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The current publishing eco-system changes every week right now, and there are new opportunities around every corner. This expanding marketplace is only a good thing for authors, and some enterprising types are taking it further.
Amazon is a beast. We all know it. A beast of sheer size and might. It’s also quite a friendly beast, where authors are concerned. Via Amazon’s useful and simple Kindle Direct Publishing platform, authors have the chance to upload directly to the Kindle store, set their own price, and have the choice of taking part in programs such as Kindle Select and MatchBook.
Essentially what Amazon provides is an alternate route to market – the ability to bypass the publishers and compete with the best of them.
And that’s exactly what its mammoth marketplace is – a competition.
A competition for sales, and ultimately, that coveted No.1 spot. The title of bestseller.
Without going into too much depth about how the cryptic Amazon algorithms work, books rise and fall on the rankings due to several key factors:
1) Sales
2) Reviews – both starred and written
3) And the competition
The three really go hand in hand. Sales may rise thanks to a glowing review. More sales increases the capacity for reviews. More reviews come in. More sales occur, and the chain reaction goes on until, hypothetically, you’re at the No.1 spot. The problem is that everybody – every author and publisher – is doing the same thing. Every hour, every day, in each genre, for each book, little battles are being fought. This is why competition plays a big role in rankings.
The fact of the matter is that we don’t all have the same promotional skills or marketing punch.
Competing alongside the traditionally published authors might be no sweat for some indies, but unachievable for others (at the moment anyway – we’re all constantly improving!) The problem we authors face is that publishing houses have a long reach and very deep pockets. Very few indies, if any, have the budget to match that of a publishing house. This is why we rely on interacting on social media, sourcing reviews, clever pricing, and the pure quality of our books, rather than paid ads, bookshop POS material, and billboards. Even though indies actually garner a closer relationship with readers than most traditional authors, thanks to our marketing techniques, it’s still hard work to stand out.
These are the unfortunate problems with Amazon and KDP – over-crowding, and the way that traditional is usually favored over indie.
This is why I decided to create an eBook store just for us.
Libiro is a brand new store exclusively for indie books by indie authors. We exclude traditional books because it removes the traditional competition, and at the same time it promotes the concept of indie books and self-publishing, while offering the reader a dedicated, easy-to-browse store at which to shop.
Libiro offers indie authors an 80% royalty as standard – no matter what book, what price, or what country you’re from. This means that you aren’t just selling to an intrigued and interested market, but that you’re actually making more money per sale.
We’ve also got some exciting ideas in the pipeline too – marketing tools for authors, hopefully some sales analytics, and also a new eBook discovery tool that we’re quite excited about.
Empowering authors. That’s really what Libiro is all about.
I’m immensely proud to have launched it, and also very excited to see what the platform can do for authors in the future. It’s already been a great first month for us, so here’s to many more!
Of course, Libiro isn’t the only store that can help you sell more books.
Different readers like to use different stores, and so that’s why it’s wise to distribute to as many stores as you can. Kobo is a great store, and very similar to KDP in the fact they have an eBook publishing platform called Kobo Writing Life. Barnes & Noble is another important store, as is iBooks. You could even try using an eBook distributor like Smashwords or BookBaby, and publish to multiple stores at once. Try them all out! It’s important for accessing the whole spectrum of the market, not just the Kindle-users. Just remember to stay consistent in your information and pricing – perhaps keep a master document with all the information stored in one place. That always helps me.
If you want to see what Libiro is all about, then you can find it at www.libiro.com.
Please do leave any questions about the site or any comments below. I'd love to hear what you think about this opportunity.
Ben is also incredibly zealous about inspiring other authors and writers. He also runs the popular advice site Shelf Help, where he offers advice about writing, publishing, and marketing. Ben can be found being loquacious and attempting to be witty on Twitter (@BenGalley) or at www.bengalley.com.
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1 2 Next »We think this is a fantastic idea! A lot of our writers are considering self-publishing at the moment, and Amazon is usually the main contender. Does Libiro intend to assist in publishing as well as selling e-books, or is it simply a place where authors upload their e-book files, opt for their favoured pricing option etc, and sell their book?
