Direct sales give you the margin and the customer relationship, and they also give you the parts of the job a retailer was quietly doing. A shop validates the file before it goes live, converts it for its own reader, handles delivery, and fields the message when someone can't open it. Selling direct means all four become yours.
What you now have to check
| Item | What a retailer did |
|---|---|
| File validity | Rejected broken files at upload |
| Device compatibility | Converted to their own format |
| Cover thumbnail | Generated it from the file |
| Internal metadata | Overrode it with their own record |
| Delivery | Put the book in a library automatically |
| Support | Answered the how-do-I-open-this question |
| DRM decisions | Applied their own policy |
The checks before you sell
- Validate the EPUB. Retailers rejected invalid files; your store will happily sell one.
- Set the internal metadata properly, because now nothing overrides it and it is what the customer's library shows.
- Check the cover is embedded, not just uploaded to your store page.
- Test on at least three devices, including a Kindle, which needs a different route to sideload.
- Write the delivery instructions before launch, not after the first support email.
- Decide on watermarking or DRM deliberately, and say what you have chosen.
- Test the whole purchase flow yourself, paying real money, on a phone.
Step two is the one that surprises people. On a retailer the internal metadata is invisible, because their record wins. Delivered direct, it is what the reader sees in their library, and a book showing a working title there is entirely your responsibility.
Checking the file you are about to sell
The Novel Kit reads EPUB files, so extracting the terms from the file you are about to deliver and comparing against your manuscript confirms the text is intact after conversion. It's a quick sanity check on a file that no retailer is going to inspect for you.
It does not validate EPUB structure, which is a different job covered in EPUB validation explained for authors, and it does not test delivery. What it confirms is that the words came through.
A practical next step
Buy your own book from your own store, on a phone, and get it onto an e-reader following only your own instructions. Every friction you hit is one your customers will hit.
Sources checked
Frequently asked questions
What does a retailer normally catch?
Structural faults that break their reader, plus obvious metadata problems. Not typos, and not much else.
Which formats should I deliver?
EPUB at minimum, and PDF if you have a print-styled version. Offering both prevents most support questions.
What is the commonest direct-sales problem?
A file that will not open on the customer's device, followed by customers not knowing how to get it onto their reader.