What authors ask us

No. Keep your books on Amazon, Apple Books, Kobo and anywhere else. Your store sits next to them, for readers who would rather buy from you. One thing to check: an ebook in Kindle+ (until October 2026 called Kindle Unlimited) has to be exclusive to Amazon, so you cannot sell that ebook direct. Its paperback and audiobook are not affected.

Any book you have the rights to: novels, memoirs, how-to guides, cookbooks, workbooks, children’s books, poetry, comics. Sell each one as an ebook, an audiobook, a paperback or a hardcover, or all four.

No. No store can do that on its own. Readers find you through your newsletter, your back matter, your ads and word of mouth. Once they arrive, Lanternbee makes buying easy and puts every buyer on your list.

Right after they pay, readers get an email with their download links. An ebook can go to their Kindle, onto a Kobo or into any reading app, and audiobooks play on any phone or computer. If the email goes missing, they sign in to their library and get the links again.

Yes. Put any books together: a trilogy box set, say, or a cookbook with its workbook. Readers who already own one of the books pay less for the rest.

Connect your Shopify store and the importer brings over your books, series, readers and what they bought, your order history and your discount codes. You check everything in a preview, then point your shop address at Lanternbee. Old product links send readers to the new book pages. Shopify keeps selling until the moment you switch.

No. Readers check out with their email address. To find their books later, they type that email and get a sign-in link, so there is no password to forget.

You connect your own Stripe account. You are the seller, readers pay you, and Stripe pays out to your bank on its usual schedule. On the Free plan, our 5% fee comes out of each sale. On Author there is no fee.

Stripe Tax works out the right VAT or sales tax for each reader’s country at checkout and adds it to the order. You are the seller, so you file and pay that tax, the same as on Shopify. Later, we plan to handle EU VAT on ebooks for you by becoming the merchant of record for digital editions. That isn’t live yet.

Yes. Your store starts at yourname.lanternbee.shop, and you can connect an address like shop.yourname.com at any time. Your author website can link to it.

They stay yours. Download your reader list and your orders as a spreadsheet whenever you like.

Not yet. All three are coming: signed and personalized copies with a signing queue, pre-orders before release day, and special-edition campaigns with tiers and stretch goals.

No. Your store works in any browser, on a phone or a computer.

Not yet. We’re letting authors in from the waitlist a few at a time. Join, and we’ll email you when your store is ready to set up.