What do you think? Smashwords free ebook publishing

[Jaqhama]

I've just been checking out www.smashwords.com

An all but free ebook publisher.

The website is very professional looking and the About section quite honest when it comes to expalining what you can and cannot expect.

I wasn't impressed with their list of top 100 titles, most of which are free to read. Erotica seems overly represented?
I checked the SF section and the Adventure section.
Viewed a few sample pages of a few books...it's easy to see why the majority of readers think so little of the majority of self-published authors.
Some of the writing is shocking.

On the other hand for publishers here on SFR maybe Smashwords might be worth looking into as an easy way to produce their titles as a downloadable ebook?
The ebook details linked from the publishers website.

I like the concept of Smashwords but I'm guessing it might be just as easy for any one of us to make an ebook webpage where readers could download our stories/novels and we would get paid directly with no middleman?

The only problem I see with Smashwords is that it will quickly get a reputation as an ebook site not to buy anything from, as the quality of the stories (in the main I'm guessing) may be well below what most of us here at SFR would consider acceptable.

I'd like to know what the rest of you think.
Please don't reply until you've perused the Smashwords website so as to get an exact understanding of what it's about.

Cheers: Jaq.

[darkbow]

I use Smashwords, as well as Kindle for my self-published ebook projects. Smashwords is easier to use, in my opinion.

As far as quality of books, I've found it about the same as with most self-publishing venues. Lots of bad stuff, though a few gems. You just have to dig for the good stuff.

[Lyn]

Ty, question. So I see you link to Smashwords from your blog. How else do you promote your works? This is sort of like lulu's ability to offer a pdf version of one's work, right? But with WAY more e-formats? Hmm, I like it.

There is also an "affiliate" program, which I assume means you can link to other good (hopefully good) books that aren't yours and promote them on your website and if they sell you get a commission, is that right? Sort of like Amazon's associate's links? I have an Amazon store but no one's bought anything from it, lol. Any other thoughts?

[RLCopple]

I recently uploaded my novella, "Infinite Realities" to Smashwords, as I have the electronic rights to the book. It should be noted that if you follow their formatting standards, you not only get your ebook on their site, but also it goes onto Sony's site and Barnes and Nobles (I think one or two others). So the advantage of it is a wider distribution than what you can have on your own site, for example.

And there's no upfront cost, they get their money when your book sells. That's good. Two downsides:

1. As mentioned, that means anyone with a story can post it there. Thing is, you have to have a cover and correct copyright notice that you are the publisher for it to go to the big boys. That might weed out some, but that's not too hard to arrange. So the reader has to understand that like the Kindle (you can do the same thing at Amazon), that they are going to get a lot of junk. The reader becomes the slush pile editor. But the one advantage you have here that you don't at Lulu, for instance, is you usually can get a sample of most books, see if the writing is decent, before you buy it. Most will offer between 30-50% of the book as a sample. So you can browse until you find a promising story. If the first three chapters have captured your attention and the writing is good, you can buy it.

2. The formatting on the books doesn't take advantage of the modes. You can't get a list of chapters, for instance, that you can jump to, a feature in both ereader pdb and stanza epub. The corresponding ebook editions on my site have all the features. It does say on their site that they hope to offer the ability for an author to substitute their own ebook version for the one their automatic generator creates, but that isn't there yet. So chapters are divided by spacing and labeled chapter headings. But in downloading my pdb of the book I have there, the chapter headings aren't even bolded. I don't recall if the italics was preserved or not.

I put up my novella to see how it all works. It's on the Smashword site:

Infinite Realities

It still says it is pending for the "Premium Status" in part because the processor says my copyright page isn't correct. However, I can't find anything wrong with it. So after another week, if no one has reviewed it and passed it, I'll go over it again and see if I can figure out what they're wanting. Must be missing something.

[crystalwizard]

My gripe with Smashwords is that you can't upload .pdf files. Unfortunately, I create the books in InDesign, and they are exported out as .pdf files. Which leaves me having to jump through major hoops to put anything up on Smashwords.

Otherwise, I like their site and services.

[darkbow]

Lyn, honestly, I've not done nearly as much promotion as I could, mainly because I've moved on to other projects. But as to what I've done ... my blog, mentioned the books here in the forums, also joined several other forums (kindleboards.com being my favorite of the others) and promoting there, I've used the Amazon forums and author pages, joined Goodreads as an author, written several articles (ie. glorified blog-like posts, sort of like press releases) that have been published in various online venues, and linking, linking, linking whenever I get the chance.

And yep, the affiliate program works like most do, you get a commission for sales of books on their site. I've yet to try it, but I might get around to it. Been doing some monetizing of ye old blog and online non-fic articles and it's starting to pay a little more every day.

[Window Bar]

This is the eBook industry in its infancy. At some point, it will need to function more along the model of craft fairs: Nothing goes up that isn't reviewed by a jury. It is in the interest of all of the authors represented to make sure all the weeds get pulled.

[suelange]

Book View Cafe just entered an agreement with Smashwords. Most of our books were already prepared in a number of formats so we didn't have to do a lot of work to get them into Smashwords' form.

