Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover self-publishing and digital products & storefronts. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Amazon KDP | StreetLib | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free | From $99 |
| Pricing model | Free | Paid subscription |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| Billing | Usage-based | Annual only |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | 30% of what you earn | 15% of what you earn |
| Runs on | Not stated | Web |
| Covers | Self-Publishing, Digital Products & Storefronts | Self-Publishing, Digital Products & Storefronts |
| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
Self-publish to Kindle and keep 70 percent
Kindle Direct Publishing is the shortest route from a finished manuscript to a book somebody can buy, and the audience on the other side of it is the reason most self-published authors start here. Publishing costs nothing. The royalty band is the thing to read before setting a price, because it changes what you earn by half.
Our note
The price band is the decision, not the cover. Pricing at $14.99 instead of $12.99 cuts the royalty rate in half, and a lot of first books are priced into the wrong side of it by accident.
Ebook distribution that states its cut up front
StreetLib distributes ebooks and audiobooks to the stores an author cannot easily reach one by one, and is unusual in charging for the service rather than only taking a share. It publishes what it keeps, which is more than most aggregators do. For an author already selling through Amazon alone, the question is whether the other stores add up to more than the fee.
Our note
Against Draft2Digital, which charges nothing upfront and takes a larger share, this is the better arithmetic for anybody already selling. Work out your annual net revenue: below roughly a thousand dollars a year, paying nothing and giving up more is cheaper.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.