that. That's one thing to keep in mind.
[00:17:48] I've noticed, every time I upload a book, you go back to your home screen and immediately it shows the book and below it says, needs modification in bright red. And you're like, what did I do? It always says that, give it like 24 hours.
[00:18:01] Yeah. And then if it still says it, contact customer service.
[00:18:36] Matty: I think we've hit most of the unusual suspects in the retail space, but I think that's a good illustration of the fact that there's not just the time you're going to spend on uploading to additional platforms. There's the learning curve of learning to deal with it, their considerations, like you mentioned about tax forms and things like that.
[00:18:55] And even things like some of the platforms, especially the older ones you go through, when you change, like update metadata or whatever, and then you get to the end, and you hit publish.
[00:19:06] But some of the platforms, you don't do that. If you update, I don't know, metadata in Google Play, let's say. As soon as you click out of the field, as far as I can tell, it's updated, or there might be like one step, but I spent a lot of time on some of those newer platforms looking around for the final submit button and then conversely, I've gotten used to that and then I've gone to one of what I think is an older format and forgotten that I had to hit the final submit button. And a week later I'm like, I wonder why it's not showing up in the platform. Oh, I didn't actually submit it. Yeah.
[00:19:41] So it's tricky, which I think is a nice lead into the aggregator’s discussion because I'm a big fan of, I'm willing to give up some money to save my sanity.
[00:19:51] And so, we've already talked quite a bit about Draft2Digital, and Smashwords, we've sort of covered, but you mentioned StreetLib. Talk a little bit about StreetLib.
[00:20:01] MK: StreetLib I heard about several years ago on Joanna Penn's podcast. They mainly focus on international markets, so they're based out of Italy, so a lot of their books are getting into European, Asian, African and Southeast Asian markets, as well as South America. I think they have fewer providers in South America than they do in EMEA. but mainly international is the focus.
[00:20:21] Now, all of my books are still in English, so I know I'm limiting myself on there for people who are in those countries who prefer to read in English, but I've found that it's getting better. The first time I uploaded there, it was clunky, they're doing regular updates, which is great, and they've added now print and audio book. When I first was there, it was just ebook, so that's something I'm continuing to explore. And for me, it's not just the decision of, oh, cool, just upload the book. It's like, how many times do I want to update something every time I release a new book and I have to update that front page of other works by, and things like that? So that's a consideration.
[00:20:54] I think for us Americans, we might view them as this small but mighty aggregator. But I think for people who are outside of the US they're a really great option to get your book onto the biggies. They can get you onto Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Apple, et cetera, but they really also focus on some of these international retailers that we've probably have never heard of, because that's not where we shop for books online.
[00:21:16] So they have really great options there. They do have a method where you can upload your document to create the EPUB file or the Mobi file. Or if you already have that file, you can just upload it. The very first time I went to upload, I went through the create process and I was like, what's going on? I just want to upload my EPUB file! And I was like, oh, there's instructions for that.
[00:21:34] MK: So every aggregator you work with, you have a bit of that learning curve, but StreetLib has been super easy to work with, as far as getting things uploaded and fiddling around. You can update the metadata, but yes, like you said, every distributor is different as far as, where do you hit save to make sure it's going to go through? But they make it very clear at the bottom, you'd have to, no matter what, first upload, update, just you have to hit that bottom button.
[00:21:58] Matty: When you're considering aggregators that serve the same retailer, how deeply do you research? Is it better to go to this particular market through StreetLib or through Draft2Digital or Smashwords or whatever it is?
[00:22:16] MK: Yeah. So I haven't added too many new direct retailers in the past few years, mainly because as these new retailers are popping up, the aggregators are adding them, and they just say, hey, we've got a new retailer. Sweet, don't have to worry about it. And so for me, because my business gets bigger with each book I release, because my business gets bigger, as the other portion of my business grows, I really rely on the aggregators more than going direct, just because I know it means moving, re-uploading, transferring over any reviews, learning the new system, learning how to do ads on the system, learning how to optimize it.
[00:22:51] And I just think, I'm tired just thinking about that. I'm going to stick with my aggregator. And that's the right choice for me at my current phase of life. You know, I have a baby girl, my time is limited. Maybe when she hits the school years and I just got all this free time during the day, sure. I will go to town going with my direct retailers and as more are coming out and more are developing. Probably years from now, maybe Amazon isn't the big retailer anymore, who knows? Anything could happen.
[00:23:17] So I think that's where it's staying fluid and staying up to date. So it's never a set it and forget it for me. I set it, I think about it, I'm updating it, and I'm staying on top of all the news that's coming out in our industry. So I understand when new things are coming up.
[00:23:30] You know, as audio grows, I'm definitely going to be looking at more direct audio options. Right now, ACX and Findaway are a great one-two punch for me. I can get everywhere between those two. But as more options come up it may make sense for me to take some of those with a direct retailer to improve distribution, to improve royalties and things like that.
[00:23:48] It's constantly re-evaluating my plan and what works for me. And I think that's the trap that some authors get into, right? They say oh, I have to constantly chase the new thing, this new thing's out, I have to go do that. And so the same way, does this make sense? You know what, let me wait a month or two. Everybody's going to figure out the kinks in the system and I'll learn about it and then I'll go do that.
[00:24:08] And so I do think sometimes there's a rush to just react, instead of being that strategic business owner of does this make sense for my time? And I think as authors, we need to think of ourselves as that strategic business owner first, instead of just jump because newest platform is up and somebody said, jump.
[00:24:26] Matty: Yeah. That's a great point. I kind of want to close out our conversation with an exploration of that. I did have one other question about the aggregators, which is, and I'm making this example up, so this may not be factually accurate, but just to illustrate my point. So let's say you're just starting out and you have all your stuff up on Draft2Digital, and you're also getting to a couple of other platforms through Smashwords. And so then Draft2Digital works things out with Google Play, they kiss and make up, and so now you turn on Google Play. So now you're feeding Google Play through Draft2Digital. Then, a month later, Smashwords similarly works things out with Google Play. And now you could go to Google Play through Smashwords. Do you spend brainpower, as you see a retailer come up on a different aggregator, if you're using more than one aggregator, how deeply do you delve into the pros and cons of feeding that retailer through one aggregator versus another?
[00:25:22] MK: So for me personally, I use one aggregator for ebook and one aggregator for print. I don't do multiple, and again, that's for ease of use and also to avoid some of those complications. And so for me, that's IngramSpark print aggregator, to get me everywhere, but Amazon, Smashwords ebook aggregator everywhere about Amazon and the Google Play because I go the direct.
