Blog · Selling
Where should you sell your first ebook: Etsy or Gumroad?
Etsy has built-in shoppers and built-in fees; Gumroad has simplicity and your own page. How to choose for ebook number one — and preview yours with our How-To Guide Generator.
EarnDraft Team · September 4, 2026 · 6 min read
In this post
The case for Etsy
Etsy is a search engine with a checkout button. Millions of shoppers arrive with intent, type things like “budget planner pdf” or “freelance contract template,” and buy. For a first ebook with no audience, that built-in discovery is Etsy's entire argument.
The price is fees and rules: listing fees, transaction fees, and a marketplace that controls the customer relationship. You are renting shelf space in someone else's shop — profitable shelf space, but rented.
The case for Gumroad
Gumroad is a checkout link you own. Setup takes minutes, you get your own product page, customer emails come to you, and bundling or discount codes are trivial. If you already have any audience — a newsletter, a following, a community — Gumroad converts it with less friction.
The tradeoff is discovery: Gumroad's marketplace browsing is a fraction of Etsy's. No audience plus Gumroad alone means no traffic, and no traffic means no sales regardless of how good the book is.
Have something ready to list this week
Draft the book, export the files, and list with a live page to link.
The decision rule for book number one
No audience yet: start on Etsy, where search does your marketing while you learn what sells. Existing audience, even a small one: start on Gumroad, where you keep the relationship and the margin.
And nothing stops you from doing both eventually — list on Etsy for discovery, link your live book page everywhere, and add Gumroad when you want direct sales. Sequence matters more than the single perfect choice.
- No audience → Etsy first, borrow their search traffic.
- Some audience → Gumroad first, keep the margin and emails.
- Later → both, with one live page linking them together.
What every listing needs regardless
Whichever you pick, the listing does the same job: a cover that reads at thumbnail size, a title that names the outcome, three to five preview pages, and a description that says who it is for and what changes after reading. Marketplace choice never rescues a weak listing.
Export a clean PDF, write the description for scanners, and price from the outcome — our pricing walkthrough covers the numbers.
Questions, answered
Written by the EarnDraft team — we build the tool that turns one sentence into a sellable ebook.