Learn how to monetize your ebook with the available ebook formats.

In case you are planning on monetizing your ebook, it's important to know your options, as this will influence which ebook formats you need to export to. Here are the different options you have.

Selling on Online Ebook Stores

Online ebook stores such as Apple Books (formerly iBooks store), Amazon, or Kobo all accept standard ebook formats (EPUB, MOBI, etc). These online ebook stores provide great exposure to your ebook, but at a cost. There isn't a starting cost as most allow you to upload your ebook for free. But once sales are made, they can take up to 40% of your placed price (depending on the store).  Note that users purchasing your ebook will be using either a reader belonging to the store (Kobo Reader, Kindle, etc) or a reader of their choice. Therefore, any customization you apply on your ebook through Kotobee Author, won't take any effect. Read: Export Standard Formats.

Selling as Apps on Mobile App Stores

You can sell your ebook as a mobile ebook app on both Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Since you'll be uploading an ebook app, an ebook reader will be included inside the app, and your ebook customization will take effect (e.g. startup screen, interface colors, etc). Both stores have a fee for joining: Apple charges an annual fee of $100, and Google charges a one-time payment of $25. Furthermore, both stores take a 30% share of your revenue. For more information on the steps required for publishing to both stores:

Export an Android App to the Google Play Store

Export an iOS App to the App Store

Selling Through Your Wordpress Site

If you have a Wordpress site installed and running, you may use our Kotobee Wordpress Plugin to collect payments using WooCommerce or Memberful, and provide ebook access to paid users. This model is different than the latter, since you are controlling user access yourself. This is why a cloud ebook (or library) is needed in this model, since they are the only solutions providing user access control. 

The workflow is simple. You will export your ebook to one or more ebook app formats (e.g. mobile app, web app, desktop app) while syncing it to a cloud ebook (to maintain user access control). Then you'll install the Kotobee Wordpress Plugin in your wordpress site, then follow the instructions provided by the plugin to link the products listed in your website, with the actual cloud ebook or library ebooks.

The main advantages of this model is branding the entire workflow with your name, and also keeping the entire sale to yourself without giving a commission to any third party. For more information on selling using cloud ebooks, please read: Selling Your Ebooks Using Cloud Ebooks.

Selling Through an External System or Website

If you have a non-Wordpress site (or any external system) that you'd like to sell from, you may use our Developer API to remotely provide access to paid users, or even manually manage adding users through Kotobee Author. You will still need a cloud ebook (or library) to provide user access control. Similar to the latter, the main advantages of this model is branding the entire workflow with your name, and also keeping the entire sale to yourself without giving a commission to any third party. For more information on selling using cloud ebooks, please read: Selling Your Ebooks Using Cloud Ebooks.

Selling Desktop Ebook Apps

If you want to go the old fashioned way and sell ebooks as offline standalone applications (self-executable EXE) this is also an option. If you have a Wordpress site, you can manage payments for downloadable files using Memberful. Of course the great risk is that the ebook app can be make into countless copies and distributed (or even worse, sold) to hundreds of other users.