[00:25:43] But for somebody who is using multiple aggregators and saying, hey, 90% of my aggregator distribution is going to be Draft2Digital, and actually, I think Draft2Digital has more so, 90% of my distributors are through Smashwords and I go with Draft2Digital for those few other ones that aren't available through Smashwords. I would say as things come up and you're getting those notifications, you will always get a notification email from your aggregator when new retailers are added. So make sure you are opening those emails because I know, with Gmail at least, if you get too many emails and you don't open them, it sends it to the Promotion bin, the black hole that you just never see anything because it's all your promotional emails.
[00:26:16] So always make sure you're opening your emails from your aggregators or your retailers. There's always going to be up to date information in there, so you want to be informed of what's going on. If there is a chance where there could then be a duplicate listing, if they say, hey, you need to tell us positive opt into this. Okay. Well then, I have some time to make a decision.
[00:26:34] If they say, hey, we're just adding this, let us know if you don't want it, then you need to make that decision to say, hey, I don't want this. And it would just be a matter of reaching out to customer service at the distributor that you do not want to send to that retailer to say, hey, I already have this retailer included in my mix, please do not send my book there to create a duplicate listing.
[00:26:54] I've found that if you have an existing listing on the website, when something gets added, it usually, I don't know how the algorithms work, but I noticed it doesn't supersede an existing listing, if that listing's been there for a while. But it never hurts to have that communication to say, hey, please do not send this, I'm already here via this link. Do not send my metadata again, because it's good to have that paper trail, and it's good to just take that action. Never just assume, oh, it'll be fine. I already have a listing, it's good. Always take that action, and again, that's where you're acting, not just as well, I'm an author and my focus is writing, and I upload my books. It's, no, this is my business, and part of my business is making sure the reader can get my books and buy them. And I know where the money's going to come from for X retailer at the end of the month, whether that's from Smashwords or Draft2Digital, and things of that nature.
[00:27:47] It's being proactive, it's staying up to date, it's being proactive. And it's making sure that everything is in line with the plan that you've set for your business, and not just doing what other people are doing. You have to have a plan for your business.
[00:27:58] Matty: Yeah. Both retailers and aggregators, I think, that we've talked about so far, they're making their money by taking a cut of the proceeds, which I like, because I like any business model where I and the retailer or the aggregator are all behind the idea of me selling books, as opposed to you pay a fee, and then they don't care whether you sell things or not.
[00:28:19] One of the exceptions to the model that I described, I believe is PublishDrive, which has a little bit of a different approach to how they set up in price. Can you talk about that a little bit?
[00:28:30] MK: Yeah, so I had to do some research on this one because I don't use PublishDrive. but I know that they do get some exposure to retailers through their system, that otherwise you'd have to go through direct.
[00:28:39] So there can be a small benefit to that fee. I think if you are publishing a lot, if you have a high volume of sales, it can make sense to pay that fee. I believe the lowest tier is $9.95, and then it goes up to $19.95. So if you're selling your ebooks at 99 cents and you're making a 30% royalty on that, you have got to sell a lot of books just to make up that lowest tier. If you're selling it at $2.99, okay, the math starts to make a bit more sense, with a fewer number of sales, but you need to have a higher volume. They do get you again, like I said, into some markets you can't get elsewhere, so there may be that convenience of, I'm willing to pay for that, and on their website, they seem to have a lot of educational resources, so it's not just the upload, you're kind of part of their ecosystem, so that could be a benefit. I'm super frugal, so when I see it's going to cost me to upload, I'm like, no thanks, and obviously, for IngramSpark there's a cost to upload, but I'm a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors, so I don't worry about that.
[00:29:36] Matty: Because members get a promo code to enable free uploads.
[00:29:39] MK: Yes, exactly. So yeah, for ebook distribution, for me PublishDrive just didn't make sense at the time when I was starting, and I had negative money from my writing business. But if you're starting out and you have the budget to do that, that could be a good option. And I would suggest, do the research on everything before you click Upload. If you're an author and you've just been like, well my plan the whole time has been PublishDrive, I didn't even know what Draft2Digital was, I didn't even know what Smashwords was. What? There's a whole world out there. So make sure you are looking at some good sites that offer comparisons of aggregators that can really talk to you about the different options and what works for you. You may find, at the end of the day, no, my plan was good all along, that's what I wanted, it gets me the retailers I want, but you might say, oh, well, I'm going to go over here where they don't charge me. So it's really figuring out what works for you, what you can afford, what you can sustain paying for. If you have a low sales month and you're paying monthly to be on that platform, does that make sense? Yeah, got to do the math.
[00:30:34] Matty: I wanted to loop back now on sort of the emotional and stress costs. So it's interesting that shortly before we recorded this episode, I'd recorded two other episodes. One was with Orna Ross, and by the time this comes out, that one will already have come out. It's going to be, or has been, a series of episodes, 101 through 107were me and Orna Ross talking about the Seven Processes of Publishing. So Orna Ross is the head of the Alliance of Independent Authors, and we have episodes on production and distribution. So we talked about some of these things at a general level, and then I think this will be a great follow on to talk about these more specific things about specific retailers and aggregators.
[00:31:16] The other episode I had just recorded was 100, which was Mark Lefebvre talking about THE RELAXED AUTHOR. And it was an interesting combination because when I was talking with Orna about production and distribution, I felt myself, not because of Orna, because she's a lovely and charming woman, but I felt myself almost having like a panic attack, because she was saying, many of the things that we've talked about, like you can get into these markets if you go to this other aggregator, you should do the research in order to understand what you're signing up for when you use one of these services. And I got to the end of that day, I was just like, ah, I, was making a to-do list and then I had this enormous to do list.
[00:31:56] And I thought, you need to of course consider what opportunities expanding your set of retailers and aggregators or making the decision to go direct versus an aggregator is going to provide you. But just as important is weighing the stress and the time. Because I know one of the things that people often talk about is the fact that more advertising opportunities may open up to you, if you go to a retailer direct, versus through an aggregator. But are you ever going to have the time or the bandwidth to take advantage of it? And so I'd just be curious to hear you talk a little bit about this, you're obviously a career author, with a little girl that is also asking for some time and attention. How do you weigh for yourself those considerations of, is it worth the time? Is it worth the aggravation? Is it worth the stress?
