How To Publish An eBook In South Africa

Below is How To Publish An eBook In South Africa

Choosing an eBook Distributor

You can find eBook distributors in South Africa, such as Little White Bakkie, eReads South Africa, and Publisher.co.za, but a wider audience can be reached by using the international sites listed below, which allow you to publish and distribute your eBooks. If you have decided against hiring a professional eBook formatter, remember when choosing an eBook distributor to look at what options they offer to help you professionally format your eBook.

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing: with all the advantages of a big company, KDP now allows an author to directly convert to MOBI, the Amazon-only file format. There are also informative and useful KDP forums and communities, with people willing to help a newbie along at no cost.  Royalties are fair and regularly paid, although only by cheque if you do not have a USA bank account.  


Smashwords: Have their own free formatter, and distribute to those international sites that don’t allow international authors, such as Barnes and Noble Nook, Apple’s iBooks, and Kobo.

But the Smashwords “meatgrinder” is difficult, although the site does offer the facility to do special promotions and offer free book coupons.

Draft2Digital: Similar to Smashwords, but much easier to use. Also distribute to Nook, Apple, and Kobo, and currently seeking distribution agreements with other major online eBook retailers.  You can upload an already formatted ePub file, or you can use their free conversion tool for simply formatted books.

XinXii: Calling themselves “Europe’s leading indie eBook publishing and distribution platform”, XinXii offers distribution to the usual US websites but also to a large number of European and other online bookstores. They also offer coupon codes for free review copies.

PublishGreen: Offering eBook publishing and/or eBook distribution, they convert PDFs to EPUBs and offer book cover design, editing, and marketing packages.

If you look in the sidebar, they also offer a download called The Basics of eBook Publishing.  

There are upfront costs involved, so review your PublishGreen choices carefully

There are also Google Books, Scribd, BookBaby, and many others available. Choose the eBook publisher that is right for you.
Once you’ve chosen your distributor you’ll have to follow specific steps to load your book into their catalog. Each publisher/distributor has easy-to-follow guidelines dealing with (order may differ per site):

Creating an author/publisher profile.     

Adding your book details (such as the book blurb, ISBN, and publisher imprint)c.      

Uploading/converting your book content.     

Uploading your book’s covered.     

Choosing a category for your book (eg crime fiction)f.       

Previewing the finished product.     

Setting pricing.     

Choosing distribution channels.        

Going “live” on sales channels

Marketing your Book

Industry experts say that being a published author consists of 15% writing and publishing and 85% marketing.  Developing a marketing strategy is vital, even if that strategy consists of keeping marketing to a minimum. 

Ultimately, all the marketing in the world won’t sell your book if it’s not something that the readers want to read.  Your number one marketing strategy must be to write your books. After that, you can decide which of the many online marketing tools to use. Here are a few to get you started:

Book Trailer

Social Media

Online Book Club

Book Blog Tours

Guest Blog Posts

Offer Free Samples

What is the best way to publish an eBook?

Write your eBook.

Create an Amazon KDP account.

Format your eBook for publishing.

Add your eBook details.

Choose keywords & categories.

Select an eBook publishing date.

Upload your eBook files.

Publish your eBook.