Discover XinXii: Sell eBooks Worldwide

Have you ever wished you could sell your books to a European audience? If so, read on because I have some great news for you.

A few weeks ago, Dr. Andrea Schober, CEO of XinXii, contacted me about her company which is a European version of a digital self-publishing platform. That's right, it's kind of like a German Kindle or Nook program, but, of course, isn't connected to either of those I mention for illustrative purposes only.

Three Years Strong

XinXii, a service offered by the Berlin-based publishing house GD-Verlag, went live in January 2008. To date they have made more than 10,000 files available for download from thousands of sellers. Financial Times Germany lauded them for enabling authors to upload all kinds of digital text content: short works, documents, and e-books, and to make it possible to sell those works online.

Now, XinXii is the leading digital self-publishing platform in Europe. They've been so successful that they started looking at the market for foreign language books in Europe. From their analysis, they decided to expand internationally and make their digital publishing platform available worldwide to authors of English, French and Spanish works.

Directly From CEO

Dr. Schober said, "This step is a logical result of the outstanding response in Germany. Our goal is to become an international leader as a do-it-yourself platform for the digital publication and online sale of authors' own writings. The launch of the international version is the first significant step."

How XinXii Works

All features are fully available in all three languages. This allows authors to upload their work to the platform, whether one page of text or a book, then to assign it to the appropriate category, to provide information such as the title, description, author's profile, and sales price, and to make the texts available for buyers' immediate download.

I asked a few questions that would be of special interest to Americans. Dr. Schober assured me that Americans would not ever be asked for their tax ID number (Social Security number), only their name and address.

Each author chooses the currency in which he wants to manage his XinXii account (that means the currency in which sales prices are settled and transactions of revenues are made). So if he selects USD, he will be paid by XinXii in USD (without conversion)."

Dr. Schober assured me that: "In connection with the internationalization, purchases can now be made in British pounds and US dollars, in addition to euros. Just like in the German version, users who speak English, French or Spanish benefit from the automated ordering and payment system and the fact that XinXii handles the customer support and does it extremely well."

Important Details

At the bottom of the main page are links to information each author should read from Terms of Service to FAQ and more. Don't skip this step. Read and educate yourself. Most of the "fine print" is what you'd expect. The work must be yours. No copyright infringement. You provide the all the information, price it the way you want, and there's no contract commitment or fees to pay.

Each time a buyer downloads a text, the author receives a commission of 70% or 40% of the actual sales price. (Read the fine print. The royalty structure is similar to the familiar Kindle ebook pricing and royalty.)

There's no limit to the type of texts that can be published: instruction manuals, checklists, templates, scientific publications, essays, scripts, dissertations and studies, fiction, nonfiction, etc. After a purchase is concluded, buyers download and read the writings immediately in their user area.

Each author has his or her own shop. Every publishing company has its own business channel without having to install its own hardware or have specialized technical skills. Using XinXii is easy for selling and buying.

If you'd like the opportunity, to upload, publish and sell your written work online, easily via a user-friendly platform, and without costs and obligations, then go to the XinXii and click for the language version interface of your choice.

Tax Situation

By the way, in case you haven't traveled in Europe, you may not be aware of VAT, Value Added Tax, which is applied to purchases. This 19% tax must be collected from the sale of each ebook so you need to keep that in mind when pricing your ebooks because it significantly adds to the cost the purchaser must pay.

I suggested to Dr Schober that they put an explanation page up for Americans who don't deal with VAT on a daily basis, and she told me she would have that done in the coming weeks.

The good news is that XinXii takes care of all accounting and monies. They collect the VAT and pay it to the German VAT tax office then they credit the authors account with the applicable percentage of the net price as provision/royalty.

In researching this report, I've gathered statistics from current English ebooks on XinXii and interviewed some American authors who are already selling their English language ebooks internationally. I'll be following up today's post with more information so check back next week for more about the XinXii opportunity.

Takeaway Truth

Digital publishing is opening up the world of readers to writers with vision. Embrace this new world of writing and publishing.