Does the idea of earning mere pennies from each sale of your books leave you cold? When you rely upon traditional publishing models, editors and literary agents to sell your work, this is almost certainly what you’ll experience. To add insult to injury, you may also be expected to surrender much of the creative control over your own work, along with reprinting rights in perpetuity. For many aspiring authors, sacrificing control and revenue for the mere potential for popularity is simply unacceptable.

Direct publishing through mass eBook retailers is the solution to this dilemma, right? Well, not so fast. The most lucrative plans offered through proprietary eReader marketplaces also require you to sacrifice control over your pricing while preventing you from selling your work through any other avenues. This means your only available audience are owners of one particular device, and you’ll collect a percentage of the price chosen for you by the retail giant. When you’re facing two equally unpalatable options, the solution is often to strike out on your own. Fortunately, this is easier, less expensive and more attainable than you might realize.

Sell Your Books: Publish Digital Content Independently

You want to keep all of your earnings, investing them back into your business how you see fit. You want to reach the widest possible audience while limiting constraints on your creativity, your pricing or your availability. The single most effective way of reaching all these goals is to run and maintain your own digital imprint. You can write books, publish them yourself in eBook format with minimal upfront investment, and sell them to audiences across the globe.

Not so long ago, self-publishing required a tremendous amount of resources and funding. Independent authors financed print runs out of pocket, hoping to recoup their investment. Today, your own digital publishing imprint is much more attainable. You can get started on a tiny budget, taking advantage of eCommerce platforms designed for independent merchants. Rather than investing hundreds or even thousands into a professionally built website complete with online sales tools, for instance, you can turn a free blog site or an inexpensive template site you put together yourself into a sales hub.

High quality eCommerce systems like PayLoadz.com integrate payment processing systems your customers already know and trust, like PayPal and Google Wallet, into an easy and intuitive set of tools. Files are hosted securely, and automatically delivered to your customers immediately upon completion of a transaction. There’s no chance of missing a sales alert and delaying delivery when order fulfillment is totally automated. You can even take advantage of marketing tools for which you pay absolutely nothing up front, like affiliate networks.

How Affiliate Marketing Helps You Sell Books

When you invest in banner ads or sponsored social media posts, you’re essentially paying for the potential to sell eBooks. Those ads must be paid for in advance, and they’ll cost the same amount, whether they generate thousands of leads or none at all.

Affiliate networking allows you to pay for marketing only when it works, by connecting you with professionals who work to promote your books in exchange for a small share of the profits. You write books, publish them digitally and partner with affiliates. They help you to expand your marketing reach and build a strong reader base, by collecting a commission on only the sales they generate directly. In the end, you’re keeping more of your money and more of your independence.

Take control of your brand as an author. Start your own digital publishing house today.