[00:32:45] MK: Yeah. So for me, it's usually never worth the stress, because, before this was my full-time job, I had a full-time job, and it took up more than 60 hours a week. And my free time, my fun time, was writing my books. And so for me, if I could get the business part done efficiently and succinctly in a couple hours a week, that was good for me. And, without fail, I left my full-time job so I could be a full-time author, and do you know what I still don't have time for? Doing all the little things you're supposed to do, like getting all those social media posts scheduled, getting all the advertising going and doing all the research on it. I just, yeah, because it's something I don't want to do. That's not the fun part of the job, it's the job part of the job.
[00:33:26] And so I think what's important to do, is to pick one thing, and maybe it's for a month, maybe it's for a week or two, and pick one thing to really dial in on. So if your thing this month is figuring out, do I have the right retailer mix? Okay, go in on that, do the research there, don't worry about the shiny objects coming at you of, oh, here's the templates for social media, here's this. There are so many shiny objects for us authors, and there will always be somebody selling us more shiny objects but figure out what you need to do for your business right now.
[00:33:58] And so sometimes, it could be as simple as, I don't know if I'm maximizing my profit on all these different retailers that I'm currently on. Great, there's a webinar coming up, I'm going to listen to that, I'm going to really dial in and optimize just Apple. And then next month, it's just Google and really focusing on it. Or you could say, I'm going to do a little bit of everything and if something doesn't get done, it doesn't get done. It's realizing that I don't think any one of us is doing this perfectly. I don't think any full-time author, career author, who's like a big name in the space, is doing this a hundred percent perfectly, or that they would say that they are. We all know that there's more that we can do. There is no paragon for us to compare ourselves to. We're all just a work in progress, just like our books are a work in progress before they're published. So, I would say if you're stressing about the aggregator mix and understanding at all, just take a deep breath, maybe have some coffee, maybe take a nap and then come back.
[00:34:48] Matty: Have a glass of wine.
[00:34:50] MK: Yeah, yeah. And the thing is you could stress yourself out trying to do all that, and then they're going to change the platform tomorrow anyway. Or they're going to announce something new. So don't drive yourself crazy trying to make it perfect, when it's going to change again. Just go with the flow.
[00:35:03] Matty: Yeah, and I also think that the ultimate question for me is, would I be better off spending these 10 hours getting my books up on platforms that will enable a library patron in France to easily access them, or guess what, working on my novel! And almost always I'm realizing that the smart move is to get more content out there and to improve the content that I'm providing. And I think that if you put your books on KDP for Amazon, you put them on an aggregator for everywhere else. And at first, at least, and maybe for a long time, don't sweat too much where you're getting. You've done a good job. You have covered many of your potential readers. And what are the chances that some library patron in France and the seven cents I'm going to get from that experience? I think that people get tied into this, there's something else I have to do, there's something else I have to do. I'm like, not necessarily. Set up the basics and be happy with that and then focus on the content.
[00:36:08] MK: Absolutely, if you're getting a message from somebody in France every day asking for a different library, yeah, then maybe that's something to check out. Or if on your aggregators, you're seeing like, half of my sales on Smashwords this month were Barnes and Noble, maybe it's time for me to go direct with them. Make data-based decisions instead of an emotional-based decisions, especially when it's going to give you a couple extra gray hairs to get it all changed.
[00:36:30] Matty: Yeah. And I find that one of the things I did early on to try to maintain my sanity in the indy author space, was to just choose a couple of trusted advisors, certainly the Alliance of Independent Authors, Joanna Penn, The Creative Penn and just like, I'm going to stop researching. After a while, once you've found your trusted advisors, don't spend time continuing to try to find other people to tell you things to do.
[00:36:54] And I think that the other advice I would have after my conversation with Orna, after the conversation we've had, and I see all these opportunities out there, is just write them down and then come back to them in like a week. Because it's easy to go, as soon as we're off this call, I'm going to go start loading stuff to StreetLib. But you know, if I step back and I can look at it both, in a more data-based way, and with a little bit of emotional distance, I might be in a better position to say, yeah, you know what, that is worth it. Or, you know what, no, I have other things to do.
[00:37:24] MK: Absolutely, yeah. If it's a good idea today and if it's a great idea, it'll be a great idea next week. But yeah, sit on it, think on it, see what else comes up, that's the bigger priority. Absolutely.
[00:37:34] Matty: Well, MK, this was so much fun. It's always lovely to chat with you. Please let the listeners know where they can go to find out more about you, your work and especially GOING WIDE online.
[00:37:45] MK: Yes, so I am everywhere online at 1mkWilliams.com, the number one, MK Williams. My YouTube channel, Author Your Ambition, I talk all things self-publishing on there, so if you have a question, I've likely answered it, or if I haven't answered it, let me know, and I will answer it for you on the channel.
[00:38:01] My books are available everywhere you find books. They're out wide, go figure! I was going to joke and say, you can get going wide exclusive on Amazon. No, it's out everywhere, so GOING WIDE: SELF-PUBLISHING YOUR BOOKS OUTSIDE THE AMAZON ECOSYSTEM is available everywhere you can get books. You can get it from me directly as well, so just head on over to 1mkWilliams.com or authoryourambition.com, and you'll find information on getting this book, and you can also get it at your library.
[00:38:27] Matty: Excellent. Thank you, MK, this was fun!
[00:38:30] MK: This was fun.
[00:02:48] So for me, I was Smashwords from the beginning and I'm still a Smashwords evangelist. And it was years later, I learned about Draft2Digital, and I thought, oh should I switch? And then I realized, oh no, I get pretty much the same coverage at Smashwords that I do at Draft2Digital. And that's actually some of the issues I've seen of late with this new push to go wide.
[00:03:08] There's a lot of authors who've been in this space for a while, Amazon only, they want to go wide. There are authors who are just starting out, they're like, yep, I've heard of wide, I want to do wide. And they're like, I know I'll sign up with all the platforms, all of them. And then the issue is, some of these aggregators, Draft2Digital and Smashwords, I would say there's a 90% overlap of what they cover.
[00:03:29] There's maybe a few on Draft2Digital that are different, a few on Smashwords that are different. And so if you've picked one, you really probably don't need the others, unless you're really set on one specific retailer, in which case just pick that other one. So for me, Smashwords has always been my go-to, and I love just, it's very web-1.0-looking, but it's super simple to figure out.