Hi Writer's Edit, thanks for the comment! By uploading an eBook, authors are essentially publishing with us, direct to a marketplace as you can do with KDP. However, we do have some exciting plans to also offer authors the ability to get their manuscripts formatted into ePub and Mobi. We'll also be offering advice and a learning centre too. Hopefully these extra services will be coming before Christmas. Thanks again!
Fantastic site and fantastic idea, Ben! I am curious about one thing, however: why no separate category for religious/spiritual works?
As a Christian religious writer (non-fiction/fiction) I'm sure I'm biased, but being married to an editorial director of one of the largest US publishers, which happens to be a Christian publisher, I do know the religious/spiritual category is a sizable share of the trade market, particularly Christian trade, particularly Christian fiction. It might be helpful for consumers to break out those books in a separate category for easy finding, both for fiction and non-fiction.
Just a suggestion...but at any rate—bravo!
-jeremy
Hi Jeremy,
It's a category that we've literally just been asked for by another author, so now that you've suggested the same, we're intending on adding that in! Hopefully will be up in the next week for you.
Best,
Ben
Interesting idea, and it is good to see options for Indie authors.
I am curious about the buyer side of things. It is great to have a smaller pool, for the author, but how do you plan to attract large numbers of consumers? With a lot of small bookstores out there and services like smashwords, etc, what incentive are you giving the consumer to shop in a limited marketplace and what is the current reader base looking like (size wise)? With auto delivery on amazon and B&N, I know there is a technical hurdle for a lot of readers if they have to manually copy books over.
On a side note, I also checked your submission page and you really need to route that via a secured channel. Asking for routing and bank info an a http page is asking for data to be swiped. I know you want to make it easy, but it seems almost too easy, where I would be hesitant to pass my work and bank info off to a single page form without more info like I would get from an account setup page.
Hi Chuck - you make some good points, and we'll be taking them both on board. In answer to your first point, we're doing a lot of marketing to reader communities at the moment, and also offering links for author sites and blogs. We've only been live for about 5 weeks now, but we're growing fast. We're intent on giving customers the experience of shopping at a local bookshop, rather than a giant store. That's an edge, and one we intent to keep as we grow to compete, size-wise, with platforms like Smashwords and Amazon.
Our plans for expansion will help us overcome any technical hurdles (Libiro lets you download to any device that you're using at the time) and also add extra security, by way of an author dashboard. This will be hopefully coming soon. Our upload form is a secure form, one protected by encryption when it's sent to us.
Early days for Libiro, but we have very, very big plans!
I hope that answers your questions Chuck! :)
Hi Ben. Thanks for the reply. Interested in seeing you grow and will look into your services.
One side note. I am a web applications developer by trade, so I do need to clarify that while your intent may be to use a secure form this page...
http://www.libiro.com/sell-your-books-on-libiro/
Is not secure (http). The embedded form that is being actually used is through jotform (3rd party service) and is also not secure. It is posting to this url...
http://submit.jotformeu.com/submit/32264822862355/
That is not secure and user's data, including bank info is free "in the wild" between their computer and jotform. They may be sending it to you securely after the fact, but currently it is not being encrypted. I would have your developer take a look at that ASAP as that is a huge issue and could come with some major liability.
I do wish you the best, but since technology is your business, please make sure you get some top notch professionals to secure your data and your site.
-Chuck
Hi Chuck,
Thanks again for your feedback - it's always good to contact us directly with aspects or concerns like this, especially when detailing processes and providers, which could give a helping hand to somebody less trustworthy.
In answer to your questions - the page itself isn't https, however the form is, and the the data sent to us in the submission process is secure. We've partnered with Jotform as they provide a secure service.
In the meantime, however, we've decided to limit the details to PayPal email only, to reassure authors. I completely agree that bank details are precious and they should be closely guarded, and as it isn't initially obvious that the form is secure, I'd like to make sure authors are comfortable in coming on board with Libiro.
Thanks again Chuck!
Ben
Hi Chuck,
Thanks again for your feedback - it's always good to contact us directly with aspects or concerns like this, especially when detailing processes and providers, which could give a helping hand to somebody less trustworthy.
In answer to your questions - the page itself isn't https, however the form is, and the the data sent to us in the submission process is secure. We've partnered with Jotform as they provide a secure service.
In the meantime, however, we've decided to limit the details to PayPal email only, to reassure authors. I completely agree that bank details are precious and they should be closely guarded, and as it isn't initially obvious that the form is secure, I'd like to make sure authors are comfortable in coming on board with Libiro.
