16 Big Websites To Make Money From Selling eBooks Online

There are several platforms for selling eBooks online, but I have found some to be very popular and effective.

Those are the platforms that we will be looking at in this post.

As an author, writing an eBook might have been tasking for you, so try not to make the selling any harder.

That is why I want to share with you the best platforms I have found for selling eBooks online.

If your goal is to make money online with your eBook, then you are reading the right post.

***Just for those who might be asking;

What is an eBook?

An eBook is simply an electronic book. They’re similar to physical print books, but in this case you can only read them on screens.

Moving forward, below are the places you can sell your eBooks.

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing

Amazon as a company is a smart company that has continued to lead in numerous fronts including the sales of eBooks.

To sell an eBook on amazon kindle is arguably the best place given its huge number of customer base worldwide.

Your only problem is to have a great eBook with amazing title and content.

To take advantage of this platform, simply create a free account on kindle direct publishing (kdp) and follow the process to get your book listed for millions of people to see.

Having a good review is a very important piece of data that encourages people to buy things online.

Because it tells potential customers that someone else has read the book and finds it amazing.

It is for the above reason that Amazon gives authors the opportunity to list their book for free for a couple of days so that people can get it for free, read it and then give their reviews.

If you get good ratings hopefully, it will go a long way in helping you sell the eBook faster.

Amazon has structured its payment system to 70% for eBooks between $2.99 – $9.99.

The Amazon KDP makes publishing of eBook very fast and also your eBook gets to appear on the Kindle worldwide store within 48hrs.

As an author you get up to 70% royalty on sales that are coming from the US, Canada and some order top reading countries.

When you publish your eBook on kindle, you get to set your own price and also keep control of your rights.

Also read: 7 Ways to Promote an eBook and Make Sales

Payhip

Payhip is a platform where you can set up an account for free and start selling eBooks online today.

The platform is very popular because it is easy to use and it allows customers to pay with their PayPal account or their cards.

More so, you don’t pay any up-front charges to list your eBook, but rather you will only be charged when you make a sale.

And the charge is just 5% transaction fee and of course the payment gateways like PayPal will also charge you processing fees.

However, if you don’t want to pay the 5% you could subscribe to their pay membership where you will be charged only 2% for Plus plan or nothing at all for Pro plan.

You will get paid immediately after a transaction has completed.

It makes economic sense to subscribe to the plan, especially if you know that you are going to be making a lot of sales, because the initial 5% can add up very quickly.

E – Junkie

E-junkie is a very popular platform not just for selling eBooks online but also for a lot of other digital products.

With e-junkie you can easily sell from anywhere be it your own website, blog (it also has a WordPress plugin) or even on the E-Junkie market place.

You could also use purchase links to sell from social media, email, messenger, WhatsApp and other, it is really very easy.

It also has a feature where it can stamp the buyers name, email or transaction ID on the downloads to discourage them from distributing it

On e-junkie you can also set up an affiliate process so that your clients can refer your eBook to others and get a commission for it.

You can set up e-junkie today for free with a 30 days trial and decide on which plan to subscribe to later, the pricing ranges from $5 to $40 with different capabilities.

Gumroad

Gumroad is a popular platform for creators like you who wants to selling eBooks online or even other digital products.

Gumroad accepts different types of credit card and you get paid into your bank account or through PayPal.

An important feature of Gumroad is the ability for you to get discovered by people without you even trying to actively sell to them (although this feature comes with extra charge, but it can be rewarding)

You can literally get started for free and just get charged after making a sale, and there is no limit to the number of things that you can sell.

Gumroad’s unique selling proposition is; Free to get started and pay less as you grow.

SendOwl

SendOwl is a simple and efficient platform for selling eBooks online, because it offers a variety of payment options even Apple pay and bitcoin through BitPay.

Also read: Top 7 Platforms to Buy Cryptocurrency From Easily

Sendowl has four different subscription plans from $9 with just 10 products, limited features and 1g storage to upto $39 with 250 products, 15g storage and multiple users.

However, you can set up an account today for free with a 30 day trial.

With Sendowl you can do self hosting, with this feature all you need to do is to enter a url where the product is stored rather than uploading the file to Sendowl. 