[00:03:49] And I like that. It's no frills, so that's been part of my mix from the beginning, and I added in StreetLib a couple years ago and that's even one that I'm learning more about every day. So those are two that you don't hear talked about a lot, but I think they could be a big benefit to authors.
[00:04:04] Matty: So Smashwords is one of those ones that very early on, in 2012, 2013 let's say, when I was getting ready to publish my first book, Smashwords came up a lot, but not one you hear about much anymore. So if somebody is starting into the indy author adventure now, is Smashwords a platform that you would recommend them looking at for their initial foray in 2021?
[00:04:27] MK: Yes. I still think they offer a great service, and so this is where in going wide, I talk about the pros and cons of each platform, and that's why each author needs to understand what their goals are for going wide, what they want to get out of that. And then that's going to help them decide the platform, right?
[00:04:43] So if you're going to Draft2Digital, okay, so maybe you want to have a nicer web 2.0 look and feel when you're uploading and that's important to you, okay. Then you're probably going to pick Draft2Digital over Smashwords. If you are looking for distribution, I know that Draft2Digital has recently added more retailers, so maybe you think, okay, well, I want to go with this platform because of these retailers, you would pick Draft2Digital.
[00:05:04] One of the things I really liked about Smashwords when I started is they do the auto-convert from your 93-07 Word doc into the EPUB and Mobi. And so for a lot of authors starting out, if they feel like, well, I didn't know about these softwares to spend money on, to write my book in to then convert and I don't have the budget to pay somebody to convert it, Smashwords is a great option for getting that conversion. I know Draft2Digital does that as well, but for me, when I was starting out, for some reason Draft2Digital just didn't show up in my research. And so, I really liked from Smashwords that they did that.
[00:05:35] And they also will send you your results, so if there's anything wrong with your file, they will tell you, which is great because I take that EPUB file and I use it on my other platforms. So I want to hear from them first, hey, you need to go specifically search for this, remove it, re-upload it. And I find that super helpful and it's actually helped me learn a lot about what needs to be in the documents, so they get formatted correctly. So I still think Smashwords is a great option for authors who just want to get boom, click, it's uploaded to the big names outside of Amazon.
[00:06:04] Matty: With that question, I took us down a path that was a little bit in a different order, because what I want to do is switch back to the retailers. Because I want to sort of look at the retail landscape and then talk about aggregators and how aggregators can help people get there. And, as an example, people of course think of Amazon and sometimes people just stop at thinking of Amazon.
[00:06:28] So, talk a little bit about some of the other retailers, and I think we're going to focus on ebooks. I think it makes sense to focus for our conversation on eBooks. What they offer and what are the benefits of getting your book, however you get it onto those retailers.
[00:06:42] MK: Yeah. So, there are so many retailers outside of Amazon. And I know for the two of us, we're in the United States, Amazon's king. Outside of the US, Amazon is still a big player, but not the only player. And so getting your ebook on multiple retailers is really important. And I think that's where a lot of authors get confused. Because I always get the question, how do I get my book on Amazon? And I always have to step back and say, okay, there's Amazon the retailer, and there's Amazon KDP, the actual self-publishing platform. And so KDP will get your book to Amazon. And these other aggregators can get your book to Amazon, the retailer. And so it's always figuring that out.
[00:07:17] The same goes with the other main online ebook retailers you think of, right? So there's Barnes and Noble, so you can go to B&N Press, the self-publishing platform to get your book on barnesandnoble.com, the retailer. Or you can go to Smashwords to get on Barnes and Noble, the retailer. You can go on Draft2Digital, Barnes and Noble, the retailer.
[00:07:36] So there's multiple ways to get there. The same with Kobo, the same with Apple. So some of the really big ebook retailers in this space all have a direct upload option. So that's Amazon, Google, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Apple, they all have a way you can directly upload your ebooks to them and put them on sale.
[00:07:54] I know Barnes and Noble also offers print as well. The options grow as you really go down that rabbit hole.
[00:08:00] But then you have the aggregators, and so one thing I always try to talk through with people is, what's more important to you, direct access, maybe cutting out the middleman fee or simplicity? Do you just want to upload to one place, and it goes out to all those retailers, or do you want to have a direct relationship with each of those retailers?
[00:08:19] And one of the things I do talk about in the book is the benefits of going direct are, you're not paying an extra fee to a service like Draft2Digital or Smashwords or any of the other aggregators.
[00:08:29] The downside is when you go direct, well, Barnes and Noble added on their press feature, because they were like, hey, we can make some more money! Same with all of those, I would say the only retailer that I would exclude from that kind of thinking is Kobo. They really built up Kobo Writing Life for writers. But most of the other ones, I see people complain even about Amazon KDP customer service. It's like, well, you're not their biggest problem. They care about the customer more than the content provider. And that's true with a lot of the direct retailers. So sometimes the customer service can be a bit slower, but that's because you aren't their customer, you're providing something for the customer to buy.
[00:09:03] Whereas with the aggregators, like Smashwords, like Draft2Digital, their focus is you, the writer, they want you to be happy. They want you to keep bringing content to their platform and not go somewhere else. So I do find that what I've heard and what I've experienced is the aggregator customer service is a bit better because they're focused, they built it for the author.
[00:09:21] And so that's some of the differences you get between the backend of dealing with the retailer or the aggregator, but then on the front end to the end user, the reader, they don't know how you got it there. They don't care how you got it there, they just want the best price, they want the book delivered correctly. And especially if it's a print book, they want free shipping. So that's what the end user is worried about, and no matter which way you get to that retailer, as long as you're doing things correctly, and you have a plan and patience, they will not notice any issues.
[00:09:51] When you hit the panic button as an author and you upload to every aggregator and every direct retailer, and you have duplicate listings and issues, that's where things go bad and the reader notices, and that's not good.
[00:10:03] Matty: Do you have insight into what happens if you go on, let's say Smashwords and Draft2Digital and you're feeding the same platform, let's say, Kobo. I don't know if that's a realistic example, but what actually happens if you do that duplication by accident, one hopes?
[00:10:18] MK: So you usually get duplicate listings and then you need to go back and either ask the aggregator to please remove my listing from this retailer, or you need to go to the retailer and say, hey, there's multiple listings, I want this one to be the main one. But it's going to be an issue because, okay, well, there's three links, which one do I need to turn off? What's going on? Okay, you've already asked the aggregator to turn something off, I'm only seeing two. It creates kind of a customer service nightmare, where now as the author, you need to talk with potentially three, in that example you gave customer services, to figure out what's going on, all while there's moving pieces, because they're all doing different things.