The good thing about Smashwords is that you can create discount coupons to give to people as incentives to buy your book.

We just started doing this, so I don't know how much more visibility it will give us than our own site, but it is a way to get into the venues mentioned above.

Here's our shelf at Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Bookviewcafe

Here's my own book there: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/7776

[woundwort]

In the last few weeks I've published 3 e-books (well, 2 and a short story). One book I published on smashwords and the other 2 were published on feedbooks.com

I've also downloaded a few stories to see what other writers were posting and, it's true, there's a lot of detritus. But, you know, I thought I was a good writer in high school but all I was was a good writer for a high school kid. Nothing I wrote was publishable. Now I'm almost 40 years old and I question my abilities on a daily basis. On the bright side, I've read a couple of short stories and novellas that were actually pretty good. I downloaded a 50% sample of a book called Antithesis off of smashwords and it was interesting enough for me to cough up the $1.99 for the rest.

Really, if you think about it, I can go to the book store and lay $7.99 for a paperback and find that it's just as bad or worse than anything I can download for free.

An oddity between feedbooks and smashwords, though, is the amount of exposure. I've done little publicizing of any of my work yet the free books on feedbooks.com (The Book of Revelations and Life Broker) are getting downloaded like crazy. Forty Leap, which I put on smashwords, got 9 downloads (and 1 sale) in the first day and a half and nothing else in the week since. It all seems very strange to me.

In downloading and publishing from and to both sites I'd have to say that smashwords seems to be more of a doorway into the mainstream. Their Meatgrinder program allows books to be formatted for a variety of markets and they give the ability to make some money. As darkbow said, you have to sift through the garbage before you can get to the good stuff. In the end, the search is worth the price of admission.

[von Darkmoor]

Thanks for the info and comparison, woundwort. Someday, when I grow a clone or an extra 4 hours in a day, I'll be doing RBE e-titles and this will be good to remember.

[Window Bar]

I've spent a fair amount of time reviewing SmashWord's site, and I have to say I'm impressed. First of all, their contract is non-exclusive -- meaning that it needn't stand in the way of other contract arrangements, hard cover sales or even other self publishing eBook sales.

Secondly, their affiliate marketing program would allow a group of like-minded authors to cross-sell one another's books and get paid very fairly for doing so (15%). For example, a dozen or so self published authors could mutually list one another as Fiction Friends or whatever on their individual sites. The mutual linkage, of course, would help everyone's status with the search engines; it would also multiply the number of hits each would get by cross-selling to one another's fan base.

It would mean, of course, the author group would have to do ALL of its own self screening for quality, because SmashWords is pledged to print anything that comes in, even if it's junk.

Anyone having a finished novel who is interested in pursuing cross-linkage via SmashWords should PM me. We would have to decide whether or not our books were cross-sellable. Mine is visible right now, free, on my website www.spiritthorn.com.

There are a few more graphics and mechanics to tweak before it goes live for sale directly from our site, but that would not preclude establishing a SmashWords listing (along with the beginnings of some cross-linking through them) fairly soon.

-- WB

[Window Bar]

Smashwords seems to be outgrowing its own infrastructure. Terribly long page-load times, such that site navigation is a problem. Is anyone here cozy with them; any hint as to how long 'til solution is this problem?

Also anyone doing off-site links within texts? Do you know how well Smashwords supports these?

[darkbow]

Smashwords isn't very fast when it comes to fixing tech problems, especially of late since they began working with B&N (though I'm not sure there's any connection there, maybe just coincidence).

It's been a while since I've checked out the guidelines at Smashwords, but I don't believe you can use links there because of the many different formats, one being pdf. This might have changed.

Amazon does allow links on the Kindle, but I grew so frustrated trying to get the coding to work that I eventually just gave up.

[woundwort]

I read something somewhere that Smashwords' formatting program, the Meatgrinder, is being updated. There was an implication in what I read that the Meatgrinder actually slows down the website. I've thought about this from a programming perspective and all I can come up with is that the Meatgrinder runs on the same server as the rest of the site. Since people are probably submitting new material all the time, the thing probably runs nonstop. If that's the case, it's likely that it's stealing cpu time from the server requests and causing a slow-down (I've encountered slow page loads also).

I can't think of any other reason the Meatgrinder would affect the performance of the site. What they need to do is just store the text files and dump them to a different machine for meatgrinding.

While I'm generally impressed with Smashwords and Mark Coker (smashwords founder) in general, there are other technical issues with the site as well. I'm not sure the statistics are updated regularly and things just seem to run generally choppy.

[cussedness]

So far, I am happy with Smashwords. It's in its infancy, but I think there is decent potential there. It's easier for me to use than trying to do the uploads for kindle and such, since I have trouble creating decent pdfs. But I do intend to look into feedbooks.

Edited to add: I have had my books out from smashwords for one week and I have sold 30 copies.

[Hearthweru]

I have one previously published story Cap'n Jethro at Smashwords. Only one sale so far, from one of my blog readers, but I'm not exactly what you'd call a marketing guru. Neither am I a well known writer. I'm waiting to see how it does once it ships to B&N, Amazon, etc. Not sure if I'd put a 'new' story up, not until I have more publications under my belt at least. Still, I like the idea of Smashwords and I think eReaders and the demand for content make for interesting times ahead for the publishing industry.

