Great post and overview of possibilities to UPLOAD your files to RETAILERS or AGGREGATORS.

However, this is NOT self-publishing, this is distributing your manuscript!

None of these companies named are publishers! They are service providers, and nothing else.

Words like publishing and self-publishing are constantly mixed up.

Nichts fuer ungut … wie man so sagt.

Hab einen schoenen Tag und Gruss in die Schweiz,

Doris

I completely agree – I have a friend who said he spent forever getting his book into the correct format for Smashwords, but I have no idea how he managed to take so long. In my experience it’s a case of setting the font size, setting the line spacing, setting the first line indents, setting the margins and adding some boilerplate front text (all using the settings conveniently provided in the Style Guide)…that’s essentially it. It takes me no time at all. And like you, I do it for Smashwords and then use that file for KDP.

I always find it amusing Niki, when I see comments from self publishing authors that say getting a file approved on Smashwords is too difficult. It only requires a basic understanding of Word styles, and five minutes reading to understand for those unfamiliar with it. As you say, Smashwords produces ebook files that are near enough to perfect and then work in nine different ebook file types.

All I can say is that for those authors who find Smashwords too difficult, perhaps they need to learn a little more about ebook self publishing. While Kindle will accept almost anything in a Word file, the results can be awful, with font and formatting errors that drive readers crazy.

My habit now is to get my ebooks approved on Smashwords first, and then publish to KDP. That way I know my ebook will be perfect on all platforms.