[00:10:55] And so I've seen authors deal with some headaches, and they're asking me, oh, what can you do to help? And I'm like, I can't do anything to help at this point.
[00:11:02] Yeah, this is all on those platforms. And so I always emphasize to authors to make a plan. I know so many people are excited, let's go wide, let's do it, let's get the book out there, my sales are low, I want to get more sales right now, or I'm missing these opportunities on these sites. Upload, upload, upload! But taking even just a full day, just to map out the plan can save you from those headaches. And it's also knowing, IngramSpark is a big aggregator and I know most authors go with them for print, they do have the ebook option as well, but when you sign those agreements, when you first sign up for IngramSpark, you're telling them, yes, send my book to these retailers. So if you have a plan to also directly upload, that is going to also cause some headaches for you, if you were hasty, check, check, check, check, check, let me get to the upload part, and you're not actually reading through those items. It can cause a headache.
[00:11:49] I had an author who had two weeks back and forth trying to figure it out, and finally just said, I give up, I'm taking it off of Barnes and Noble directly because it looks bad, and I just wanted to launch the book. And I was like, okay, so next time we're going to make a plan, right?
[00:12:03] Matty: Yeah. I did have the experience of distributing to Kobo, which is primarily a retailer and they're based in Canada. I mean, they serve many countries, but I was feeding them through Draft2Digital, and then for reasons that I don't even remember anymore, I decided I wanted to go direct to Kobo. So I turned them off in Draft2Digital, and even though I was told I didn't need to do this. I waited for a little while, I waited for like a week before I then turned it on in Kobo, just in the hopes that the systems were sort of clearing out.
[00:12:37] But then the really nice thing was after I saw them up on Kobo, I got in touch with the super fabulous Kobo customer service, and I had reviews when these books were being fed to Kobo via Draft2Digital, is there a way you can move those reviews to the book now that it's coming direct to Kobo, and then they did do that. It took a couple of days, but that was one of the reasons I had held off on doing it because I thought, I think I'm going to lose all my reviews when I do that change. And you do systematically lose them, but you can get them back if you contact the retailer that you are distributing to.
[00:13:12] MK: Absolutely, and that's always part of the planning process, right? And I think that's great that you did that. I'm sure some authors would have just said, oh no, they're not there anymore. Let me go on Facebook and rant about it instead of, you know, taking it.
[00:13:23] So it's really good that you did that. And that's always an extra consideration. For me, I've thought multiple times, maybe I should just go direct, then I can have access to the extra tools and advertising options, if I go direct with Kobo and Apple and Barnes and Noble. But then I think, that's a lot of energy and I get there from Smashwords and I'm okay with that right now, and maybe in a couple of years I won't, but I think that's where it's important, again, for having the specific reasons. Every author has a different plan, and it's good to understand the implications and then take action on that.
[00:13:54] Matty: And I do think that based on admittedly a very skewed sample of one, me, I haven't seen a huge difference in customer service between platforms I'm going to direct and platforms I'm going to through an aggregator.
[00:14:08] And I'm sure there might be little tweaks or little considerations, but in the big picture, even when I was distributing to Kobo through Draft2Digital, if I got in touch with Kobo with a question, they still got in touch with me. It's not like you're ostracized if you're not distributing to them directly.
[00:14:23] MK: Yeah. That's why I will say, they are the one exception for the direct retailer who does it better than the other direct retailers. They were definitely built with authors in mind, whereas the others, it seems like they added it on, cool, let's make some money. But Kobo, I will always say they are the exception to that rule. They are much better.
[00:14:38] Matty: Yeah. So I think we've talked about Kobo, Barnes and Noble you hit on. Apple, any particular specific advice or considerations for going to Apple as a retailer?
[00:14:50] MK: So Apple is interesting. They're the other big tech giant, right? So we have like Amazon, the behemoth, Google, the behemoth and Apple, the behemoth. And they all exist to do so much more than books, but obviously for us as authors, we care about the books portion.
[00:15:03] So for Apple, going direct, I know there's a lot of really great benefits as far as advertising that you can do direct, whereas if you go with an aggregator to get onto Apple, you're not going to get access to that.
[00:15:13] One of the things that I will say that is interesting with the biggies, and I included it in the book because it particularly grinds my gears as a US author when I don't get a 1099 at the end of the year. So Amazon is great with that. Google, they have a very small threshold to meet to get that 1099, Apple, that threshold is huge. So you have to be selling a lot of books on Apple to get that 1099.
[00:15:34] Now, for most authors you think, okay, so what do I do come tax time? Just download all your reports. It's a small inconvenience, but it's one of those things where it's just nice to get a 1099 from Smashwords because then I just send that off to the accountant and I don't worry about it. So that is one thing I found that was particularly different, was that you have to sell a lot.
[00:15:51] Now, some people are listing like, oh, well I always get one, I sell a bunch of books. Great for you!
[00:15:55] Matty: Sure.
[00:15:56] MK: Everybody's there, especially when you are going direct to all these retailers and all of that income is diffused, which is what you want with going wide. You want to have multiple streams of income, but then that's multiple streams to market, multiple promotions that you have to do, so there's added work there and you may think, okay, I'm doing well on Amazon, I'm going to go over to Apple and instantly get all of these extra sales. And it does take a lot of work, just as much work as it took you to get all of the sales on Amazon. Therefore, unless you're really hustling, that 1099 is probably not coming through.
[00:16:29] Matty: Yeah. The same kind of question with Google Play. Google Play was the first ebook platform that I distributed to, other than Amazon, not through Draft2Digital, because at the time, and maybe still when we're recording this September of 2021, Draft2Digital does not support Google Play because I think Google Play was making them jump through too many hoops. But I find the Google Play interface was quite easy to use. So, the hoops, they were making an aggregator go through, don't let that be a deterrent to you as a user to do that. Any advice specific to Google Play and getting on them as a retailer?
[00:17:03] MK: Yeah, so Google Play, I find is nice, especially for the ebook distribution. One thing I wish that they would do that they don't is that you can get your audio book onto Google Play through FindawayVoices, but you can't just upload it directly. And I'm just like, why can't I? You already have the ebook, just do that a little bit simpler. So that is one thing that I do find is a little frustrating. You have to bring your EPUB file to Google Play. So where some of the other platforms you can upload a Word doc, like I know you can still upload your Word doc onto Amazon, you can upload your Word doc to Smashwords, you can upload it elsewhere and it'll convert it for you. Google, you need to bring your EPUB file. And so if you're somebody who doesn't have the money for formatting, you're like, how do I get an EPUB file? That's going to be a bit of a challenge at first, so you do have to remember to bring that. That's one thing to keep in mind.
