Selling an ebook has never been easier — and choosing where to sell it has never been more confusing. Amazon promises reach, Gumroad promises simplicity, Etsy promises shoppers, and your own website promises to let you keep the money. They’re all telling the truth. They’re just answering different questions.
This guide compares every serious option with real per-sale math, then gives you the five-step plan we’d follow starting from zero. We build ebook stores for a living (and make the software that runs them), so we have a horse in this race — we’ll be explicit about where it is and isn’t the right horse.
Quick answer
- Want maximum reach? Amazon KDP — up to 70% royalty in the eligible price band, but you never get the reader’s email.
- Want to start in 10 minutes with no website? Gumroad or Payhip — free to start, they take a cut of every sale.
- Sell printable-adjacent content to browsers? Etsy digital downloads.
- Want to keep ~97% and own your audience? Your own website — best economics, small setup.
- The strategy most successful authors converge on: Amazon for discovery + your own site for margin and the mailing list. It’s not either/or.
What every option really costs (per $10 ebook)
| Where you sell | You keep (approx.) | On 100 sales/mo | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your own website | ~$9.40 (card fees only) | ~$940 | You bring the traffic |
| Amazon KDP (70% band) | ~$7.00 minus delivery fee | ~$690 | No customer emails; their rules |
| Amazon KDP (35% band) | ~$3.50 | ~$350 | Prices outside $2.99–$9.99 |
| Gumroad | ~$8.20 (10% + $0.50 + processing) | ~$820 | Fee never shrinks as you grow; 30% via their marketplace |
| Payhip (free plan) | ~$9.00ish [verify ~5% fee] | ~$900 | Paid tiers to remove the fee |
| Etsy | ~$8.70 [verify: $0.20 listing + 6.5% + processing] | ~$870 | Commodity pricing pressure, no buyer emails |
(Approximate, standard US card processing assumed. Verify current fees before relying on the numbers — every platform changes them.)
Two things jump out of that table. First, the gaps compound: at 100 sales/month, the difference between your own site and KDP’s 35% band is ~$7,000/year. Second, fees aren’t even the biggest difference — the customer relationship is. On your own site, every buyer is an email address you can launch the next book to. On Amazon and Etsy, they’re someone else’s customer forever.
Option 1: Your own website (best economics + ownership)
Selling from your own site means keeping roughly 97% of each sale (only card processing comes out), setting any price, bundling however you like, and building the mailing list that makes book two easier to sell than book one.
The old objection — “isn’t that technically hard?” — hasn’t survived modern tooling. On WordPress it’s one plugin: upload the PDF/EPUB, connect Stripe or PayPal, drop a buy button on a page, and buyers get an instant, secure, expiring download link. We wrote the full 15-minute walkthrough in how to sell ebooks on WordPress, using our own digital downloads plugin (free; Pro is $129 one-time — no monthly fee, which is the point of owning your store).
Honest downside: your site starts with zero shoppers. If you have no audience, no content and no plans to build either, a marketplace’s built-in traffic is worth its fees — for now.
Pick this if: you have (or are building) any audience at all — a blog, a newsletter, social following, a podcast. Even a small one out-earns marketplace browsing.
Option 2: Amazon KDP (best reach, worst ownership)
Amazon is where readers already are, and for fiction especially, it’s non-negotiable. The royalty structure: 70% for ebooks priced $2.99–$9.99 (minus a small per-MB delivery fee), 35% outside that band. You get Kindle placement, also-bought recommendations, and access to Kindle Unlimited via KDP Select — which requires ebook exclusivity while enrolled, meaning you can’t sell that ebook anywhere else, including your own site. Standard (non-Select) KDP has no such restriction.
The real cost isn’t the 30%. It’s that Amazon’s customers stay Amazon’s: no email addresses, no retargeting, no direct launch channel for your next book. And their pricing rules effectively cap nonfiction at $9.99 for the good royalty — painful when specialized guides comfortably sell for $29–$49 direct.
