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Permalink Reply by Rebecca Burke on June 10, 2011 at 2:43pm

Like many Smashwords' authors, I signed up directly with PubIt! instead of letting the former distribute my book to them. The thinking is that authors can get that much more exposure if they go directly with this "major" player.

 

You will have to format your book for the epub market, which is different from what's needed for Smashwords and Kindle. And that's why I suggest everyone thinking about epublishing read J.A. Konrath's A Newbie's Guide to Self-Publishing. He's the guru, and his success as an indie author is indisputable. He's also confident to the point of being brash, so I'd just point out that the kinds of books he writes--genre thrillers, etc.--are more likely to be big sellers as ebooks, at least these days.

 

My first ebook, which my agent could not sell in these rocky economic times, is a gritty, realistic YA/crossover novel featuring a young Mexican American girl. It is not likely to take off and pay for my retirement, needless to say. But I'm very happy to have it out there in the world, rather than languishing in a digital file on my desktop. I still believe in it; why not publish it? But the marketing will be all up to me, now.

 

Did I mention its title? When I Am Singing to You (you knew that was coming!).I've priced it at $2.99 so it will move, and that seems to be about the price that successful indie authors suggest. Much less, and buyers will be suspicious of its quality. Much more and they won't spring for an unknown author.

 

The thing about PubIt! is they don't seem to respond to author queries. The CEO of Smashwords has twice answered my questions personally w/in 24 hours, which is impressive to say the least. And PubIt!'s royalty rate is slightly less than Kindle and Smashwords. I went looking for my book the other day on PubIt! and the only way I could locate it was by typing in its title. In other words, all the tags I gave them were for some reason not being used. So...not a huge fan of PubIt! (Especially that name, eugh.)

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Permalink Reply by Sheri L. Swift on June 11, 2011 at 4:00pm

Was my first stop on the ebook publication & they are new & getting better all the time, but you still have to work at selling your book, through forums, Blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

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Permalink Reply by Valerie Hegwood on June 15, 2011 at 7:47am

Love PubIt! Thought it was simple. When there was a slight issue on my acct info they sent me an email with a direct toll free # and they were great on the phone. I have a couple of formatting issues I am not thrilled about, but the book works well and have already tripled my sales--with zero promotion at this point.  I did promote the same book on the Kindle a little--but the sales are equal.  I decided to not use Smashwords and stay with the big 2. Locally, however, I am working on the indie print edition. I think I will sell more of the print rather than the e book--locally, here in the South. I need to do more promotion, period...but think I will do more of it when the print version is ready and I can do some local readings and book signings.  Overall, it was a great learning experience--self publishing with Kindle and Nook and something I never imagined I could do. I have no complaints regarding either one. The Pub It Platform is clean simple and rather engaging, in my opinion....

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Permalink Reply by Zetta Brown on June 25, 2011 at 10:41am

We've been listing our books there since April. Sales have been impressive and very quick. 

Setting up our account was a PITA and one of the "customer support techs" was pretty rude that I nearly wrote a letter (may still do so because I kept all the details about the call), but other than that, things have been fine.

We haven't gotten our first check yet because they pay 60 days after the last day of the month so we'll be getting our first check for April sales at the end of June.

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