There’s a lot of choices with publishing, and for me the best combination of platforms for writing and publishing are those that provide the lowest prices, the highest profits, and most convenience. I have a website to sell books that can’t be sold anywhere else (because I’ll get banned), to sell my boutique items, to sell eBooks without Digital Rights Management (DRM), and to collect subscribers for the newsletter. This information is current as of June 20, 2026.
Self-Publishing Platforms:
Amazon KDP: I use Amazon KDP for hardcover, paperback, and ebooks that are sold and handled by Amazon. They do paper books for the best price/profit, and they have a massive amount of ebook buyers. Do not turn on expanded distribution though. Also, I don’t use Amazon KDPs Unlimited program because that means I can’t use D2D (they want exclusivity) and it seems to be a pipeline to pirates. Turn on Digital Rights Management (DRM) too. I don’t recommend buying physical proof copies because KDP has been known to “accidentally” mail out additional proofs that they printed to buyers (who then complain about the weird covers and hold it against the writer).
Draft2Digital (D2D): Use Draft2Digital for ebook distribution to non-Amazon markets, because they get into markets that Amazon cannot get into, and their ebooks price/profits are the best. I only offer books without DRM direct from my website, so I also do not use Kobo, Google Play, Bookshop, Everand, or Smashwords on Draft2Digital.
Kobo: Publish ebook directly, not through D2D and turn on DRM.
Google Play: Publish ebook directly, not through D2D and turn on DRM.
IngramSpark.com: I will eventually use IngramSpark.com for nicer, higher priced boutique-quality books that are sold from my website for collectors. Amazon KDP and D2D paper books are cheaper, but not nearly as nice as these.
For writing: I write a story in a docx (and I use Google Docs for free convenience, but I’m considering Scrivener because they let you see and fix the code in your document). I have my Google Docs document size set to 5.5″ wide x 8.5″ high. I like Google Doc’s app and version history feature. I don’t like that they could close my account without warning, so I back it up. I also don’t like that there’s no mirrored margin feature, and the worst is that they don’t show the code that kept putting random paragraphs into weird formats no matter what I did to fix it.
For ebooks: I convert the docx (with Google’s Table of Contents, and my copyright pages) into an epub in Calibre. (Calibre also lets you fix the code in the view option, which is important if something is just not working right!) I use a cover image that is 1000 pixels wide for the cover, and upload that in Calibre too. If I didn’t use Calibre to make ebooks, then I would use the build-in converter on Draft2Digital. The only thing bothersome there is that they don’t indent the first sentence of a chapter, and everything is single spaced. There’s work arounds, but they’re fussy and time consuming. Amazon’s KDP has an ebook converter too.
For paperback/hardcover books: I upload the docx right into Draft2Digital, and have them make the Table of Contents, set the book at 8″ high x 5″ wide, then download the pdf. That pdf is what I upload to Amazon’s KDP for my paperback/hardcover books that they sell in the 8.5″ high x 5.5″ wide size. My books are thin, so I don’t use a title on the spine of Amazon’s paperbacks because I just know they’re going to mess it up anyway.
The pain: It’s not a perfect system, because I end up with two master documents for every books – the ebook version and the paperback/hardcover version, so edits have to be done in both. Also, if there’s ever a problem, it’s going to be the paperback/hardcover books – they’ll be ruined, undelivered, bent, and it’s much harder to prepare the paper versions of books. It takes forever to line up the margins right, and you endup having to read the code to really find the problems. However, paper books are special enough to make it all worth it.