Someone asked me a question about getting their work out there, and I realized my reply might help others. So copy and paste time!
Most of my stuff is with IngramSpark. They’ve got the largest distribution out there, being tied to the big guys. They also have promotions once in a while that lets you get books into their system for free. (Otherwise it can cost $25 to $50 depending on what you’re doing.)
Best part about them is if I want to republish a public domain book I can with them.
Ingramspark gets things first. Always. When Createspace was around, I used to go to them first but they used their formatting system to discriminate against one of my comic books. That’s when I went to Ingramspark, and I’ve never looked back.
If that thing is a comic, Drivethrucomix gets it second. I’ve also been experimenting with putting things into Drivethrufiction lately, as they split royalties and I have a small publishing company with a couple of authors.
If the book is not public domain I have to go to kdp Amazon third because Ingramspark is supposed to distribute to amazon and they do when it comes to print, but when it comes to ebooks I’ve noticed they don’t. This is probably because I have an account with kdp. It’s convoluted.
If the book is not public domain I then go to Smashwords, because they have a wide distribution as well. But in my control panel I will uncheck all of the outlets that Ingramspark covers so there’s no overlap.
I have two accounts with Amazon with their seller and advantage programs. Advantage doesn’t cost me anything aside from postage thankfully. I do better with Advantage if the book is a new release. But you have to be prepared to send them a large amount of books when you get it into the system. This doesn’t always happen but one time they wanted books from me and I couldn’t provide because we were having a hard time. I’m currently trying to figure out how to advertise my books so I can make more with Advantage.
Also beware intellectual theft. I have one book out, A Fairytale Book of Foxes, that some jackass put into his advantage system so he’s the one that has the rights to sell my book through their program. Amazon refuses to do anything about it. Of course, when he sends them a book he has to order one so I still get money from it. it’s just annoying. The way to avoid this is to get your books registered into the account as soon as possible.
Sellercentral is another way to get your books into the system. I think it does offer advertising.
There might be another small outlet I use out there. I used to have a very long list, but these are the main aggregators. To get your book out there, you really have to get it out there.
For website, I used to host an online shop. It was such a bother. I have never ever sold a single book through the online shop, or anything else I had for sale. I mean, I do have websites for the comics because they’re free to read online as they update. And of course I’ve a main website for the publishing venture which also houses my blog. But for the store I ended up going to Alibris and pointing my domain name towards it. So you can type in our store address, http://www.woksprint.com, and be taken to Alibris.