My e-book, Justice, is nearing the final part of the proofreading stage. At this time, I'm undecided on which platform to use as the primary one. Both are good.
All of the ebooks on my backlist are primarily on Amazon KDP. It's been my primary platform since 2012, when I published The Acts of 1. The key advantages of this platform are the free promotions as well as making books free via Kindle Unlimited. The only thing is you have to have your book exclusively on Amazon KDP in order to take advantage of the free promotions.
There's something to be said about the free promotions. Rickshaw, New Mexico is the only ebook I exclusively have on Amazon KDP. The last time I did a free promotion, the response was good. Rickshaw gets a couple of downloads per month on Kindle Unlimited and I get paid for the pages read.
So what's the downside? Why should I even consider Draft2Digital?
Though Rickshaw gets downloads on free promotions and through Kindle Unlimited, it hasn't led to sales of my other books. It reminds me of the Black Fridays I worked when I was a retail store manager. We would feature loss leaders that morning. Loss leaders are merchandise priced below cost. They're used to bring customers in and lead to additional sales of other merchandise. The reality of it was customers came in only for the loss leaders and had no interest in buying anything else.
That's the disadvantage of the free promotions. Rickshaw gets downloaded, but it has never led to sales of any of my other books. Enter Draft2Digital.
I recently signed up with them and uploaded The Curse, The Acts of 1, and The Hunted. Now they're available at more digital stores than I knew were around. I haven't done any real marketing yet, so it's too early to tell. The advantage is my books are available at several more digital stores.
When it comes to formatting, these two platforms aren't compatible. I downloaded an app for Microsoft called Kindle Create. It makes the formatting process easier during the writing process, but it's Draft2Digital doesn't recognize it. Hence, I had to use Draft2Digital's formatting to publish my books, but at least they're out there, but in different formats.
So what will it be? Which platform will I base Justice? Will it be Amazon KDP or Draft2Digital?
There's still time to decide.