[Window Bar]

My grumble about the navigation speed of the site is hereby withdrawn. They have indeed updated their "Meatgrinder," and perhaps added some bandwidth as well. They are catching up with their growth curve, it would appear.

[AstonWest]

I posted a story up over at SmashWords, letting folks read it for free, just to try the site out. Even following their document guidelines, it still seemed to foul up several of the converted formats. Whether that's been fixed in the meantime, I don't know...but I think I'll stick with getting my work placed with magazines and publishers.

[cussedness]

My direct to kindle uploads are outselling my smashwords editions. My daughter is doing the uploads to kindle and she's very computer savvy. I think that it makes a big difference for me than most others. The later books in my various series are outselling the books at the beginning of it. This is because a lot of people were in the middle of reading the renebooks editions when I pulled them from that company over a contract violation and are finally able to get the rest of the series.

[Jaqhama]

Video of how to upload to Amazon Kindle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDhcq...layer_embedded

[Window Bar]

Speaking as as a Smashwords "Bestselling Author" (I know ... an oxymoron) I've come to see Smashwords as one small part of my over-all strategy for Spirit Thorn. The upload requirements at Smashwords are not onerous. Their "Style Guide" is mostly an admonishment to use MS-Word in very clean word processing (as opposed to typing) commands, and to use a book layout that will read easily in an eBook environment. The requirements to use proper copyright claim, to affix an ISBN number, and to use proper fiction disclaimer language are simply common sense -- no more onerous than asking someone to get a driver's license and insurance before driving cross country.

They continue to add rules, of course, but I see these as an upgrade of their product. At this very moment, due to Amazon's request, they have begun to request a "clickable" table of contents that will make book navigation easier within the eReaders that support it, as Kindle does.

The success and/or failure of our projects depend mostly upon two qualities: 1) the quality of our writing, 2) the quality of our marketing. It is up to US to bring people to any site, Smashwords, Kindle, whatever, if we want our books to be read. Once they get there, the prospective customers have to enjoy the read. Most people seem to fail in both respects ... careless quality regarding the book (especially the sin of poor editing), and careless or no marketing (including not even asking a friend to write a positive review).

Smashwords' presentation of a book and/or author is way ahead of Amazon's. It is personal, it is vibrantly graphics rich, and it allows generous sampling. The author is asked, but not required, to design a cover, to write a blurb, to provide a personal publicity photo and a bit of personal biographic data. Take a look if you care to: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view...?ref=Zacharias. This is as close to a bookshop environment as I've found online.

In summary, Smashwords is not a free ride, but it is a valid wholesaler (and modest retailer) who gets our books out through many, many venues. They even volunteer to provide links to other outlets, such as audio and print formats. From my point of view, I've appreciated working with them. And I have given up nothing except their 15% commission.

[von Darkmoor]

Good to know, and thanks for sharing. I've definitely added Smashwords to my things to do next list, because of this thread and all the information here.

[Window Bar]

A bit more Smashwords update: The list of places where Spirit Thorn is showing up (via Smashwords) is expanding. It pleases me to have it out there like this ... but it seems that somethingalways gets lost in the transfer to the other vendors. Sometimes it's the categorization (such as Young Adult and Sci-Fi Fantasy); sometimes it's the cover art, sometimes it's the author bio.

I don't blame anybody. It's just that there are so many differences between different companies, that a one-stop bridge may never be perfect. However...for me it beats having separate accounts with each vendor. And I'm guessing the bugs will disappear as SW has time to address them. Right now, the biggest impediment to my sales is that there are some plot and character incongruities I need to iron out. Can't blame that on SW!

I've enjoyed working with them. Give 'em a try

[darkbow]

I generally prefer Amazon for ease of use, and definitely for my sales numbers, but Smashwords treats me alright and is growing all the time. The next 6 months to year is going to be a tough one for SW as Barnes & Noble and Sony are both readying to launch their own author's publishing sites similar to Amazon's DTP, but if Smashwords can hold on, I think they could well be the place to publish in the future, possibly eventually even becoming bigger than Amazon in the self-publishing community. The main reason I believe SW's survival and growth is possible is because right now it's a one-stop shop for publishers; in other words (for those who don't already know) publish through SW and your ebooks can be available at all the major outlets without you having to publish separately at each individual outlet.

Another possibility I could see happening in the next year or two would be Amazon trying to buy Smashwords. Though that would be a nightmare for BN, Sony, Apple and most of the major print publishers. But still, I could see it happening.

[Window Bar]

I seem to be dominating this thread -- maybe I'm just in a blathering mood. Another HUGE advantage of Smashwords has just hit me: They own and control a dozen or more quasi-vendors. Such things as iPadBooksGalore.com (I'm making that up). Nonetheless, the very names of their various vendors, such as DiscountSciFi.com (I'm making that up too), will bring more viewers to your book trailer, and it will HELP YOU WITH YOUR SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS.