Scribd.com, a popular document-sharing website is allowing authors to sell their works in digital format through their store. Authors can earn 80 percent of the posted sale price. Starting Monday, Scribd.com will let authors sell their books in PDF format via their store link here. Authors can upload their book and sell the books either in DRM or without DRM rights.

Authors publishing books in hard books usually get 10 to 20 percent of the book price, whereas at Scribd.com store authors get 80 percent of the sale price. The pricing is similar to iTunes App Store, where the authors get 70 percent of the sales.

Authors can upload their books and convert the PDF into either secured or unsecured versions. If you want to read the eBook in Amazon Kindle, it has to be in unsecured version.

Scribd.com told New York Times that they are also preparing an application for the iPhone and once it is available users can read the bought documents in iPhone.

Jared Friedman, chief technology officer and a founder of Scribd told New York Times:

One reason publishers are excited to work with us is that they worry that publishing channels are contracting as Amazon and Google are gaining control over the e-book space,”

Amazon Kindle also allows authors to publish their works similarly but Amazon retains bulk of the profits (65 percent). Also, Amazon Kindle books are readable only in Kindle and in iPhone (with Amazon Kindle Application). Scribd.com documents can be read in any PDF reader.

For more self-publishing options click BeatsMe's Hub Page article here.

Independent publishes like Lonely Planet, O’Reilly Media and Berrett-Koehler have already added all their books in the new Scribd.com store. Major publishers however have not participated in this new venture; probably they are adopting a wait-and-see approach to see how it becomes popular and also how Scribd.com handles piracy.

If you are a budding author and want to publish your book on your own Scribd.com is a good place to start. Also, check Lulu.com, where you can publish in both hard book and digital versions.