Smashwords

PamelaCaves said:

Out of curiosity, why would anyone go exclusive with Amazon? Just wondering about the benefits.

For my experience, I sell A LOT more ebooks on my Smashwords distribution to Barnes and Noble than I do on Smashwords and Amazon combined. But that seems to be just me.

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You're lucky. Like most, the majority of my sales have been on Amazon. If you're not selling much at the other avenues, then it makes sense to enroll in KDP and go exclusive.

Most of my sales have been through Amazon and a lot of those sales were because I offered the first book in the trilogy free for several weeks. I'm still convinced it was the best way to get the e-books noticed without spending money. The landscape has changed a bit with Amazon KDP Select, with many more books being offered free now, but the basic premise of offering the first book free to increase sales of the other two books may still be worthwhile.

I didn't want to pull my books from Smashwords (and, therefore, other sites), but I believe the free five days of promo every ninety days is worth it.

PamelaCaves said:

Out of curiosity, why would anyone go exclusive with Amazon? Just wondering about the benefits.

For my experience, I sell A LOT more ebooks on my Smashwords distribution to Barnes and Noble than I do on Smashwords and Amazon combined. But that seems to be just me.

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KDP Select: your book goes into the Prime Lending Library (prime members can borrow one book a month) and you can make it free for up to 5 days whenever you want. There's something about a big pot of royalties tied to how many your books are lent out, too, but I'm not so sure about that.

I'm tempted simply because of the chance to make your book free for a couple days, but if I took my books off of B&N, I'd lose half of my sales lol

eward said:

KDP Select: your book goes into the Prime Lending Library (prime members can borrow one book a month) and you can make it free for up to 5 days whenever you want. There's something about a big pot of royalties tied to how many your books are lent out, too, but I'm not so sure about that.

I'm tempted simply because of the chance to make your book free for a couple days, but if I took my books off of B&N, I'd lose half of my sales lol

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You can also make your book free on Smashwords by generating a coupon code and setting it to work for however many days you want. Granted, there is more of an audience at Amazon but if that's the only reason authors would go exclusive, doesn't seem like much of an advantage to me.

Smashwords is getting better and better, but you are probably going to need a good cover and more than one good story just to buy a dinner for two.

y-eye-right

Smashwords not paying in full?

My publisher informs me that Smashwords have not been paying the royalties in full. The publisher claims that each quarter, Smashwords has shorted the royalties. When confronted, Smashwords claimed the difference would be made up next quarter, but instead another shortfall occurred.

Has anyone experienced this?

No problem for me with Smashwords payment.
As far as sales I think you must publish on both. I publish a pretty good variety of things. Some do better in Smashwords venues, some in Amazon. There is no way to predict what will do better where. I just format in Word and upload to Smashwords. Then upload the same document to amazon. No problems.

I just received payment from Smashwords a couple of days ago. It was short about $9. I have been on the road, so have not had time to contact them to find out why.

I received less than I thought I was going to, but then realized that not all vendors have paid Smashwords yet. I noticed that today there is an additional $120 in my account balance. I assume that was because a vendor paid for e-books purchased in the last quarter of 2011. When I looked back at my 2011 sales, the amount had been reduced by the same amount, so I think that explains it. I won't receive those funds until 30-40 days after the end of the first quarter of 2012, so not until probably April/May of 2012.

I have not had a problem with payment at all. Merrihiatt is right about the vendors. There is a significant lag time with payment and reporting for vendors and it may appear that you're not getting paid everything initially but it balances itself out later as those payments and reports roll in.

Alessandra Kelley said:

I'm not at all convinced the KDP select program is of benefit to anybody except Amazon.

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I'm curious... do you disbelieve all the authors who have shared how financially beneficial it's been for them, or have you not seen those numbers?

J. Tanner said:

I'm curious... do you disbelieve all the authors who have shared how financially beneficial it's been for them, or have you not seen those numbers?

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I have only seem actual numbers from two authors that tried it both ways--and they both found going Select reduced their sales.

What numbers are you seeing?

veinglory said:

I have only seem actual numbers from two authors that tried it both ways--and they both found going Select reduced their sales.

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I've seen about a 50:50 split between better and worse/no difference. But I'd guess we're all seeing small samples of authors which can't give an accurate picture.

veinglory said:

I have only seem actual numbers from two authors that tried it both ways--and they both found going Select reduced their sales.

