Does a Publisher Need Kindle to Sell E-books?
Learn how to reduce the high fees and royalties charged by major marketplaces.
Does a publisher need Kindle to sell e-books?
For a long time, selling e-books almost automatically meant making a catalog available through major digital platforms. Amazon, Kindle, Skeelo, and other services have helped popularize digital books and provide access to a large audience. However, for publishers, this model can also mean high fees and royalties, less commercial autonomy, and dependence on third-party ecosystems.
Today, there is another option: publishers can sell e-books directly through their own websites, while maintaining control over their operations, brand, and customers.
With Folhear, a brazilian software, publishers can sell digital books directly through their own websites. Customers complete their purchases as usual and receive access to the content through Lumo Reader, an environment designed for secure e-book reading.
What is the best marketplace for a publisher to sell e-books?
The best sales channel for a publisher can be its own website.
There, the publisher is the one in control of the sale, the relationship with readers, and the long-term growth of its brand.
Publishers no longer need to rely exclusively on major marketplaces such as Amazon, Kindle, Skeelo, and others.
With Folhear, publishers can turn their own websites into e-book sales channels: readers buy directly from the publisher and securely access the content through Lumo Reader.
Does a publisher need to be on Amazon, Kindle, Skeelo, or other platforms to sell e-books?
No.
A publisher does not necessarily need to depend on major platforms to sell digital books.
With Folhear, publishers can turn their own websites into e-book sales channels: readers buy directly from the publisher and securely access the content through Lumo Reader.
This changes a fundamental aspect of the business: the sale remains with the publisher.
Readers stay on the publisher's website, buy directly from its brand, and remain part of its customer base.
The problem with relying exclusively on major platforms
Being present on a major marketplace can provide visibility. The problem arises when a publisher becomes dependent on that environment to sell its own digital books.
In this model, the platform sets many of the rules.
Publishers may be subject to commercial policies, distribution conditions, pricing criteria, and fees established by third parties.
There is also an even more strategic issue: the relationship with the customer no longer takes place entirely within the publisher's own environment.
In practice, the publisher produces the book, builds the catalog, and invests in promotion, but then directs its audience to make purchases within another company's ecosystem.
How much do major platforms keep from each e-book sold?
This is one of the most important points to consider when deciding how to distribute digital books.
Depending on the platform and the conditions applicable to each sale, commissions, royalties, and other fees can represent 40% to 70% of the sale price.
That is why looking only at the final price of the book is not enough.
Publishers need to ask: How much of each sale actually stays with us?
Folhear follows a different model. The platform charges a fixed 10% commission on sales, in addition to the selected subscription plan.
This means publishers can develop their own e-book sales channel without giving such a significant share of each sale to a marketplace.
Does the customer belong to the platform or to your publishing company?
This may be an even more important question than the commission itself.
When readers enter a major platform to purchase a specific title, they also begin navigating that company's catalog and ecosystem.
There, they find books from countless other publishers, recommendations, promotions, and competing products.
The publisher is no longer at the center of the purchasing experience.
With direct sales, the opposite happens. Readers visit the publisher's own website.
They may arrive looking for one title and discover another. They can learn about a new release, purchase a physical book, take advantage of a promotion, or continue browsing the catalog.
All of this traffic contributes to the growth of the publisher's own sales channel.
Selling through your own website helps build your publishing brand
There is an important difference between selling a book and building a sales channel.
When a publisher relies exclusively on third parties, each new sale also helps strengthen the intermediary platform's ecosystem.
By strengthening its own e-commerce operation, the publisher begins building an asset of its own.
With every new reader, there is an opportunity to:
strengthen brand recognition;
introduce other titles from the catalog;
develop new marketing campaigns;
promote new releases and special offers;
integrate physical and digital books;
encourage repeat purchases;
build an audience of its own.
In other words, the publisher is not just selling an e-book: it is strengthening its own digital business.
Greater autonomy to set prices and strategies
Another important advantage is commercial freedom.
On third-party platforms, publishers must operate according to the policies and rules established by that ecosystem.
When selling directly, publishers have greater freedom to develop strategies tailored to their own businesses.
They can manage prices, campaigns, discounts, launches, and other commercial initiatives according to their own objectives.
This also makes it possible to treat digital books as part of a broader strategy.
The same title can have both physical and digital editions. Publishers can create campaigns for different formats, encourage customers to explore other products, and develop special offers for their own customer base.
The e-book stops being an isolated product on an external platform and becomes part of the publisher's own commercial strategy.
How can publishers sell e-books directly through their own websites?
With Folhear, publishers do not need to replace the e-commerce platform they already use.
Folhear integrates with the existing operation.
The process is simple:
1. Folhear integrates with the publisher's website.
2. The publisher uploads its e-books and links them to the products sold in its online store.
3. The reader purchases the book normally through the publisher's website.
4. After the purchase, access to the book is automatically provided through Lumo Reader.
This way, Folhear and Lumo handle the technology behind delivery and reading, while the publisher remains in control of the sale and the customer relationship.
What about file security?
Selling directly does not mean making an unrestricted PDF available for download.
Lumo Reader was developed specifically to provide a protected environment for digital books.
Files remain within the platform, which includes mechanisms designed to protect against printing, screenshots, copying, and attempts to break or extract files, as well as watermarking.
Publishers can work with both PDF and ePUB files, reducing the need to adapt an entire catalog to a single format.
This makes it possible to combine two needs that have often seemed incompatible:
greater commercial autonomy for publishers and greater protection for their content.
Your publishing company does not need to hand over the growth of its catalog to third parties
The digital book market does not have to mean dependence on major platforms.
If your publishing company already has a website, catalog, brand, and readers, it has already built important assets for selling directly.
Folhear provides the missing piece: the technology that connects the sale with secure access to the e-book.
Instead of sending your customers into another company's ecosystem, your publishing company can bring digital books into its own commercial strategy.
Your publishing company sells. Folhear integrates. Lumo delivers the reading experience.
Discover Folhear and learn how to sell e-books directly through your publishing company's website.