Unpublish and Republish Elsewhere?
Seeking advice...
For those of you who have self-published via Amazon KDP and then unpublished to republish your books with an aggregator, such as PublishDrive, was it worth the effort?
Upon publishing first my novel and then my collection of short stories as ebooks and paperbacks last year, I tried various marketing strategies through Amazon and other venues, none of which resulted with a noticeable increase in sales. Announcing the publications on Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, and here on Substack also was disappointing. I’m especially interested in achieving better distribution across the board, not only with online sales but also with brick and mortar bookshops, especially indie bookshops.
I’ve already checked out most recommended aggregators and the pros and cons of each, but am interested hearing from some of you here on Substack. I look forward to your reading about your experiences and feedback. Thank you.
I had the attention of an agent who told me that between self-pub and agent-pub, re: value, it's sort of a toss-up. The former can publish quickly; the latter can take two years. But either way, the author does the marketing. Since my goal was to teach 100w workshops, I went with #1 (kdp) and within three months, my simple goal was happening. This week, I am listing the book on IngramSpark because of general (and especially, bookstore) resistance to buying through Amazon.
You need money honey and an agent you can trust. Because money makes books sail upstream, maybe you can mortgage your property…. Just joking.