Looking for opinions on smashwords for a project

Hey Gayle, I think you might get more in the way of responses if you put your questions in the E-Publishing threads or the Self-Publishing & POD threads.

Just a suggestion. There's a lot of talk about Smashwords in both of those places.

Moved from BR&BC

Oh, Smashwords.

I don't like the meatgrinder, though I can appreciate the complexity of such a thing; it's not that the elephant's clumsy when it flies, but that it flies at all. But the files it generates are inelegant, and the table of contents one must prepend in one's Word document for some of the more abstruse outputs is just ugly and redundant in other, sleeker formats.

What's possibly interesting to me is its status as a universal, the Amazon of self-published ebooks. The number of bookbloggers I've seen who specify not a PDF or an EPUB as the format they'd prefer to receive, but a Smashwords link with a coupon code good for one free download, say. It's definitely a thing.

So to that end Smashwords has been helpful. But all my (measly) sales of ebooks to date have either been my own, or through Amazon's Kindle Direct program. So there's that.

Or, to answer the questions asked:

1. It's kind of expected or taken for granted you'll have a Smashwords presence, at least in the circles I've seen so far.
2. I like the one-stop shopping for all formats in a hassle-free fashion. I like very much that you buy the book, not the file, and download whatever formats you need or require as you need or require them; I dislike that those formats are necessarily all lowest-common-denominator in terms of look and feel.
3. See no. 2.
4. I don't really know? Their basic approach to selling ebooks is dandy and makes a lot of sense, but I haven't had a lot of interaction with them.

Smashwords was okay. I didn't like it as well as Kindle. But Kindle results in a book in one digital format; Smashwords creates several. The style guide was helpful, though a lot wordier than it needed to be. Getting into the premium catalogue was a paid. I had an error in the TOC that I took me two weeks to figure out. Finally I got it done, and accepted. The style guide doesn't give great guidance on creating TOCs.

NDG

I find I sell more via Smashwords than Kindle. I found their instructions on how to set up easy to follow.

I'm a smashwords fan, so I imagine my perspective will be uniformly positive, but I'll give this a go.

1. Do you think smashwords has helped you as an author? Why or why not?

I first published to smashwords in 2009. At the time, and for about a year and a half, nearly all of my sales came from there, since they were a product of my "hand-selling" my books from my own website.

I feel that they were helpful to me because they provided me an easy way to make my product available to my audience (then primarily a webfiction crowd used to reading books on a computer screen who preferred, I believe, the option of reading on the web to the Kindle, since they--at that point--didn't by and large have ereaders. I'm not sure how aware they were of Kindle for PC. I don't know why my primary source of income used to be smashwords and now it's Amazon, though. I'm theorizing). I like to be able to publish easily in multiple formats, and being able to keep a large percent of profits from smashwords sales.

I also like the ability to get my book listed in a bunch of places easily. (Although, I don't see a lot of sales from the extended distribution, which I think is atypical amongst indie--self-published, to use the preferred term of the realm--authors.)

Finally, Mark Coker is good people. I haven't contacted him in quite some time, but, in the beginning at any rate, he was easy to contact and prompt with answering questions.

2. What do you like about smashwords? What don't you like?

Oh, I may have enumerated my likes already. To sum up, easy and efficient.

Additionally, I like the free ISBNs. There's not another outfit out there offering the same deal. I have no problem with the fact that my book is listed as being published by Smashwords on other sites, either.

It would be cool to get Amazon distribution someday. I'd like to see what would happen with a book distributed from smashwords to Amazon. I'd also nitpick to say that I think the website is misleading in that it implies that the books will eventually be shipped to Amazon, when there is currently no deal with Amazon. I wish that were explained in a more upfront manner.

Sidenote: Since I write fiction, I never include a table of contents in the files I upload to smashwords, but I've noticed the epub version the meatgrinder spits out always has one automatically--or at least in Adobe Digital Editions, I can navigate to chapters with one click. Which I think is nifty, if somewhat unnecessary.

3. What do you think is the greatest advantage of smashwords? The greatest disadvantage?

Smashwords is advantageous mostly as a place to send your readers with direct links and for its distribution plan. It is not, by and large, a place where readers browse, and therefore, not a place where you can get sales from people who don't already know about you.

4. Generally speaking, how do you feel about how smashwords does business?

Generally speaking, quite good. They always pay on time.

Carmy said:

I find I sell more via Smashwords than Kindle. I found their instructions on how to set up easy to follow.

Click to expand...

Exact opposite for me. To date I've sold about 20 copies via Kindle for every 1 on SW. ARe is my second high seller and I'm running 15 there for every one at SW. I don't know if it plays a part of not, but I'm published through a e-publishing company as well. I went into self-pub with an established market, but only my self-pub is available on SW.

The meatgrinder is crap. I loathe it. I've had better results converting my own files. Given the poor sales via SW, I'm not sure it's worth dealing with the meatgrinder for future projects.

So question 1... no. it hasn't helped me at all and i could easily omit it from my distribution network.

I don't like much about SW. It's mostly been a meh experience for me. But again, I HATE the formatting and conversion headache. And the style guide was useless, too.

I can't really see a great advantage. I can't see a great disadvantage, either.

From what I can see, the business end seems fair and reasonable.

1. Do you think smashwords has helped you as an author? Why or why not?
2. What do you like about smashwords? What don't you like?
3. What do you think is the greatest advantage of smashwords? The greatest disadvantage?
4. Generally speaking, how do you feel about how smashwords does business?

1. Yes, definitely. It helps to get the book formatted and on sale in a whole lot of places I wouldn't be able to myself. It's also great for giving away free copies for prizes or reviews.
2. I like the ease of use as an author and the good response to feedback. I like being able to track my sales on all the different sites and the clear information about royalties.
3. The access it gives to other ebook stores. My books are only uploaded at Amazon and Smashwords, but you can buy them all over the place. Saves me a huge amount of time and headaches. I guess the disadvantage is not having control over your coding. You have to trust the meatgrinder.
4. I'm very happy with it. I think dissatisfaction comes when authors think they are going to sell books on the Smashwords site. It's primary use is not as a bookstore but as a distributor.