In this case, Sendowl will handle the payment side and point the buyer to your file anywhere you choose to host it.

In order words, users can easily make use of Sendowl on their  existing website or blog via SendOwl’s payment links, integrations with Stripe and Shopify, or by using SendOwl’s API.

Blurb

Blurb has many tools that makes the process of self-publishing very easy and fun.

The book-making tools available for its users includes: BookWright, BookSmart, PDF uploader, iOS app and may plugins.

Some of the plugins like Adobe InDesign and Lightroom, with this plugin you can design and upload your files from the Adobe App directly to Blurb to create your eBook.

As an author you will be able to set your own price for which you want to sell your book or eBook on the Blurb online bookstore.

Blurbs allows the authors to keep 100% of their markup with printed books and 80% of the selling cost for eBooks.

And you will also have access to various marketing tool on Blurb for sharing and promoting your eBook for free.

With the partnership that Blurb has with amazon, Books designed on Blurb can be distributed and sold on Amazon.

A partnership that brought over 2 million authors from Blurb to Amazon and over 8 million books.

While blurb gets a discount from 45% to 15% for distributing and taking advantage of amazon’s robust structure and global reach.

More so, because of the need to keep book prices low, you can not price your Blurb eBook above $39.99,

However, if you wish to do so, then you will have to setup your own store using platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce and the likes and then sell directly to customers.

Tradebit

Tradebit is big marketplace for digital products. Anyone who is looking to start selling eBooks online or even other digital items like photos can also take advantage of the platform.

Tradebit is very similar to Payhip as it lets you create a sales page and then helps you sell your eBooks (or any other downloadable material).

You can also easily setup an affiliate program on the website, set custom prices, take advantage of social media integration and also sell tour eBooks on popular markets such as eBay.

Barnes and Nobles Press

Barnes and nobles as we know it has one of the biggest bricks and mortar bookstores in the world.

Now that they have transitioned online and acquired Nook Press, they are also a big force to reckon with when it comes to selling eBooks online book.

The company now provides free, fast and easy-to-use self-publishing services, where you can publish and sell either your eBook or prints directly to the millions of readers on its platform.

If you want to self-publish and sell your eBooks online, Barnes and Nobles is one of the platforms you should consider checking out.

Either as a new author or a seasoned author they have the tools that you require to create a masterpiece.

The robust structure of Barnes and Noble press really makes it easy to publish not just an eBook but also a print format of your book if you so choose.

If you want to learn and get more insight on any help that you may be needing about the press you should check out their website.

Lulu

Lulu is an easy to use eBook publishing and sales website, the company provides a free print on demand services for authors.

Also read: How to Start a Successful Print on Demand Business

If you are looking to publish your eBook and you don’t want to worry about all the backend stuff and sales process, then you should look to Lulu.

However, because they offer a free print on demand service, they do not pay publishers any upfront/advance fees like many traditional publishing firms do.

Rather they pay authors based on their actual book sales. This method makes the barrier for entry for any new author very low.

Lulu makes sure to also ask for authors’ payee, where their earnings/royalties will be paid when the sales start coming in from their published work.

An ISBN that is owned by Lulu is usually assigned to any creator’s work that is distributed through the Lulu network.

This automatically makes the Lulu the publisher of record and thus all the earnings are considered as royalties for the eBook or print.

Kobo Writing Life

Kobo is a platform that believes in stories and that words enhance our lives and that is why it is empowering authors who join the platform to reach millions of readers around the globe.

Kobo Writing Life (KWL) is Kobo’s free self-publishing eBook distribution channel that has a global reach of over 200 countries.

The platform allows authors to create, edit and publish their work with ease on Kobo.

The global reach of the Kobo Writing Life is rivalling that of Amazon and it also has its own e-reader and reading devices just like the Amazon Kindle fire.

Kobo has also now partnered with American Booksellers Association, and this now makes it possible for indie bookstores to sell eBooks on Kobo and further on increasing the reach of the platform.

If you already have your manuscript and looking for where to publish and sell your eBook, you should try Kobo.

All you have to do is to upload your manuscript and convert it into ePub format and easily publish it to the millions of global audiences already using the platform.

