In the past, they’ve struck me as a more commercial version of Smashwords, with a somewhat different distribution list, one that includes Amazon and a Gardners Books in the UK. I don’t need the publishing assistance they provide, which makes their free, distribution-only service the only one I would use, although their 15% commission means I’d rather go direct to the big retailers. Here are their charges:
But linking from it to a host of retailers would be a pain. That’s why I’m wondering if one link to a Bookbaby page that’d then do the linking makes more sense.
But alas, I’ve yet to figure out all the details. I can’t even find a link to a sample book page to discover answers for myself. And details matter. Do I have to manufacture each link to each retailer, or do they handle that for me?
Does anyone have experience with Bookbaby that they’d be interested in sharing?
–Mike
Almost forgot. They also have some handy free guides for authors here:
For linking to ebook retailers, do you automatically create the links based on an ISBN, or do we have to discover and paste them in?
That they should do. Creating links to dozens of stores around the world is a pain.
Does your bookstore use the incoming IP address to offer links appropriate for their country, i.e. Amazon UK for those in the UK?
Not sure many (if any) retailers detect a person’s country of origin and jump to that country’s store.
Can we add our own links to other retailers who are not part of your system?
That limits their effectiveness as a the one stop to send all potential customers.
Do you also offer ebooks for sale direct from you (ePub without DRM), with a higher payment to authors than via third-party retailers?
Your existing information talks about store pages, but I couldn’t find a link to any of them. Could you tell me how to browse them?
I stated the question badly. I wanted a link that’d let me see the ebooks they already have in their system. That may not be active yet.
Can we create links for print books that do not yet have ebook editions? Alas, I’ve got about two dozen of those.
In short, Bookbaby is still a baby, with not as many features as hopefully it will have in a year to two. You might want to sign up to reach ebook retailers that you can’t reach though other means. You might want to wait until it matures.
Perhaps this question might better be addressed in:
I look at the “Prosite” link, and it’s lovely. And I see it’s part of the “Behance” cloud by Adobe. However, I’m curious about the advantage over simply hosting one’s own publications page on a personal URL website? Is there some linkage or promotion advantage? Thanks.
(FYI: we’ve got a copy of “Lily’s Ride” … a lovely tale, great book!)