To sell ebooks directly, you upload your finished files (usually EPUB and PDF), attach them to a product on your own storefront, set a price, and let readers pay and download instantly through secure, expiring links — keeping the margin and the customer relationship that a marketplace would otherwise take. It's one of the cleanest businesses to run online: no stock, no postage, no couriers, and near-zero marginal cost on every extra copy sold. The hard part isn't logistics — it's presentation, delivery, pricing and getting found. This guide walks through all of it.
Whether you're a novelist, a non-fiction author, a coach packaging your knowledge, or a business selling technical guides, the mechanics are the same. Let's build it properly.
Why sell direct instead of on Amazon or a marketplace
Marketplaces like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing are genuinely useful for discovery — a lot of readers browse there and nowhere else. But they come with real costs, and if you rely on them exclusively you're building your business on rented land.
The cut is significant. Depending on price and territory, marketplace royalty schemes can hand back as little as 35% of your list price, and the 70% tier comes with its own price-band rules and delivery-fee deductions. Sell direct and you keep far more of every sale.
You don't get the customer. The marketplace owns the reader's email, the receipt, and the follow-up. You can't email past buyers about your next book. When you sell direct, that reader is yours — you can build a mailing list and sell them the next three titles at no acquisition cost.
Pricing and bundling are restricted. Direct, you can bundle a trilogy, offer a companion workbook, run a launch discount, sell a signed-paperback-plus-ebook combo, or give the first book away free to grow your list. Marketplaces box you in.
No DRM lock-in for your readers. Selling clean, DRM-free files (the norm for indie authors) is reader-friendly and lets people read on any device or app they like.
The smart approach for most authors isn't either/or. Use marketplaces for reach, and sell direct for margin and audience-building. This guide is about getting the direct side right. If you're weighing the trade-off more broadly, our guide on selling on a marketplace versus your own website covers the same tension for physical goods.
Prepare your files: formats that cover every reader
An ebook is just a file, but which file matters. Offer the right formats and readers can open your book anywhere; get it wrong and you'll drown in support emails.
EPUB is the universal standard. It reflows to fit any screen and works on Apple Books, Kobo, most e-readers, and nearly every reading app. This should be your primary format.
PDF is essential for anything with fixed layout — cookbooks, workbooks, technical manuals, children's books, anything with precise design. It's also the format most readers instinctively understand. For a plain prose novel, PDF is a nice-to-have; for a designed non-fiction guide, it's the main event.
MOBI/AZW is Amazon's legacy Kindle format and is now largely deprecated in favour of EPUB, which modern Kindles accept. You usually don't need to supply it, but some authors still include it for older devices.
The pragmatic answer for most sellers is to deliver EPUB + PDF together in a single purchase, so every reader has something that works. Tools like Vellum, Atticus, Calibre or a well-configured word processor export can produce clean EPUBs; make sure you include a proper cover image, a table of contents, and correct metadata (title, author, ISBN if you have one). Proofread the exported file on an actual device before you sell it — export gremlins are real.
Set up the product: delivery, formats and download limits
This is where a proper platform earns its keep. On Dirora, an ebook is created as a digital product using Universal Product Support — the same product engine handles physical goods, subscriptions and digital files, so you're not fighting a system built only for boxes. You upload your EPUB and PDF against the product and Dirora's Digital Content & Licensing feature takes over the delivery.
What that gives you, practically:
Secure, automatic file delivery. The moment a payment clears, the reader gets access to their download — no manual emailing of attachments, no "where's my book?" tickets. The files sit in private, S3-compatible storage, not on a public URL anyone could guess or share.
Expiring, tokenised download links. Rather than a permanent link that gets pasted into forums, buyers receive protected links that expire, so your file isn't handed around freely.
Download limits. You can cap how many times a file can be downloaded per purchase (enough for a reader to grab it on their phone, laptop and e-reader, but not enough to run a piracy service). This is a sensible balance between anti-piracy and not punishing legitimate buyers who change devices.
Licence keys where relevant. If you're selling something closer to software-with-a-book, or want a per-buyer licence identifier, the licensing side supports keys too.
A realistic expectation: no delivery system stops a determined pirate who's bought a copy and wants to redistribute it. What secure delivery does do is stop casual link-sharing, keep your files off the open web, and make honest buying the path of least resistance. That's the right goal. Chasing perfect DRM tends to annoy paying readers more than it deters pirates.
Pricing your ebook
Digital pricing is psychological, not cost-based — your marginal cost is essentially zero, so price on value and market expectation, not on effort.
Fiction tends to sit around £2.99–£5.99 for a novel, with series starters sometimes discounted or free to hook readers into the rest.
Non-fiction and how-to commands more — £7–£25+ — because buyers are paying for a specific outcome, not entertainment. A focused professional guide can justify far higher prices than a novel of the same length.
Bundles lift average order value: box sets, a book-plus-workbook, or a "starter library" of three titles. Dirora's Complex Bundles & Kits lets you package multiple files as a single purchase.