Kobo Writing Life offers a 70% royalty payment to authors on eBooks priced from $2.99 and above, while any book below that rate gets 45% royalty payment.

As an author, once you reach the threshold of $50, you will get your payment wired in your local currency through direct deposit after 45 days.

Smashwords

Smashwords is a platform that is designed to make it easy for eBook publishing and distribution for small and independent publishers and also distributes eBook to the largest retailers and mobile apps.

It can distribute your eBooks to most of the major book retailers like Apple Books, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Scribd and many more.

As a publisher on Smashwords, you get a co-branded publisher eBook store from which you can list an unlimited number of books from authors

One of the unique strategies of Smashwords is that it allows authors to give part of their book away as a sample to the readers.

This free sampling is meant to entice the readers into seeing a bit of what the book content is all about, before they decide to buy.

On the platform, authors and publishers earn 85% or more of the net proceeds from the sale of their eBooks, while about 70.5% goes to authors for affiliate sales.

Also read: 5 High Paying Affiliate Programs You Need to Join

However, they typically earn 60% for sales through other retailers and 45% when it is a Library sale.

Payloadz

Payloadz is a popular platform that is used to sell digital downloads.

The system is easy to and can be carried along with you to different other platforms like facebook, twitter, your own site and other places.

The system generates a code which you can then copy and paste as links or buttons.

PayLoadz accounts are designed to have a turn-key affiliate marketing system for managing your affiliate product promotions.

On the Payloadz platform, you have no product limits and can sell an unlimited number of products.

It also supports ebay auctions for your ebooks, with this you can take advantage of the huge customer base of eBay.

Payloadz’ many features make it a very interesting one for authors. Because unlike some other platforms you can export your information at any time and also all your customers’ emails are automatically sent to your mailing list on the mail service of your choice.

It has a discount system and provides various ways for buyers to be able to make payments easily. Sellers are reported to see a 1000% growth in sales for the six months using the service.

You can have a multi file product and also create a sample file for customers to preview before purchasing your book

Selz

Selz is more like many digital product fulfilment services, because it provides its users with all the tools required to make sales easy, handling payment, fulfilment and customer relations.

With the above taken care of, you as as author get to have more time writing your book and engaging with your customers (readers)

Selz, like many other ebook publishing platforms also has a way to help its authors protect their books through stamping and watermarking.

When an ebook is stamped with your name it will generally discourages people from anonymously 

Duplicating it, because the name will always be there.

You can also limit the amount of time a customer can download an ebook, to prevent spam downloads, when someone shares a download to others illegally.

Bookbaby

Bookbaby is a great place for independent authors, the platform makes it easy for you to be able to publish your ebook on all the latest eReading devices like Kindle, iPad, Nook, Kobo and others

The company is also able to help authors with book cover design, print on demand services, and eBook conversion.

If you are looking for a publisher that takes zero commissions on your net book sales from online retailers, then bookbaby should be your choice.

Bookbaby also has a partnership with Amazon, so you can be sure to enjoy the robust capability of Kindle publishing and the global distribution network reach of bookbaby at the same time.

Bookbaby is unique in the sense that it usually sends finished ePub formatting to the authors for review before final publishing.

More so, you get to retain 100% of your book rights and the payment cycle is every week as long as your earnings reach the required threshold.

Sellfy

Sellfy is a platform that is very popular in the ecommerce space and is used by many creators and artists to sell their products.

You can easily sell physical products, digital downloads, subscription and also print-on-demand merchandise online by opening a storefront on Sellfy.

Sellfy just like many other platforms for selling eBooks, provides sellers with a secure hosting for their eBook, automate the selling process and they also help protect products from piracy

Offering a digital subscription for your products is also a way to monetize on the Sellfy platform, this could be for weekly, monthly or annual basis.

Kajabi

Kajabi is a very popular platform for selling online courses, but it is also used for selling eBooks online.

The platform has a very wide reach globally and will surely make selling your eBook very easy and profitable.

However, to sell an eBook or any resource or service that does not use a Kajabi Product, you will need to create a Ghost Offer. 

Ghost Offer is an Offer without a Kajabi-created digital Product included.

Also, you will need to Create an Automation within your Offer to make sure your eBook is delivered promptly after purchase.