It used to be that saving your book manuscript to PDF format was sufficient for writers aiming toward self-publishing.  That works just fine for many Print-On-Demand companies.

E-Books are different, with the open-standards ePub format emerging as the most widely applicable format and with Kindle’s proprietary format gaining popularity to match the success of the Kindle Reader.

Smashwords offers a good route to getting your manuscripts into the approriate formats, ranging from POD to e-books.  But you can do much of the conversion yourself with the software PDF to ePub.  It’s not cheap, but for the prolific writer — or perhaps a writers collective — this software may make sense.  In its most recent version, this software can also turn out conversions into Kindle format as well.

Check out the details at the PDF to ePub website.  You’ll also find on the site some links to other interesting software by the same company.

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By the way, did you know that one week ago, Amazon made available to the public a FREE downloadable reader for Kindle books on one’s PC.  One can now read Kindle titles without having to purchase the expensive reader.

As you already know, if you follow this blog, the Kindle Reader has gone international, with its e-book readers to be available in many countries.  There was a hitch with Canada, however.  This problem has been resolved, as explained in a post on the Publisher’s Weekly daily blog.

Smashwords has also announced with the past few days distribution arrangements with two major international ebook distributors.  Read the announcement about arrangements with Shortcovers, a major online distributor.  We’ve already announced the acquisition of BookHabit by Smashwords, but here’s a full announcement of this development.

LATEST NEWS ABOUT BARNES AND NOBLE’S NOOK READER: Barnes and Noble has just announced that its new Nook e-book reader has already sold out, within days of its introduction.  The company is now taking pre-orders for delivery in January.

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This new online service not only provides publishing capabilities, it also adds in collaboration and editing capabilities, ideal for teams building a book together, or for writers who turn to friends for editing.  Even the solitary writer will find some helpful tools here.

FastPencil can even automatically turn blog posts into “chapters,” and almost effortlessly produce a finished book based on one’s blog.  Writers can now publish their books in serial fashion via a dedicated blog.  And when the last chapter is posted, a few clicks of the mouse and some reasonably-price payments will produce a book — in print, distributed through normal channels to bricks-and-mortar bookstores, or as e-books.

Interestingly, the writing tools are available for free.  The publishing side, which offers a wide array of services, incurs costs, but they are very reasonable.  Take a look at the pricing and distribution page.

ReadWriteWeb in its  review of FastPencil pictures this facility as a Smashwords on steroids.  If you’ve already finished your book, Smashwords is the way to go.  If not, FastPencil may provide the push forward you need.

BOOKHABIT

Yet another outlet for writers with digital books to sell is BookHabit. This New Zealand based website follows the pattern of similar websites. It creates a catalog of books. Readers can download first chapters for free — and purchase the complete book if intrigued.

BookHabit was acquired by Smashwords in November 2009.

Check out an introductory video about this stie in our sidebar VIDEO FOR WRITERS, where it will be available for a few days.  Later on, you can find the video at out VIDEO FOR WRITERS website, powered by VodPod.

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As an online resource center, Becoming A Writer Seriously sometimes passes on links to posts on other blogs that contribute significantly to discussion about how writers can become more productive and successful.  You’ll find some important software links here too.  There’s so much good stuff here that I expect this post to keep you up all weekend!

MORE ABOUT SMASHWORDS — AND INTRODUCTION TO BOOK OVEN

I myself have already blogged about Smashwords, and last week I wrote about writer David Lyons, who sings the praises of this new avenue to publication.  Now I’d like to point you to a new post at Caribbean Book Blog, which provides the fullest treatment of Smashwords that I’ve come across.  I was also particularly pleased to learn about another useful site for writers — Book Oven — which helps with editing.  Here we have even more proof that every writer now has at hand the tools necessary to get a well-crafted book out to the public.

101 TOOLS TO CURE WRITER’S BLOCK — and more

Online School has pulled together what it calls 101 Tools to Turn to When You Have Writer’s Block.  The title shortchanges the usefulness of this resource list, which goes way beyond curing writer’s block.  In fact, there is so much here that I think this post is a must-bookmark.

SPEAKING OF BOOKMARKS…

I don’t know why I have found bookmarking such a difficult task.  Oh, it’s easy enough to click to bookmark within my browser.  BUT once bookmarked, it just seems that they become useless.  I simply forget what bookmarks I have accumulated [100's actually].  I’ve tried various bookmarking schemes, but none has really worked for me.

What I really want is something that allows me to categorize the bookmarks in a meaningful way and to annotate each one to remind me just why I bookmarked it.  I’ve found the solution that works for meL  Linkman Pro.  I can build a set of category folders in a tree-hierarchy, which keeps the links organized.  Then when I add a new one, I can add my annotation, rank its importance and more.  You can read an excellent review at Softpedia.  You may wish to first try out the Linkman Lite version, which is freeware.  Most will find that it’s perfectly adequate.  I myself upgraded to the Pro version, which costs $25.  One caution:  because of it’s power, it does take a little effort to learn how best to use it.  There’s a good tutorial video on the developer’s homepage, and a 100-page e-book manual to help.

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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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