[00:17:48] I've noticed, every time I upload a book, you go back to your home screen and immediately it shows the book and below it says, needs modification in bright red. And you're like, what did I do? It always says that, give it like 24 hours.
[00:18:01] Yeah. And then if it still says it, contact customer service.
[00:18:36] Matty: I think we've hit most of the unusual suspects in the retail space, but I think that's a good illustration of the fact that there's not just the time you're going to spend on uploading to additional platforms. There's the learning curve of learning to deal with it, their considerations, like you mentioned about tax forms and things like that.
[00:18:55] And even things like some of the platforms, especially the older ones you go through, when you change, like update metadata or whatever, and then you get to the end, and you hit publish.
[00:19:06] But some of the platforms, you don't do that. If you update, I don't know, metadata in Google Play, let's say. As soon as you click out of the field, as far as I can tell, it's updated, or there might be like one step, but I spent a lot of time on some of those newer platforms looking around for the final submit button and then conversely, I've gotten used to that and then I've gone to one of what I think is an older format and forgotten that I had to hit the final submit button. And a week later I'm like, I wonder why it's not showing up in the platform. Oh, I didn't actually submit it. Yeah.
[00:19:41] So it's tricky, which I think is a nice lead into the aggregator’s discussion because I'm a big fan of, I'm willing to give up some money to save my sanity.
[00:19:51] And so, we've already talked quite a bit about Draft2Digital, and Smashwords, we've sort of covered, but you mentioned StreetLib. Talk a little bit about StreetLib.
[00:20:01] MK: StreetLib I heard about several years ago on Joanna Penn's podcast. They mainly focus on international markets, so they're based out of Italy, so a lot of their books are getting into European, Asian, African and Southeast Asian markets, as well as South America. I think they have fewer providers in South America than they do in EMEA. but mainly international is the focus.
[00:20:21] Now, all of my books are still in English, so I know I'm limiting myself on there for people who are in those countries who prefer to read in English, but I've found that it's getting better. The first time I uploaded there, it was clunky, they're doing regular updates, which is great, and they've added now print and audio book. When I first was there, it was just ebook, so that's something I'm continuing to explore. And for me, it's not just the decision of, oh, cool, just upload the book. It's like, how many times do I want to update something every time I release a new book and I have to update that front page of other works by, and things like that? So that's a consideration.
[00:20:54] I think for us Americans, we might view them as this small but mighty aggregator. But I think for people who are outside of the US they're a really great option to get your book onto the biggies. They can get you onto Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Apple, et cetera, but they really also focus on some of these international retailers that we've probably have never heard of, because that's not where we shop for books online.
[00:21:16] So they have really great options there. They do have a method where you can upload your document to create the EPUB file or the Mobi file. Or if you already have that file, you can just upload it. The very first time I went to upload, I went through the create process and I was like, what's going on? I just want to upload my EPUB file! And I was like, oh, there's instructions for that.
[00:21:34] MK: So every aggregator you work with, you have a bit of that learning curve, but StreetLib has been super easy to work with, as far as getting things uploaded and fiddling around. You can update the metadata, but yes, like you said, every distributor is different as far as, where do you hit save to make sure it's going to go through? But they make it very clear at the bottom, you'd have to, no matter what, first upload, update, just you have to hit that bottom button.
[00:21:58] Matty: When you're considering aggregators that serve the same retailer, how deeply do you research? Is it better to go to this particular market through StreetLib or through Draft2Digital or Smashwords or whatever it is?
[00:22:16] MK: Yeah. So I haven't added too many new direct retailers in the past few years, mainly because as these new retailers are popping up, the aggregators are adding them, and they just say, hey, we've got a new retailer. Sweet, don't have to worry about it. And so for me, because my business gets bigger with each book I release, because my business gets bigger, as the other portion of my business grows, I really rely on the aggregators more than going direct, just because I know it means moving, re-uploading, transferring over any reviews, learning the new system, learning how to do ads on the system, learning how to optimize it.
[00:22:51] And I just think, I'm tired just thinking about that. I'm going to stick with my aggregator. And that's the right choice for me at my current phase of life. You know, I have a baby girl, my time is limited. Maybe when she hits the school years and I just got all this free time during the day, sure. I will go to town going with my direct retailers and as more are coming out and more are developing. Probably years from now, maybe Amazon isn't the big retailer anymore, who knows? Anything could happen.
[00:23:17] So I think that's where it's staying fluid and staying up to date. So it's never a set it and forget it for me. I set it, I think about it, I'm updating it, and I'm staying on top of all the news that's coming out in our industry. So I understand when new things are coming up.
[00:23:30] You know, as audio grows, I'm definitely going to be looking at more direct audio options. Right now, ACX and Findaway are a great one-two punch for me. I can get everywhere between those two. But as more options come up it may make sense for me to take some of those with a direct retailer to improve distribution, to improve royalties and things like that.
[00:23:48] It's constantly re-evaluating my plan and what works for me. And I think that's the trap that some authors get into, right? They say oh, I have to constantly chase the new thing, this new thing's out, I have to go do that. And so the same way, does this make sense? You know what, let me wait a month or two. Everybody's going to figure out the kinks in the system and I'll learn about it and then I'll go do that.
[00:24:08] And so I do think sometimes there's a rush to just react, instead of being that strategic business owner of does this make sense for my time? And I think as authors, we need to think of ourselves as that strategic business owner first, instead of just jump because newest platform is up and somebody said, jump.
[00:24:26] Matty: Yeah. That's a great point. I kind of want to close out our conversation with an exploration of that. I did have one other question about the aggregators, which is, and I'm making this example up, so this may not be factually accurate, but just to illustrate my point. So let's say you're just starting out and you have all your stuff up on Draft2Digital, and you're also getting to a couple of other platforms through Smashwords. And so then Draft2Digital works things out with Google Play, they kiss and make up, and so now you turn on Google Play. So now you're feeding Google Play through Draft2Digital. Then, a month later, Smashwords similarly works things out with Google Play. And now you could go to Google Play through Smashwords. Do you spend brainpower, as you see a retailer come up on a different aggregator, if you're using more than one aggregator, how deeply do you delve into the pros and cons of feeding that retailer through one aggregator versus another?
