How to Sell Ebooks Online: Your Own Store vs Amazon and Etsy

You've written the book. Now you need somewhere to sell it, a price, and a way for readers to get it the moment they pay. There are three common places to sell an ebook online, and they suit different authors.

Option 1: Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)

KDP puts your book in the Kindle store, where readers already shop. You choose a 35% or 70% royalty. To get 70% on Amazon.com, the list price has to sit inside a set band ($2.99 to $12.99 since July 2026, according to Vappingo's September 2026 explainer), and a small delivery cost is taken based on file size. Readers read the book in the Kindle app, and you don't get their email addresses.

Option 2: Etsy

Etsy is a good fit for ebooks that look like products: workbooks, planners, recipe books, printable guides. You pay $0.20 per listing, a 6.5% transaction fee and payment processing (3% + $0.25 in the US), per Checkout Page's July 2026 breakdown. Etsy's search can bring buyers who've never heard of you, but you're competing with every other listing on the same page.

Option 3: Your own store

If you already have followers, an email list or a YouTube channel, your own store is usually the best margin. You set the price, sell the PDF as it is (with your layout intact), add bonus files, run launch discounts and keep every reader's email so you can tell them about the next book. You pay the payment provider's fee, and on Insidemetics a flat plan with 0% taken from your sales.

How to prepare your ebook file

• Export a PDF from Google Docs, Word, Canva or Pages. PDF keeps your layout exactly and opens on every device.
• Add a clickable table of contents, page numbers and your store link on the last page.
• Keep the file small enough to download on a phone: compress large images before exporting.
• Design a cover that reads at thumbnail size. Most buyers see it first on a phone.

How to price an ebook

Price by what the book does for the reader. A practical guide that saves time or money (a meal plan, a job-search playbook, a Notion setup) can sell for much more than a novel of the same length. A common approach is a lower launch price for the first week, shown against the regular price, then raising it once reviews come in. Bundle the book with a workbook or templates to create a higher-priced option.

How to launch it

1. Give away a free chapter in exchange for an email, a few weeks before launch.
2. Post the problem the book solves, with real examples from inside it.
3. Email your list on launch day with the launch price and when it ends.
4. Reply to every comment asking for the link, or automate it with a comment-to-DM tool.
5. Ask your first readers for honest feedback and use their words in your description.