What a marvelous world we live in and what an incredible time to be a writer. There are just so many opportunities and ways we can get our words and our work out into the world these days.  So many that it might at times be confusing as to which ones to use and which ones to pass on by.
Just the other day, someone posted a great question on Word Journeys: Resources for Writers, one of the

Books by Porpoise Publishing


Facebook groups I frequent. Here’s the question:
Should I ‘do’ my ebook on Book Baby, Kindle or Smashwords? I can do most of it myself, but how best to get to all the e readers….?
Yes, that is the $64,000 question, not that most of us writers have 64K sitting in our checking account. Here’s my short answer as to whether it’s best to publish through BookBaby.com, Kindle or Smashwords.com — it depends on several factors. Now, let’s look at the factors.
I’ve used all three with different works, though I’ve only placed a couple short stories out into the world through Smashwords.  Book Baby is probably the easiest way to get your book out to the most ebook readers…if you’re willing to fork over 99 dollars for the service.
For most of my books, I’ve chosen to go the Kindle only route at least for now. I have a ‘backlog’ of books and other material to publish. I follow the Dean Wesley Smith philosophy that the best marketing a writer can do is to write and publish more. So, my main focus right now is write, write, write, which includes polishing and preparing my work to be published.
Since Kindle is the #1 seller of ebooks, having something like 80% of the market,  then that’s where I’m focusing most of my ebook publishing work. It doesn’t make sense to spend a lot of time or money trying to get that other 20%…least not yet.
The other publishing focus is to make most of my longer works available as a Print-On-Demand physical book, which I do through CreateSpace.com. After all, there’s still more people who read ‘real books’ than there are reading ebooks though that’s changing.
But my situation of having a backlog of work to get out that might not be your situation. If you have just 1-2 books to get out to start, I’d go another route. I’d still want to be sure to include offering a POD physical book, then I’d work to get the 1-2 books out to as many different ebook resources as possible.
Then the question to ask yourself is, “Do I have more of time or money?”  If your answer is time, then you can do work with through Smashwords who will distribute your book to most of the major ebook stores, with the one BIG exception being Kindle.  So, create your own Kindle account and load the book there yourself. So, to summarize, if you have more time than money:

  • Publish to Smashwords who will then distribute to most of the ebook outlets,
  • Publish a POD physical book through CreateSpace.com
  • Publish to Kindle by creating your own account

If you have more money than time, the strategy would be:

  • Use BookBaby.com who will then distribute to all the major ebook outlets including Kindle, and
  • Publish a POD physical book through CreateSpace.com

And in either scenario, I’d be sure to include one other important part of the equation — get on to writing that next book, which is what I’m going to do right now.