Found this on Chris the Story Reading Ape and commented,
Pressed this to Just Can’t Help Writing. I read a post where an expert on indie publishing told readers it would cost more than $300 to get an ISBN. Having gotten mine from Smashwords, I couldn’t help wondering what he was talking about. This article helps clear that up. Thanks for sharing it!
To read this article, click on the link or photo of Author Laurie Boris below: almost-everything-you-need-to-know-about-isbns/
Thanks to Brittney Sahin for a look at some of the promotion options available! I haven’t tried this yet, but this post encourages me to consider it!
During the holiday season I decided to try out 3 different e-mail marketing companies for my first novel, Silenced Memories. I will discuss the results of each below. I did attempt to submit my book to 3 other websites as well, but they were booked (because many other authors were probably thinking the same thing-holiday promotion!)
Sale price Dec. 5th-Dec. 6th
Price for ‘romance suspense’ – $45 (price varies depending on genre)
E-book discounted from $2.99 to $.99
Books sold on day 1: 208 Amazon; less than 10 between ibooks & nook
Books sold on day 2 (no promo running): 46 Amazon; less than 5 (ibooks/nook)
Overall results: I think this campaign was very successful. Gaining that many new readers was great. I also reached #69 on romance suspense on Amazon (for a few hours!) & #49 on romance military. I made my money back…
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After creating considerable confusion earlier about how I could sign up for a 70% royalty rate for my two books, I returned to my site to change my settings to the higher rate. I seem to have succeeded, but not without a further bit of confusion, which I now hope I have clarified.
This time, more intelligently, I queried the support team via the email option, and received a helpful and timely reply. (One of my hoped-fors for my online ventures: a quick “help” response process.)
Here was the problem: When you pick “70%,” you receive a chart showing in which sales territories you will earn 70%. For some (e.g., Brazil, Japan), a small box informs you that in order to earn the higher amount in these countries, you must enroll in Kindle Select, which, you may know, requires you to give Amazon an exclusive for several months. Because I had already uploaded to Smashwords, I couldn’t easlly make this choice, and I’m not sure I would want to.
The confusion for me arose because sales made at “Amazon.com” were shown as paying only the lower rate of 35%. So what sales, specifically, were these? In my idiom, items bought at “Amazon.com” include books bought by U. S. buyers. Did this chart mean that books bought in the U. S. would never earn more than 35% royalty?
Here’s the reply to my query:
“Hello,
You’ll receive 70% royalty for books sold to U.S customers from Amazon.com.
However, customers outside of the U.S. often purchase books on the Amazon.com Kindle store. The books sold to customers outside of the applicable sales territories will be calculated at 35% royalty rate.
The 70% Royalty Option is only applicable for sales to customers in these sales territories:[I’ve cropped the long list of the countries in which the 70% option is available.]
*70% Royalty in Brazil, Japan, Mexico, and India: Digital Books enrolled in KDP Select are eligible to earn 70% royalty for sales to customers in these countries as long as the 70% List Price requirements are met. Otherwise, you will earn 35% royalty.
Sales to customers in all other locations will receive a 35% royalty and are recorded separately in your royalty reports at the 35% rate.
For more information, please visit our Help Page:
https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A30F3VI2TH1FR8
I hope this helps. Thanks for using Amazon KDP. Have a nice day!”
Therefore, it looks as if I was successful in making the change, and as if I’ll earn 70% in most cases.
I had some difficulty figuring out exactly how to return to my KDP account. When I signed in using the account I had created to associate with the books, I could find no links to my KDP account. The customer-service representatives with whom I initiated a chat for help had no idea what to tell me. Finally they directed me to the “contact us” link for KDP, which is apparently a separate section of Amazon. I know now to log in at kdp.amazon.com/bookshelf, where I then sign in with the email address I created.
I hope this help others easing into the process. I assure you, the Smashwords process was less complex, almost certainly because of the complex royalty and distribution components of Amazon.
Brittneysahin (below) got it right (unless I am misreading again :-))!
Here is the text:
“But if you choose the 70% Royalty Option, you must further set and adjust your List Price so that it is at least 20% below the list price in any sales channel for any physical edition of the Digital Book.”
Obviously the operative word here is “physical” edition. In other words, a book can be priced the SAME as a DIGITAL edition at any other sales channel. The 20% reduction is only necessary if you have a print edition (I assume this includes POD editions but that is not clear).
In my defense for missing this word, I was taking in a lot of information at once and was probably not attuned to the idea of a physical versus digital edition, since “physical” versions of my books are out of print. Of course, they’re being sold by used book dealers at all sorts of prices, but presumably this is not relevant since I earn nothing from these used book sales and have no control over them.
If you’re tempted to buy a copy of the old paperbacks for like $0.01, or some such price, let me know and I’ll send you a Smashwords coupon for a cheaper (yes!) edition. Both books have been revised, Blood Lies a fair amount.
Thanks so much to Brittneysahin and others for input on this. If anyone gets any new information via direct communication with Amazon, thanks in advance for letting us all know. And I’m going to change my royalty rate to 70%.
SELF-PUBLISHED BOOK LAUNCH DAY at Smashwords! And the day I bite the bullet and upload to Amazon! So far it looks a lot more complex than uploading to Smashwords. If any of you have been through this process and have any advice for me, please let me hear from you! In the next day or two, I’ll report back on my own experiences. 
In the meantime, you can now order the books at Smashwords.com in addition to ordering them through any of your favorite ebook retailers, including Barnes and Noble and iBooks. 
Let me know if you run into problems. I may not be able to help, but I will try! Also later today I will post some direct links on my web site, www.virginiasanderson.com.
Paddy and his mom!
Just Can't Help Writing 