Smashwords – The Essential Piece of the Puzzle

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When I started my five-part “Most Important Post” series, I knew I would conclude with this post about Smashwords, after first covering recent developments in the e-book world.  Finally, someone has figured out how to bring all of the pieces of the puzzle together into a publishing platform that substantially meets the needs of writers.  Smashwords has established an important model for future book publication and sales.

Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, has set up an innovative facility with some remarkable features.

  • Writers can conveniently publish their work across all of the major e-book formats at no cost with a simple submission of a Word document.
  • Smashwords allows writers to establish the price of their e-books, or even to give them away for free.
  • The author receives a whopping 85 percent of sales, while Smashwords retains 15 percent.
  • Smashwords encourages its authors to allow free reading by potential buyers of early chapters, a smart feature that will attract potential readers with a genuine try-before-you-buy opportunity.
  • Smashwords has also just forged an alliance with Wordclay, a print-on-demand publisher, to cover the print end of publication.  Arrangements are being made to allow sales of the printed version from the Smashwords catalog.  All the bases are covered!
  • Author’s books receive cost-free their own individual webpage in the Smashbooks catalog, with reference links to their other books within the catalog, allowing for increased identity.

With this remarkable array of features, Smashwords certainly ranks as one of the most important developments in publishing in recent years.  CEO Coker provides a complete and clear explanation of how it all works at the Smashwords website.  In the form of a Q and A, this page provides one of the best critiques of the state of contemporary publishing I’ve yet seen.  I strongly encourage you to read it.

At the core of Smashwords is its automated submission process.  Writers do their own document formatting within any word processor that outputs Word-compatible files, following the fairly simple and straight-forward instructions spelled out in The Smashwords Style Guide.  The document is then uploaded, usually in .doc format, into Smashword’s file conversion system, affectionately called the MeatGrinder — and miraculously it comes out the other end in an array of different e-book formats.  These then appear on the book’s sales page.  Well, that’s the simplified version of it anyway.

The system works best with flowing text and no illustrations or special formatting.  If the book is more elaborate, there are specific formatting strategies to follow.

Now’s a good time to look at one of the books available in the Smashwords catalog:  Plug Your Book:  Online Book Marketing for Authors, by Steve Weber.  Once on the page, notice the variety of formats offered.  Read it online in your browser, read it on a Kindle or a Sony E-Reader or perhaps your iPhone.  Download it in PDF format so that you can print it out.  And, someday soon perhaps, order a printed copy via a link to Wordclay.  Also notice the link to another book by Weber, as well as links to other similar books.  Oh, and did you notice — Weber is offering this book for free.  So choose your format and download it NOW.

Mark Coker, the Smashwords CEO, himself also offers The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide, with suggestions and tips especially for Smashwords authors.  It’s free too.

Smashwords has been around for less than a year, but already its catalog boasts 800 titles by 400 authors, more or less.  I predict the catalog will explode over the next year.

One of the real virtues of Smashwords is that it is particularly appropriate for shorter books and those that need to be published very quickly.  Poets too may have finally found their outlet.

While Smashwords will not be perfect for all writers and all books, it does offer a guaranteed, no-cost route to publication.  One of the biggest obstacles for writers has now been resolved.  check it out and let us know what you think.

Of course, other challenges for writers immediately arise.  Becoming A Writer Seriously will be turning its attention in new directions.  Watch for our major announcement later this week.

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    Comment by
    Bryan
    17 Mar 2009

    I couldn’t agree more. For indy authors, smashwords is a godsend. Indy publishing will never be the same. Another thing that really excites me about smashwords is what happens when big-ticket authors realize that smashwords gives authors/publishers 85% of sales (not profits) vs. 35% at amazon. They could make more profit, dramatically lower prices to the customer, widen book distribution, etc. etc. etc. All good things. Check out http://www.pkprodxns.com/?p=78

    Read more from Bryan

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  • Comment by
    Tom Colvin
    24 Mar 2009

    I’ve just come across a French company that also publishes e-books across multiple formats, very similar to Smashwords. Feedbooks is at:

    http://www.feedbooks.com/

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