What numbers are you seeing?

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Hugh reported his positive results on this very forum.
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6966781&postcount=16

Several authors have reported positives in the comments on Dean Wesley Smith's blog as every couple weeks he has a post in opposition to it. Too much of a slog to delve back through all those and you can't link to individual comments.

Then there's a huge thread on Kindleboards. There's certainly a split, but there are people reporting 1000+ borrows a month and no obvious impact on sales. There are people reporting books snowballing after free periods. Many of those stories have made it to blog posts that are easier to link like...

Patrice Fitzgerald:
http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/the-joys-of-kdp-select-patrice-fitzgeralds-story/

Marilyn Peake:
http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/time-traveling-through-the-past-decade-of-publishing/

MP McDonald:
http://mmcdonald64.blogspot.com/2011/12/very-early-results-from-kdp-select.html

A number of the reports are modest improvements from modest starting points but that's still net positive for that author. That mirrors my own experiment with free. I took a short story that was averaging just shy of one sale a month across all channels and set it free. (Nothing to lose there by experimenting! ) In the couple weeks since it's come off free it's averaging just shy of one sale a day. It's going to take a lot longer to see how long that tail is but it's still net positive.

Thanks for all this news about Smashwords. I'm going through the process with them right now on my first ebook and I have a few questions. Basically, I've owned a small publishing company for a few years and I focus on English textbooks sold in Asia (I live in Taiwan).

So I've written a work of fiction and decided to epublish it, which is a new experience for me. I've had it on Smashwords for about a week and am giving it away for free, just to see how all the bells and whistles work. A couple things made me hesitate, though.

1. It says I have to claim myself as the publisher, not my publishing company. Apparently, if I have two or more books by different authors, I can upgrade to publisher status. However, I don't want to put my textbooks there because of control issues. Does that really mean I can't use my publishing company to protect the rights to this ebook?

2. It also says I have to put their 'terms' in my book. I kind of think their terms are way too soft, something like "please don't copy this" instead of my usual "copy this and you will die!" (paraphrased) terms. To get into their premium catalog, will I really need to use their terms on the copyright page?

What are the benefits of using Smashwords? It sounds like they will submit your book to the Apple store and so on, saving you all the trouble. Anything else?

I see Smashwords as a great way to test the market and see who's writing what and where the opportunities are for new ground in terms of content. And since I'm giving my ebook away for free, I'm not too worried about these technical questions. I was just wondering if anyone could explain in more detail how it all adds up. Thanks.

2. It also says I have to put their 'terms' in my book. I kind of think their terms are way too soft, something like "please don't copy this" instead of my usual "copy this and you will die!" (paraphrased) terms. To get into their premium catalog, will I really need to use their terms on the copyright page?

What are the benefits of using Smashwords? It sounds like they will submit your book to the Apple store and so on, saving you all the trouble. Anything else?

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You must use Smashwords' standard wording. They will kick it back to you and not approve distribution if you do not use their wording.

Some of the benefits of using Smashwords are the royalty percentage, distribution to many other sales channels and the ability to read a book in a web browser or as a pdf, and they use PayPal so you can be an author outside the U.S. and not have to worry about receiving royalties from a check outside the country. Plus, they are the only site that allows you to offer an e-book free without also asking for exclusivity.

pebblefoot said:

1. It says I have to claim myself as the publisher, not my publishing company. Apparently, if I have two or more books by different authors, I can upgrade to publisher status. However, I don't want to put my textbooks there because of control issues. Does that really mean I can't use my publishing company to protect the rights to this ebook?

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When filling out their form you use your real name (which is not seen by customers anyway), but nothing prevents you from putting the publishing company info in the book itself on the copyright page.

2. It also says I have to put their 'terms' in my book. I kind of think their terms are way too soft, something like "please don't copy this" instead of my usual "copy this and you will die!" (paraphrased) terms. To get into their premium catalog, will I really need to use their terms on the copyright page?

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You should copy/paste their exact wording. It's the best way to get through the review system. But you could add more info in a second paragraph if you want. Of course, the reality is all that wording is completely worthless. Legitimate customers will not steal your book either way, and pirates will still steal it even if you threaten to hunt down and kidnap their first born child. No one checks the wording and parses the harshness of the text before deciding whether or not to steal it.