[00:25:22] MK: So for me personally, I use one aggregator for ebook and one aggregator for print. I don't do multiple, and again, that's for ease of use and also to avoid some of those complications. And so for me, that's IngramSpark print aggregator, to get me everywhere, but Amazon, Smashwords ebook aggregator everywhere about Amazon and the Google Play because I go the direct.
[00:25:43] But for somebody who is using multiple aggregators and saying, hey, 90% of my aggregator distribution is going to be Draft2Digital, and actually, I think Draft2Digital has more so, 90% of my distributors are through Smashwords and I go with Draft2Digital for those few other ones that aren't available through Smashwords. I would say as things come up and you're getting those notifications, you will always get a notification email from your aggregator when new retailers are added. So make sure you are opening those emails because I know, with Gmail at least, if you get too many emails and you don't open them, it sends it to the Promotion bin, the black hole that you just never see anything because it's all your promotional emails.
[00:26:16] So always make sure you're opening your emails from your aggregators or your retailers. There's always going to be up to date information in there, so you want to be informed of what's going on. If there is a chance where there could then be a duplicate listing, if they say, hey, you need to tell us positive opt into this. Okay. Well then, I have some time to make a decision.
[00:26:34] If they say, hey, we're just adding this, let us know if you don't want it, then you need to make that decision to say, hey, I don't want this. And it would just be a matter of reaching out to customer service at the distributor that you do not want to send to that retailer to say, hey, I already have this retailer included in my mix, please do not send my book there to create a duplicate listing.
[00:26:54] I've found that if you have an existing listing on the website, when something gets added, it usually, I don't know how the algorithms work, but I noticed it doesn't supersede an existing listing, if that listing's been there for a while. But it never hurts to have that communication to say, hey, please do not send this, I'm already here via this link. Do not send my metadata again, because it's good to have that paper trail, and it's good to just take that action. Never just assume, oh, it'll be fine. I already have a listing, it's good. Always take that action, and again, that's where you're acting, not just as well, I'm an author and my focus is writing, and I upload my books. It's, no, this is my business, and part of my business is making sure the reader can get my books and buy them. And I know where the money's going to come from for X retailer at the end of the month, whether that's from Smashwords or Draft2Digital, and things of that nature.
[00:27:47] It's being proactive, it's staying up to date, it's being proactive. And it's making sure that everything is in line with the plan that you've set for your business, and not just doing what other people are doing. You have to have a plan for your business.
[00:27:58] Matty: Yeah. Both retailers and aggregators, I think, that we've talked about so far, they're making their money by taking a cut of the proceeds, which I like, because I like any business model where I and the retailer or the aggregator are all behind the idea of me selling books, as opposed to you pay a fee, and then they don't care whether you sell things or not.
[00:28:19] One of the exceptions to the model that I described, I believe is PublishDrive, which has a little bit of a different approach to how they set up in price. Can you talk about that a little bit?
[00:28:30] MK: Yeah, so I had to do some research on this one because I don't use PublishDrive. but I know that they do get some exposure to retailers through their system, that otherwise you'd have to go through direct.
[00:28:39] So there can be a small benefit to that fee. I think if you are publishing a lot, if you have a high volume of sales, it can make sense to pay that fee. I believe the lowest tier is $9.95, and then it goes up to $19.95. So if you're selling your ebooks at 99 cents and you're making a 30% royalty on that, you have got to sell a lot of books just to make up that lowest tier. If you're selling it at $2.99, okay, the math starts to make a bit more sense, with a fewer number of sales, but you need to have a higher volume. They do get you again, like I said, into some markets you can't get elsewhere, so there may be that convenience of, I'm willing to pay for that, and on their website, they seem to have a lot of educational resources, so it's not just the upload, you're kind of part of their ecosystem, so that could be a benefit. I'm super frugal, so when I see it's going to cost me to upload, I'm like, no thanks, and obviously, for IngramSpark there's a cost to upload, but I'm a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors, so I don't worry about that.
[00:29:36] Matty: Because members get a promo code to enable free uploads.
[00:29:39] MK: Yes, exactly. So yeah, for ebook distribution, for me PublishDrive just didn't make sense at the time when I was starting, and I had negative money from my writing business. But if you're starting out and you have the budget to do that, that could be a good option. And I would suggest, do the research on everything before you click Upload. If you're an author and you've just been like, well my plan the whole time has been PublishDrive, I didn't even know what Draft2Digital was, I didn't even know what Smashwords was. What? There's a whole world out there. So make sure you are looking at some good sites that offer comparisons of aggregators that can really talk to you about the different options and what works for you. You may find, at the end of the day, no, my plan was good all along, that's what I wanted, it gets me the retailers I want, but you might say, oh, well, I'm going to go over here where they don't charge me. So it's really figuring out what works for you, what you can afford, what you can sustain paying for. If you have a low sales month and you're paying monthly to be on that platform, does that make sense? Yeah, got to do the math.
[00:30:34] Matty: I wanted to loop back now on sort of the emotional and stress costs. So it's interesting that shortly before we recorded this episode, I'd recorded two other episodes. One was with Orna Ross, and by the time this comes out, that one will already have come out. It's going to be, or has been, a series of episodes, 101 through 107were me and Orna Ross talking about the Seven Processes of Publishing. So Orna Ross is the head of the Alliance of Independent Authors, and we have episodes on production and distribution. So we talked about some of these things at a general level, and then I think this will be a great follow on to talk about these more specific things about specific retailers and aggregators.
[00:31:16] The other episode I had just recorded was 100, which was Mark Lefebvre talking about THE RELAXED AUTHOR. And it was an interesting combination because when I was talking with Orna about production and distribution, I felt myself, not because of Orna, because she's a lovely and charming woman, but I felt myself almost having like a panic attack, because she was saying, many of the things that we've talked about, like you can get into these markets if you go to this other aggregator, you should do the research in order to understand what you're signing up for when you use one of these services. And I got to the end of that day, I was just like, ah, I, was making a to-do list and then I had this enormous to do list.