Two direct-selling advantages worth exploiting: you can run genuine launch pricing and discount codes without a marketplace's approval, and — crucially — Dirora charges no transaction fees on any plan. On a £4 ebook, a couple of percent skimmed off every sale genuinely matters. The only cut is a small platform fee that falls as you grow — 1.5% on the free plan, down to 0.75% on Pro, 0.25% on Business and 0% on Enterprise — while payments run through Stripe and PayPal (cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and BNPL options), with payouts in two to seven days. For a deeper look at how platform economics compare, see what percentage ecommerce platforms actually take.
Presenting the book: your product page is the cover
Online, the product page is the bookshop. Readers can't flip through it, so you sell it in words and images.
Cover first. A professional cover is the single highest-return investment for an ebook. It signals genre, quality and seriousness in a fraction of a second. Show it large and crisp.
Write a description that sells, not summarises. Open with a hook, promise a transformation or an experience, and keep paragraphs short. Our guide on writing product descriptions that convert applies directly here.
Show the formats and page count so buyers know exactly what they're getting (EPUB + PDF, ~320 pages).
Offer a sample. A free first chapter as a separate free "product" or a downloadable preview reduces buying risk dramatically.
Collect reviews. Social proof sells books. Dirora's Product Reviews & Ratings let readers leave star ratings and quotes right on the page.
Build the page with the Visual Theme Editor, which gives you drag-and-drop widgets, custom fonts and custom CSS if you want your author brand to feel distinct rather than templated.
Marketing: getting readers to the page
Selling direct means you drive the traffic — so this is where most of your effort goes after the book is live.
Build an email list from day one. This is the whole point of selling direct. Use the Newsletter Signup widget and offer a free chapter or a short companion PDF as the incentive. Then Dirora's Smart Email Campaigns let you announce new releases to people who already trust you — the cheapest, highest-converting marketing there is. Our newsletter-that-sells guide goes deep on this.
Recover abandoned carts. Digital buyers hesitate too. Automated abandoned-cart recovery nudges wavering readers back.
Get found in search. Author name, book title and topic keywords all matter. Dirora's SEO Tools, structured data, and sitemap sync help your pages rank; our beginner's SEO guide is the starting point.
Use the blog engine. Non-fiction authors especially can pull in organic traffic by writing around their topic. Dirora's Professional Blog Engine (the one publishing this article) lets you do exactly that on the same domain as your shop.
Sell adjacent formats. Ebooks pair naturally with online courses and other digital products. Once you own the reader relationship, upselling is almost free.
Legal and tax basics
Two things every ebook seller should know, kept brief. First, you almost certainly can't offer the standard 14-day change-of-mind refund on a downloaded ebook if the customer agreed to immediate access and waived the cancellation right at checkout — so make that consent explicit. Second, VAT on ebooks: in the UK, ebooks are zero-rated for VAT, but selling to customers in the EU and elsewhere can trigger digital-services VAT obligations based on the buyer's location. Dirora's Tax Configuration and Multi-Currency support help you handle rates and currencies, but this is general information, not legal or tax advice — check GOV.UK or an accountant for your specific situation, especially once you sell internationally.
Putting it together
Selling ebooks direct is one of the best-margin, lowest-friction businesses you can start: create the file once, sell it endlessly, and — unlike a marketplace — keep both the money and the reader. Export clean EPUB and PDF files, deliver them securely with sensible download limits, price on value, present the book like the bookshop shelf it now is, and pour your energy into an email list and search visibility. When you're ready to build, our getting-started guide walks through launching your store, and the pricing page shows exactly what you'll pay as you grow.
Frequently asked questions
What file format should I sell my ebook in?
Offer EPUB and PDF together. EPUB is the universal reflowable standard that works on Apple Books, Kobo, most e-readers and reading apps, while PDF is essential for anything with fixed layout like workbooks, cookbooks or technical guides. Delivering both means every reader has a file that works on their device.
How do I stop people sharing or pirating my ebook?
Use secure delivery with expiring download links and per-purchase download limits, which stops casual link-sharing and keeps your files off the public web. No system fully prevents a determined pirate, so the practical goal is to make honest buying easy rather than to punish legitimate readers with heavy DRM. Dirora's Digital Content & Licensing handles secure delivery and limits automatically.
Is it better to sell ebooks on Amazon or on my own website?
Use both. Amazon offers discovery, but takes a large royalty cut and keeps the customer relationship. Selling direct keeps far more of each sale and, most importantly, lets you build an email list of readers you can sell your next book to at no acquisition cost. Many indie authors use marketplaces for reach and direct sales for margin and audience-building.
Do I have to charge VAT on ebooks in the UK?
In the UK, ebooks are zero-rated for VAT, but selling to customers in the EU and other regions can trigger digital-services VAT based on the buyer's location. This is general information, not tax advice — check GOV.UK or an accountant, especially once you sell internationally. Dirora's Tax Configuration and Multi-Currency features help you apply the right rates.
How much should I price my ebook?
Price on value, not effort, since your marginal cost is near zero. Novels typically sit around £2.99–£5.99, while focused non-fiction and how-to titles command £7–£25 or more because buyers are paying for a specific outcome. Bundles and box sets lift your average order value further.