I count as actual data: comparisons, money made on select versus money made off select during a comparable period--'I gave a way a lot of free copies' is not--in itself--a "win" in my book. I can (and have) done that off my own website.

veinglory said:

I count as actual data: comparisons, money made on select versus money made off select during a comparable period--'I gave a way a lot of free copies' is not--in itself--a "win" in my book. I can (and have) done that off my own website.

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Are you referring back to my post with the links about Select success stories? Because I see the kind of data you're looking for in each of them. Granted, not in a simple table form, but each is about paid sales or paid borrows, not how many free books were given away.

Patrice's story is easy to translate to a simple table:

Month - Paid Sales

JUL 11: 36
AUG 11: ~5
SEP 11: ~5
OCT 11: ~5
NOV 11: ~5
DEC 11: ~5 (Dec 1 - 22)

SELECT FREE PERIOD (Dec 23 only)

DEC 11: 1416 (Dec 24-31) + 508 Paid Borrows
JAN 12: 231 (Jan 1-9 only) + 243 Paid Borrows

She sold more in one day post-free than in nearly six months combined prior. She also RAISED the price from $4.99 to $7.99 for most of that time so she's making more per sale as well.

Yes, that would be a win. Assuming they were in major channels before. Maybe someone will do a summary and start working out who wins and who loses by doing select. As it clearly goes both ways.

Indeed. I think the early advice remains rather sound.

1) If you're selling okay, and getting 20% or more overall from non-Amazon sources, you probably don't want to touch that content.

2) If you're selling a small percentage, 5% or less at other sources, it could be worth taking down from other sites to try Select.

3) If you don't have a large built in audience on release day for new material at other sources, it could be worth experimenting with Select for 90 days before releasing it elsewhere.

But "there are no sure things" is as true here as with everything else in publishing.

"Since it was officially launched four years ago at the Tools of Change conference by Mark Coker, Smashwords has distributed 100,000 e-books, a milestone it passed earlier this week. According to the company, over 35,000 authors, small publishers and literary agents have used Smashwords to distribute their e-books to e-tailers that include Barnes & Noble, the Apple iBookstore, Sony, Kobo and the Diesel eBook Store.

Now employing 13 people, Smashwords said it has been profitable for 18 months (it takes 15% of the sale price of an e-book) and continues to grow, releasing 8,500 e-books in the last 30 days."
Publishers Weekly

Hi all, I'm new here.

I have recently self-published my book (Just Keep Knitting, a journey of healing through forgiveness, faith, and fibre) both in print and on Smashwords. I kept my expectations low, I think ... I figured if I sold 100 print copies and maybe 50 eBook copies over the course of a year, I'd be thrilled.

The book was officially released February 14 (though it was up 'quietly' on Smashwords before the official launch date) and in the five and a half weeks since then, I have sold 25 copies on Smashwords plus 4 at Barnes & Noble, 2 at Kobo and 1 at the Apple store - though the numbers from distribution partners are not up to date. I've also sold 75 printed copies, and have ordered a second print run.

I found Smashwords to be the easiest way to get the book online and widely distributed, with the least hassle for me and for my readers. I did a test book (by consolidating about a year's worth of blog postings from when we were building our house in the country) and uploaded it as a freebie - that let me test the system and figure out how it all worked, and I've been shocked at how many people have downloaded it! (178 since December of last year)

Just Keep Knitting is a non-fiction memoir/knitting book (yeah, I know, weird combination) that has been well received in the fibre community (where I am very active in the online world) ... pretty well everybody I know (both in the real world and online) now has a copy, and now the real work of marketing begins.

But, it's been really encouraging for me to see it get off to such a good start.

I would encourage people to give Smashwords a try - if you are ready and willing to do a lot of promotion for your book on your own, it's really easy to give people the link to the book, to hand out discount codes (or make it free with a code, or via 'gifting'), and with the distribution channels ... although Amazon isn't included (except, I see, for books that sell very well or if they ever iron out the paperwork), it felt like a decent tradeoff for me.

I do have to do all the US Tax paperwork (I'm Canadian) and that's a hassle, but that was gonna be a hassle no matter what I did, so I'm just gritting my teeth and getting on with it.

So ... count me in as a Smashwords fan.

Welcome, Frazzlehead!