Thanks again Chuck!
Ben
Thanks for the update. Looks like the Jotform is now using https. Didn't mean to "call you out" on that, just thought you might want to know. For the comfort of authors, you probably will want to secure the page it lives in as well. Not more secure, but lets the browser show the page is secure which gives authors a lot more peace of mind.
Thanks for your replies, and excellent customer service in getting that changed so fast.
-Chuck
I think this is a great idea
TY! I am trying to be traditionally published with the big six. It is kind of a goal, but I have the independent spirit so maybe in the future. – Daniel Escurel Occeno
Ben, you are a leader in the Indie movement and this is an amazing achievement. Your hard work and relentless efforts are producing terrific results. The site looks fantastic and the premise is just what we need. Thank you for putting this together!
Peace, Seeley
Thank you very much Seeley! Kind words.
Ben, this is a great idea. However....
I signed up at Libiro with one title (ON BLISS) more than a week ago and still have not heard back from you. You might want to get your Support together.
Hi Kaz,
This is very unlike our support team, as we have only a few members, and they're hawk-eyed, to say the least! If you uploaded and are waiting for the welcome email, there's a slight backlog to the usual week's upload time. It's due to a huge surge of authors that have uploaded their books. It's great, of course, and we're just about caught up. If it's an email reply you're waiting for, feel free to email me directly at admin@libiro.com :)
My apologies for the delay!
Jeremy is right. You need more categories, including religious and various categories of nonfiction. You might want to get off to a good start by adopting the BISAC categories. They aren't perfect, but they are detailed and widely accepted.
Chuck is right. When you're taking financial information from someone, you need a secure (https) web page. Otherwise that banking information is going across the Internet in the clear. Not good and the reason I can't send you books at present.
In addition:
* There are tax issues when income crosses national borders. Amazon, Apple, LSI/Ingram, handle those for authors. You need to do the same. In the U.S., our IRS can be very nasty, particularly if you're not a liberal Democrat.
* All ePubs aren't created equal. The ePub I sent Apple has to be different from that I send to Amazon to be turned into mobi/KF9, and that's different yet again from the one I send Smashwords. I suspect there are other issues with Nooks, but I don't have to worry about that, since Smashwords handles that. You'll need specs for us to work with, including the sizes of internal images. It'd be great if you simply said, "we can take anything that passes with Apple."
* You might do some serious thinking about partnering with Smashwords. It'd give you access to thousands of authors and get around what's likely to be one of your major hurdles. Right now, every book I do has to be individually processed and sent to five different outlets: For print: LSI and CreateSpace. For digital: iBookstore, Kindle, and Smashwords.
I don't really want to add a sixth. If you did partner with Smashwords, that 80% you're paying would mean that, less Smashword's cut, you'd be paying more than any of their other retailers, so authors would be likely to send their customers to you.
I might add that those who offered us 70% a few years back (particularly Amazon and Apple) ought to be offering 80% now. When I lived in Seattle, I heard one of Amazon's web guru speak and explain why the cost of providing web services is dropping rapidly. So far, those savings aren't being passed along to authors. That needs to change. All those 70% royalties for apps, ebooks and music ought to be 80%.
--Michael W. Perry, Inkling Books, Seattle
Thanks for your input Michael, very valuable.
We've already got quite a few plans for partnerships, so hopefully you'll see those appearing in the new year. In regards to ePubs, as we don't do any conversion - the ePub you upload to Libiro is the ePub that gets sold, so long as it works. We try to test every ePub that comes through to make sure that it's readable on iPads, Adobe Digital Reader, and other major platforms. Simply put, we can take anything that passes with Apple :)
And yes, hopefully our high royalty will lead a change. That's one of the reasons we were set on offering 80% from the off. As an author myself, I'd like to see a bigger return on my eBooks, especially from Amazon and Kobo. Hopefully Libiro can pave the way.
Thanks again,
Ben
I'm always ready to try something new but you say it doesn't matter what country, however in the form to sign up one of the mandatory points is what COUNTY and all those listed are clearly in the UK and I don't see how to get around that since it's required information. But it's just as well because now I'm concerned about the whole payment issue dealing with a company in another country. Still I applaud their support of Indie Authors.