Independent publishing never stands still.

Amazon KDP remains central to the books published through billysbookclub, but I have always believed that it is worth keeping an eye on other ways of reaching readers.

Recently, I took a look at Etsy as a possible outlet for ebooks.

What I found surprised me.

Rather than a strong marketplace for individual independent books, much of the digital-book offering appeared to consist of enormous PLR and MRR packages containing hundreds or thousands of ebooks and other digital products.

There is clearly a market for that sort of material, but it does not feel like the right environment for Billy’s Book Club.

Our books are individual works.

Titles such as Lockerbie, Air India 182, Aberfan, The Herald of Free Enterprise, MV Derbyshire and Alexander L. Kielland have each been researched, written and published as books in their own right.

They are not simply files to be added to a giant digital bundle.

A More Interesting Alternative

My search has now led me to a platform called Written.

Written is specifically built around authors, ebooks and readers, which immediately makes it a more natural fit.

It allows independent writers to sell books directly and currently offers authors a favourable share of the selling price. It is also non-exclusive from Written’s side, which potentially allows authors to use it alongside other publishing channels.

That sounds promising.

However, there are still plenty of questions to answer.

How strong is its reader base?

How easy is it for readers to discover new authors?

How straightforward is the purchasing and reading experience?

How well does it work for UK authors?

And how does it fit alongside Amazon KDP Select and its exclusivity rules?

Those are all things I intend to investigate before making any decisions.

Testing Rather Than Rushing

If Written continues to look promising, the sensible approach will probably be to test it with one or two books first.

There is no reason to move an entire catalogue simply because another platform appears interesting.

A better approach is to experiment, measure what happens, and let the results decide.

Amazon will remain an important part of Stewart Independent Publishing Group.

But independent publishing is about independence.

That means continuing to explore new ways of putting good books in front of readers.

Written may turn out to be one of them.

I’ll report back here once I have had a proper look.

Bill Stewart

 Billy’s Book Club

 Books worth talking about.