When I got my first book ready in 2017, I went to a couple of popular ebook brokers. Both offered to get my book with about 20 different ebook retailers. Both quoted about $4000, which sounded reasonable.

But I couldn't get a final commitment to the final price. "We will need to edit your work," they said, "It depends on how much editing is required."

After a few more email exchanges in which my questions were not answered well, I came to the conclusion that they were setting up the process to string me along as long as possible for as much money as possible.

My editor and I decided to publish directly to Amazon, Kobo, and iTunes. We were able to get the first two with an acceptable amount of effort. But iTunes required an up-to-date MAC computer with up-to-date software, which I just could not put together. ITunes told me to hire an ebook broker. My book is not on iTunes.

Don't use the ebook brokers. They may still be legitimate businesses, but the software to navigate through Amazon is not that difficult. If you can't sell on Amazon, your book probably won't sell anywhere else.