When I first published Wilde Accusation with kdp, which is Amazon's self-publishing platform I had intended to also publish on Barnes and Noble, Google Books, and Apple Books. I discovered that I can't publish to Apple without an Apple device. My computer is a PC and my tablet and phone are android. So, Apple Books was not an option. 

Then I discovered Draft2Digital. With Draft2Digital I would be able to publish to Apple Books, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords. If I used D2D they would take a piece of my royalties. The question I had to answer was did having my book available on these stores and libraries matter more to me than royalties available? 

Since I am self-published and responsible for my own promotions and since I am retired and on a fixed income I can't afford to take out ads. I can't afford to pay for promotions on Goodreads and Bookbub.

Everything I read said that social media is a good way to promote your book. Unfortunately, I don't have social media accounts. I did open an X account, but it doesn't do any good without friends. My Goodreads and Bookbub accounts are new, so I have to try to get friends on them. 

Smashwords allows you to create coupons. By creating a coupon my book is listed in deals on the home page. This helps with promoting, at least a little bit.  

I decided that I would give up part of my royalties to be published wide, without having to log in to multiple dashboards and check sales, without having to upload files to each site, trying to get my cover to work on each site, and I get to publish on Apple without the expense of buying an Apple product.

So, for anyone interested the Universal Link for Wilde Accusation is books2read/wildeaccusation

I am also waiting for Google Books to approve my account so I can publish on that site. My research says that if my book is either published or listed on Google Books it will show up in google searches.

This is just a small taste of my self-publishing journey.