Writing Life: Selling PDF Versons Of Your Books Online

When I write a book, I do things a bit differently if I'm going to self-publish vs. try to publish with a major publisher, and one thing I look at for self-publishing is how I'll be selling the book once it's done. Of course, there's print, and doing various mobile versions for Kindle, etc, but there's also PDF format, which has the advantage of being easily created from the final text book, because it's meant to create an exact replica of printed material.

Where Can You Sell PDF's?

Amazon used to sell PDF's but no longer supports authors/publishers in that format, which is unfortunate. So, that leaves only a limited number of options. While there are several companies where can sell your book in PDF, most are small, and a little questionable. That leaves three options:

• Sell it yourself via your own websites
• Use Scribd
• Use Docstoc

DocStoc A Disaster/Waste of Time

Your mileage may vary, but the claims of SEO benefits, exposure, etc don't seem to be accurate. The titles I've uploaded and gotten approved (see the next paragraph), have received something like 50 views over six weeks. That includes documents we've made available for free. No sales. But that's not the real problem. While I seem to recall they claim will "Approve" your submissions for sale within a few days, I've been waiting weeks and weeks for approval for my last few submissions. The same problem happened with my first set. I sent them an email asking them when they would be approved, and received no response. I sent another one stating that if they didn't approve my submissions by next day, I'd remove them. I still didn't get a response or acknowledgement in email, but the next day, at least I received approvals. What about user interface, costs, etc? Docstoc has much poorer reporting, often not in real time, and if you want to edit your submissions, you'll probably have to re-enter your doc. information. I know I accidentally lost mine twice, since the default is to erase all the information. Perhaps I was doing something wrong, but not an experience I want to repeat. Both companies take a healthy 20% of sale price, and there is a transaction fee for processing the sale (like 25 cents). Just noticed Docstoc seems to be offering a 60 day deal where you pay nothing, and receive 100% of sales. Hardly any point if it takes weeks or...well...never, to be approved. Not good enough. Period. While YOU may receive better treatment, I don't have time to wait and nag, particularly when there's another options, SCRIBD.

Scribd - A More Successful Process

About the same time we tried Docstoc we also started with Scribd, which doesn't have an approval process (this is both good and bad...) so first, uploads go live almost instantly. Second, the exposure is much greater. In the last 30 days, we've had over 2,100 reads, compared to Docstocs really pitiful 50 or so. Yes we have more available documents on Scribd, but that's mostly because we can't get the attention of Docstoc. Sales? We've made several with Scridb. Nothing earthshaking, of course, but it's still heartening, since we haven't promoted our books for that sales platform. In terms of email support, Scribd is better, but anything would be. I've received fast responses from them on questions, although I still have one unresolved question I've asked them about payment procedures I haven't yet received a response to.

Got Any Other Suggestions For Selling PDF's?

Feel free to add any other options for selling PDF's in the comment area. But clearly, there's no contest here. I plan on removing my Docstoc stuff, if only on principle. Link: Scribd.com