Pick this if: reach matters more than margin for this title — and skip Select unless the Kindle Unlimited page-reads genuinely outweigh direct sales for your genre.
Option 3: Gumroad & Payhip (fastest start, rented ground)
The creator platforms are the ten-minute route: account, upload, share a link. Gumroad charges 10% + $0.50 per direct sale (a flat 30% if the buyer finds you via their Discover marketplace), plus card processing — call it ~13%+ effective on direct sales. Since 2025 Gumroad also acts as Merchant of Record, handling global VAT/sales tax for you, which is its genuinely strongest argument. Payhip runs a friendlier ladder: free plan with a per-sale fee (~5% [verify]) up to paid monthly plans that remove it.
The catch is structural: the percentage never shrinks. At $500/month in sales, Gumroad’s cut is pocket change; at $5,000/month it’s ~$650+ every month — while a self-hosted store’s software cost is fixed (or one-time). Platforms also change terms under you: fees, payout thresholds, moderation policies.
Pick this if: you’re validating your first ebook and want zero setup. Plan the graduation to your own store into the decision — it’s an afternoon’s migration, and your buyers come with you (you have their emails on these platforms, unlike Amazon).
Option 4: Etsy (for browse-and-buy digital goods)
Etsy’s digital downloads section has real buyer traffic, and for certain ebook-shaped products — planners, workbooks, printable guides, niche how-tos — shoppers are already searching there. Fees per sale: $0.20 listing + 6.5% transaction + payment processing [verify current rates], landing in the ~13% effective range.
The catch: Etsy’s browsing culture pushes prices toward the $3–$15 commodity band, reviews rule visibility, and — as with Amazon — the customer relationship belongs to the marketplace.
Pick this if: your ebook looks like something people browse for rather than search for, and you treat it as a discovery channel feeding your own store (your Etsy listings and product files can point buyers to your website for the full catalog — within Etsy’s linking rules).
The five-step plan we’d actually follow
- Set up your own store first, even if it’s day one. One plugin, one sales page, one buy button — the walkthrough is in our WordPress guide. This is the asset everything else feeds.
- Publish to Amazon KDP (standard, not Select) for the search traffic and credibility. Price inside the 70% band there if you can.
- Point every channel home. Back matter of the Amazon edition, Etsy listings, social bios: all lead to your site — where the deluxe bundle, the next book and the mailing list signup live.
- Trade a free chapter for emails. The lead magnet + email list combination outsells every algorithm you’ll ever chase, and it’s the one asset no platform can take away.
- Raise prices on your own turf. Sell the $9.99 edition on Amazon and the $29 bundle (book + worksheets + templates) direct. Same book, two markets, no conflict.
FAQ
Where is the best place to sell ebooks? For margin and audience ownership, your own website (~97% kept per sale). For reach, Amazon KDP. Most successful authors do both: Amazon for discovery, their own site for profit and the mailing list.
How do I sell ebooks without a website? Gumroad or Payhip: create an account, upload the file, share your link. Expect ~5–13% in platform fees on top of card processing, and plan to graduate to your own store once sales are consistent.
How much money can you make selling ebooks? The honest range is enormous — from nothing to six figures — and the variable is audience, not the book. Concretely: 100 sales/month of a $10 ebook nets ~$940 direct vs ~$350–$690 on Amazon; specialized nonfiction sold direct at $29–$49 changes the math entirely.
Do I need to write the ebook before choosing where to sell? No — and deciding early helps. Selling direct frees you from Amazon’s $9.99 ceiling, which changes what kind of book is worth writing (short, specific, expensive beats long, general, cheap).
Can I sell the same ebook on my website and Amazon? Yes, unless you enroll that title in KDP Select, which requires ebook exclusivity while active. Standard KDP publishing allows selling everywhere simultaneously.
How do buyers get the ebook from my own website? Instantly and automatically: the moment payment clears, a secure expiring download link is emailed, with re-download access from their account. That’s the plugin’s job — here’s how it works.
