How to Sell an Ebook Online
Writing, formatting into EPUB and MOBI, cover design, and pricing — the full path from manuscript to a delivered ebook, sold from your own page with automatic delivery on purchase.
By Keepp Team
Selling an ebook directly — rather than only through a retailer’s marketplace — means keeping the full price of every sale and owning the relationship with the reader instead of a store page that could delist your book or change its cut of the sale at any time. The tradeoff is you’re responsible for the parts a marketplace normally handles: file formatting, delivery, and getting someone to your page in the first place. None of those are hard on their own — they’re just steps that don’t happen automatically.
Getting the manuscript ready
Write in whatever you’re already comfortable with — Google Docs and Word both work fine for a manuscript. The formatting that matters isn’t visual polish at this stage; it’s structural: consistent chapter breaks, a real table of contents if the book is long enough to need one, and clean paragraph styles rather than manually-spaced line breaks, which cause problems once the file gets converted.
Converting to EPUB and MOBI
Most ereaders and reading apps expect EPUB or MOBI, not a plain PDF — a PDF locks the layout to a fixed page size, which reads poorly on a phone or a small ereader screen where EPUB reflows to fit. Calibre (free, desktop) is the standard tool for this: import your manuscript, and it converts to EPUB and MOBI with proper chapter navigation. Reedsy Book Editor (free, browser-based) is a solid alternative if you’d rather write and format in one tool from the start — it exports EPUB, MOBI, and a print-ready PDF without a separate conversion pass. Either way, open the converted file in an actual reading app before selling it — chapter breaks and images are the most common things that shift during conversion, and it’s a five-minute check that saves a wave of “the formatting looks off” messages after launch.
Cover design
A cover matters more for an ebook than almost any other digital product, because it’s often the only thing a potential buyer sees before deciding whether to click. Canva has ebook cover templates sized correctly for common ereader dimensions, and the free tier is enough for a clean, professional-looking cover without hiring a designer for a first release.
Pricing
Ebook pricing varies more by genre and audience than almost any other digital product. A short, specific nonfiction guide (50–100 pages, solves one problem) often sits in the $7–$15 range. A full-length novel or a substantial nonfiction book with real research behind it can reasonably ask $15–$25 when sold directly, since there’s no retailer cut being taken out — the full price reaches you. Look at comparable direct-sale ebooks in your genre rather than pricing against marketplace listings, which factor in a platform’s cut that doesn’t apply here.
Delivering it
Host the finished EPUB and MOBI files somewhere with shareable links — Google Drive or Dropbox both work, covered in host your content privately — then set up the ebook as a product and paste the link into its Delivery step. Bundling both formats into one shared folder link means a buyer with a Kindle and a buyer with an EPUB-native app both get what they need from the same purchase, without you managing two separate deliveries.
Once it’s live, a buyer pays through your own connected Stripe account and gets the file link on their confirmation page immediately — no email to send, no manual step between the sale and the reader having the book. Keepp’s cut is 5% on the free plan, dropping to 3% on Pro and 0% at the top tier, with the full remainder settling directly to you.
Common questions
Can I sell a preview or sample chapter alongside the full ebook? Yes — a free or display-priced product can sit next to the paid one on the same page, so a sample chapter can act as a lead magnet pointing toward the full purchase.
What if I release an updated edition later? Swap the link at the same delivery step and every past buyer’s purchase page reflects the new file — useful for fixing errors or adding a bonus chapter after launch without re-contacting anyone.
Do I need both EPUB and MOBI, or is one enough? EPUB covers the widest range of apps and devices; MOBI specifically covers older Kindle devices that don’t support EPUB. Including both in the same delivery link costs nothing extra and avoids a reader having to ask which format you have.
Where to start
Get the manuscript into EPUB and MOBI with Calibre, design a cover in Canva, and sell a product with the file linked for automatic delivery.
Sell your ebook directly at keepp.link — free to start, automatic delivery included.