What platforms besides Kindle are left?

Barnes and Noble is still alive and a viable platform. Apple, yes. Kobo, yes. Googleplay, but they're only occasionally accepting new authors.

ShaunHorton said:

So, in an effort to diversify a bit, I pulled some of my works from Kindle Unlimited and was going to bundle them and offer them up on a few other platforms to see how they do. Thing is, I'm not sure what's out there anymore. Last I was really paying attention a while ago, Barnes and Noble and their Nook was going under. Apple is still an option, but I'll have to look into that. I'm sure Smashwords is still a thing, but is it even still viable these days?

Click to expand...

Technically, Smashwords is a distributor, although they do have their own "Direct" store. If you go through a distributor, it makes the process easier, although I'd recommend looking into D2D as well.

For me, it took a long time to build up a platform on the other channels, but it was well worth it. For one of my pen names, over half my non-Amazon sales come from Google Play, but Nook and iBooks are still pretty strong. Kobo has been meh overall, but a lot depends on the book and genre.

As Marissa D said B&N, iBooks, and Kobo are all platforms you can publish directly on. I'm confident Smashwords is not only viable, but here to stay. And there are plenty of other aggregators like them. Draft2Digital is one I've had a lot of success with. SreetLib, an Italian platform is like Smashwords only bigger in Europe. But they can get your books on all US online retailers including Google Play. Amazon would like you to believe they are the only viable option, but they aren't. I'm actually thinking about pulling all my books from Amazon. I have only one title in KDP Select. Even though it never sells well it stays high in the ratings on Amazon. My other books which do sell well on Amazon never get very high in the rankings. My take, Amazon clearly supports you if you take their exclusive deal and they do their best to make your books on their platform invisible if you publish widely. I think you will find Amazon increasingly insisting that independent authors enroll in KDP Select rather than just encouraging it. I've seen talk they are considering reducing the royalty percentage to those who don't enroll in KDP Select. I sell far more books on iBooks than Amazon and the two books I did enroll in KDP Select haven't produced much from page reads. So, I can live without Amazon.

LARRYD said:

As Marissa D said B&N, iBooks, and Kobo are all platforms you can publish directly on. I'm confident Smashwords is not only viable, but here to stay. And there are plenty of other aggregators like them. Draft2Digital is one I've had a lot of success with. SreetLib, an Italian platform is like Smashwords only bigger in Europe. But they can get your books on all US online retailers including Google Play. Amazon would like you to believe they are the only viable option, but they aren't. I'm actually thinking about pulling all my books from Amazon. I have only one title in KDP Select. Even though it never sells well it stays high in the ratings on Amazon. My other books which do sell well on Amazon never get very high in the rankings. My take, Amazon clearly supports you if you take their exclusive deal and they do their best to make your books on their platform invisible if you publish widely. I think you will find Amazon increasingly insisting that independent authors enroll in KDP Select rather than just encouraging it. I've seen talk they are considering reducing the royalty percentage to those who don't enroll in KDP Select. I sell far more books on iBooks than Amazon and the two books I did enroll in KDP Select haven't produced much from page reads. So, I can live without Amazon.

Click to expand...

I agree with your sentiment; I've often wondered whether Amazon could someday be slapped with an antitrust suit for its practices operating Kindle Direct Publishing. Their system effectively penalizes those who go wide anyways, as removing your enrollment in Select as an indie means a lot of free downloads you won't get from people who would otherwise not take the chance on purchasing a book from you.

Anyways, I'm trying to enroll only novels in KDP Select and go wide with all short works. We'll see how it goes.

All I can say about KDP Select is that, it's toxic. As long as you aren't very successful with KU page reads, you're fine, but promote to audiences that target KU books? Amazon will accuse you of gaming the system, defraud you of your royalties, and threaten you with account termination. I am told there is a big class action lawsuit against Amazon either pending or in progress over the matter.

I have several books listed with both D2D and Smashwords (and yes, Amazon) and lately I'm doing the best with D2D. One word of caution - both D2D and Smashwords has their own quirks that prevent you from porting over your Kindle books without modification. Both accept and prefer Word documents for upload, but with D2D, you have to convert double carriage returns to triple carriage returns or you will not have section breaks. Also Kindle compliant covers do not look correct on some of the retailer previewers and the aspect ratio must be modified. With Smashwords, covers, text, etc... all look great but their uploader cannot parse a Word TOC, and you have to create one using a funky, protracted bookmark procedure.

D2D has a slicker interface, but they do apply some autoformatting that can cause some issues. Smashwords I think is a more mature, stable platform but that said I don't sell squat through Smashwords.

As much as I have a hatred of Amazon, I will say it offers the best quality product, and it's fairly easy and straightforward to offer print versions through KDP Print. They also recently added a feature so you can order author copies at the cost of printing and delivery.