[00:31:56] And I thought, you need to of course consider what opportunities expanding your set of retailers and aggregators or making the decision to go direct versus an aggregator is going to provide you. But just as important is weighing the stress and the time. Because I know one of the things that people often talk about is the fact that more advertising opportunities may open up to you, if you go to a retailer direct, versus through an aggregator. But are you ever going to have the time or the bandwidth to take advantage of it? And so I'd just be curious to hear you talk a little bit about this, you're obviously a career author, with a little girl that is also asking for some time and attention. How do you weigh for yourself those considerations of, is it worth the time? Is it worth the aggravation? Is it worth the stress?
[00:32:45] MK: Yeah. So for me, it's usually never worth the stress, because, before this was my full-time job, I had a full-time job, and it took up more than 60 hours a week. And my free time, my fun time, was writing my books. And so for me, if I could get the business part done efficiently and succinctly in a couple hours a week, that was good for me. And, without fail, I left my full-time job so I could be a full-time author, and do you know what I still don't have time for? Doing all the little things you're supposed to do, like getting all those social media posts scheduled, getting all the advertising going and doing all the research on it. I just, yeah, because it's something I don't want to do. That's not the fun part of the job, it's the job part of the job.
[00:33:26] And so I think what's important to do, is to pick one thing, and maybe it's for a month, maybe it's for a week or two, and pick one thing to really dial in on. So if your thing this month is figuring out, do I have the right retailer mix? Okay, go in on that, do the research there, don't worry about the shiny objects coming at you of, oh, here's the templates for social media, here's this. There are so many shiny objects for us authors, and there will always be somebody selling us more shiny objects but figure out what you need to do for your business right now.
[00:33:58] And so sometimes, it could be as simple as, I don't know if I'm maximizing my profit on all these different retailers that I'm currently on. Great, there's a webinar coming up, I'm going to listen to that, I'm going to really dial in and optimize just Apple. And then next month, it's just Google and really focusing on it. Or you could say, I'm going to do a little bit of everything and if something doesn't get done, it doesn't get done. It's realizing that I don't think any one of us is doing this perfectly. I don't think any full-time author, career author, who's like a big name in the space, is doing this a hundred percent perfectly, or that they would say that they are. We all know that there's more that we can do. There is no paragon for us to compare ourselves to. We're all just a work in progress, just like our books are a work in progress before they're published. So, I would say if you're stressing about the aggregator mix and understanding at all, just take a deep breath, maybe have some coffee, maybe take a nap and then come back.
[00:34:48] Matty: Have a glass of wine.
[00:34:50] MK: Yeah, yeah. And the thing is you could stress yourself out trying to do all that, and then they're going to change the platform tomorrow anyway. Or they're going to announce something new. So don't drive yourself crazy trying to make it perfect, when it's going to change again. Just go with the flow.
[00:35:03] Matty: Yeah, and I also think that the ultimate question for me is, would I be better off spending these 10 hours getting my books up on platforms that will enable a library patron in France to easily access them, or guess what, working on my novel! And almost always I'm realizing that the smart move is to get more content out there and to improve the content that I'm providing. And I think that if you put your books on KDP for Amazon, you put them on an aggregator for everywhere else. And at first, at least, and maybe for a long time, don't sweat too much where you're getting. You've done a good job. You have covered many of your potential readers. And what are the chances that some library patron in France and the seven cents I'm going to get from that experience? I think that people get tied into this, there's something else I have to do, there's something else I have to do. I'm like, not necessarily. Set up the basics and be happy with that and then focus on the content.
[00:36:08] MK: Absolutely, if you're getting a message from somebody in France every day asking for a different library, yeah, then maybe that's something to check out. Or if on your aggregators, you're seeing like, half of my sales on Smashwords this month were Barnes and Noble, maybe it's time for me to go direct with them. Make data-based decisions instead of an emotional-based decisions, especially when it's going to give you a couple extra gray hairs to get it all changed.
[00:36:30] Matty: Yeah. And I find that one of the things I did early on to try to maintain my sanity in the indy author space, was to just choose a couple of trusted advisors, certainly the Alliance of Independent Authors, Joanna Penn, The Creative Penn and just like, I'm going to stop researching. After a while, once you've found your trusted advisors, don't spend time continuing to try to find other people to tell you things to do.
[00:36:54] And I think that the other advice I would have after my conversation with Orna, after the conversation we've had, and I see all these opportunities out there, is just write them down and then come back to them in like a week. Because it's easy to go, as soon as we're off this call, I'm going to go start loading stuff to StreetLib. But you know, if I step back and I can look at it both, in a more data-based way, and with a little bit of emotional distance, I might be in a better position to say, yeah, you know what, that is worth it. Or, you know what, no, I have other things to do.
[00:37:24] MK: Absolutely, yeah. If it's a good idea today and if it's a great idea, it'll be a great idea next week. But yeah, sit on it, think on it, see what else comes up, that's the bigger priority. Absolutely.
[00:37:34] Matty: Well, MK, this was so much fun. It's always lovely to chat with you. Please let the listeners know where they can go to find out more about you, your work and especially GOING WIDE online.
[00:37:45] MK: Yes, so I am everywhere online at 1mkWilliams.com, the number one, MK Williams. My YouTube channel, Author Your Ambition, I talk all things self-publishing on there, so if you have a question, I've likely answered it, or if I haven't answered it, let me know, and I will answer it for you on the channel.
[00:38:01] My books are available everywhere you find books. They're out wide, go figure! I was going to joke and say, you can get going wide exclusive on Amazon. No, it's out everywhere, so GOING WIDE: SELF-PUBLISHING YOUR BOOKS OUTSIDE THE AMAZON ECOSYSTEM is available everywhere you can get books. You can get it from me directly as well, so just head on over to 1mkWilliams.com or authoryourambition.com, and you'll find information on getting this book, and you can also get it at your library.
[00:38:27] Matty: Excellent. Thank you, MK, this was fun!
[00:38:30] MK: This was fun.
Links
https://1mkwilliams.com/
https://authoryourambition.com/
Episode 103 - The Third Process of Publishing: Production with Orna Ross
Episode 104 - The Fourth Process of Publishing: Distribution with Orna Ross
Episode 100 - Becoming the Relaxed Author with Mark Leslie Lefebvre
https://authoryourambition.com/
Episode 103 - The Third Process of Publishing: Production with Orna Ross
Episode 104 - The Fourth Process of Publishing: Distribution with Orna Ross
Episode 100 - Becoming the Relaxed Author with Mark Leslie Lefebvre
For links to Matty's upcoming and recent events, click here.
What did you think of this episode? Leave a comment and let us know!
