How to get your eBook out there

I talk a lot about the options for writing eBooks  There are plenty of new tools to help any writer create and edit eBooks  But what about distribution? It's something most of us don't think about, or if we do, sort of gloss over.

Enter PigeonLab. Here's their mission statement:

We help writers who don’t have the time or the desire to figure out distributing eBooks themselves.

We want to help you get your work out to the world.  By having your eBook distributed through PigeonLab your work will be available to millions of readers who will be able to purchase your eBook from a variety of eBook retailers.

What a great starting point. If you don't have time or just don't want to distribute your eBook  they will do it for you. Starting with the two most basic issues for most self-publishing authors- lack of time or desire.

They do the dirty work. What's the dirty work? All the formatting for specific devices. For example, Kindle requires .mobi files and Kobo requires .epub files. If you don't know what the terms .mobi, .epub, or even Kobo mean, then I recommend not trying to tackle eBook distribution yourself. Because from there it all gets even more complicated when you start having to deal with meta-data, formatting for different devices, flowable vs. reflowable text, etc.

I also like that PigeonLab does one thing: Distribute books. It's simple and effective. You wrote a book, got it formatted, and now you just want it to be available everywhere. They do it, and they do it at an affordable price:

$99 + 10 percent of net sales to distribute to all major eBook retailers. And if you don't have an ISBN, they'll give you one of those as well for free.

Have any of you out there had experience with eBook distribution, either doing it yourself or having someone do it for you? How did it go?

Image courtesy of PigeonLab homepage screenshot