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Old 03-25-2012, 08:40 PM   #51
James D. Macdonald
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Here's my current sales at Smashwords:

Books Sold
  • Smashwords.com (all-time): 282
  • Retailers during 2012:
    • Amazon: 0
    • Apple: 5
    • Baker-Taylor: 0
    • Barnes & Noble: 445
    • Diesel: 0
    • Kobo: 1
    • Sony: 97
Here are the 2011 numbers:

Books Sold
  • Smashwords.com (all-time): 282
  • Retailers during 2011:
    • Amazon: 0
    • Apple: 24
    • Baker-Taylor: 0
    • Barnes & Noble: 526
    • Diesel: 0
    • Kobo: 5
    • Sony: 796
Note that I've sold nearly as many copies through B&N in the first quarter of 2012 as I did in all of 2011. Sony, however, seems to be sinking fast.
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Old 03-28-2012, 08:01 AM   #52
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Wonderful, James. How did you find the information? Is it on SMW or is it a record you kept yourself?

I sell far more via SMW than I do via Kindle, but I have to use PayPal to receive royalties.

I love Smashwords, and Mark Coker is a gentleman. I love him to bits!
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Old 04-30-2012, 04:49 PM   #53
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Is this normal?
I tried Smashwords and book was approved as part of the "premium catalog" and "shipped" to their normal distributors more than a month ago.

The book is only available at kobo.

I don't believe there are any format or other requirements I've missed or done improperly. I've checked over and over, plus I've sent an email to Smashwords but have not gotten any reply.

1. Is this a normal time lag for Apple and others?

2. Is there something I must do with each distributor in addition to what Smashwords has done? Am I missing something?

Thanks for any insight anyone may have.
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Old 04-30-2012, 06:04 PM   #54
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If your book was approved and shipped ... it'll show up. Give it time.

What's the title of your book?

Some of the electronic bookstores are difficult to maneuver around. I've had my best luck by searching them via Google.
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Old 04-30-2012, 06:53 PM   #55
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I'm not at all convinced the KDP select program is of benefit to anybody except Amazon. It gives them a monopoly on your book for 90 days, which renews automatically unless you go through the procedure to opt out before the 90 days is up. The lending library is of benefit to them, not you, as they want lots of free books for their library members. And five days out of 90 in which you can offer your book for free does not sound to me like a great deal for the author.

On the other hand, it's a GREAT deal for 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?
I'm sorry I didn't get back to this thread earlier.

I hadn't seen any numbers or at the time heard any other authors talking about KDP Select. I was basing my statements entirely on reading over Amazon's terms when they popped up a window at me offering the KDP Select program.

By my reading, it looked like a deal biased very strongly in Amazon's favor.

I would be interested to hear what authors' actual experiences with KDP Select have been.

In the meantime, I have found Smashwords to be less stressful to deal with than Amazon.
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Old 04-30-2012, 06:54 PM   #56
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Thank you, James. It was approved and shipped about 5 weeks ago. I'll see what happens after another month.

"Hackers, Hustlers and the Fatman"
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Old 04-30-2012, 07:50 PM   #57
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Here it is at Sony.
Diesel.
Kobo, as you mentioned.

I'm sure the others will be along.
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Old 05-01-2012, 02:21 AM   #58
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I think it's easy to get used to the speed of having a book available through Amazon KDP. Smashwords makes the book available on their site immediately (faster than Amazon, actually), but it does take a while to get reviewed and then have the e-book distributed to other sites. I usually figure at least a month.

Alessandra, I've been using Amazon KDP Select as a way of offering the first book in a trilogy free. My numbers are not huge, but I did have over 15,000 free downloads during a 24-hour free promo, followed by around 500 paid sales during the following week/week and a half. I have not had consistent results with free promos.

J. Tanner mentioned on another thread that rumor had it Amazon tweaked their algorithims mid-March. I haven't had more than a few thousand downloads from freebies since then.
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Old 05-01-2012, 09:13 PM   #59
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Has anyone heard of Booktango for e-publishing? It sounds like they will go to Amazon plus many more.

Also how does it all work? When you e-publish you pick from their online retailer partners, eg Amazon or kobo does it then automatically go on their site or do these sites look at your book and see if they want it on their site?
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Old 05-02-2012, 07:58 AM   #60
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Has anyone heard of Booktango for e-publishing? It sounds like they will go to Amazon plus many more.

Also how does it all work? When you e-publish you pick from their online retailer partners, eg Amazon or kobo does it then automatically go on their site or do these sites look at your book and see if they want it on their site?

I don't know anything about Booktango.

Yes, it's automatic.
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Old 05-25-2012, 12:20 AM   #61
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Chiming in. First, Merri inspired me awhile ago to use epublishing. Not personally, just from her postings about her journey.

About a week ago I looked into Smashwords. Looked through their catalogues, read a few sample books. Then I downloaded their how to publish through smashwords book (which is free), and read it. No, studied it. I took on of my novels that generated a lot of interest from agents a few years ago, and had gotten me my agent. He only showed it to about 11 publishers and that was that. So....

I used the instructions for the nuclear way to format a manuscript so it'd be ready for uploading. Amazing the way my ms. became readable. It took about a total of two hours to get it right, but it worked.

Then I read up about covers (here and elsewhere) and designed my own cover using free Gimp. That took some trial and error, but I saved the file a lot so I could revert easily.

Right now I'm waiting to see if it gets accepted into Smashwords premium. Maybe in a month or so I might use Amazon for this ebook also. I'm not rushing.

I like Smashwords for the way they walk you through formatting and uploading and publishing. I like their site, too.

Thank you to all who contribute on the epublishing threads here. You really help a lot!
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Old 05-25-2012, 04:06 AM   #62
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Stormie, just a heads up that it can take two to four weeks for your title to get approved. Smashwords recently hired more staff to help with vetting. Once it's approved, it can take anywhere from two weeks to two months to show up on other sales channels. Sometimes having a timeline makes the waiting easier.

I wish you all good things on this journey.
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Old 05-25-2012, 05:14 AM   #63
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I have a lot going on w/ writing and at home, so the time will fly. I am also going to look into Amazon. I just really liked the way Smashwords explained everything about formatting. I have some mss. where, no matter what I did, the paragraphs took on a life of their own. Finally, I understand and can correct it without breaking a sweat.
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Old 05-25-2012, 07:10 AM   #64
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Maybe in a month or so I might use Amazon for this ebook also. I'm not rushing.
From my experience, if you've formatted your Word document so that Smashwords will accept it, that document will upload to Amazon without a problem. I was surprised how easy it was. Why wait?
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Old 05-25-2012, 09:21 PM   #65
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It's not so much waiting. As I said, I have other things I'm working on. It'll get done.
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Old 06-02-2012, 01:34 AM   #66
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Actually, Smashwords is working it out with Amazon in terms of providing your book in a Kindle format directly (much like Smashwords does with Apple and B&N). They don't have it finalized, but you might think about doing that instead.
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Old 06-03-2012, 05:07 AM   #67
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Actually, Smashwords is working it out with Amazon in terms of providing your book in a Kindle format directly (much like Smashwords does with Apple and B&N). They don't have it finalized, but you might think about doing that instead.
Thing is, they've been working on working it out for quite a while now. I put my first book up on Smashwords in January, and they were saying back then that they were negotiating with Amazon. Eventually, I just put the book up on Amazon myself.

And I have to say, I like the immediacy of seeing sales (when there are sales - sigh) as they happen at Amazon. With Barnes and Noble and the other affiliates, there's a lag time and they report sales to Smashwords in blocks of time. Back in early May, I was whining around that nobody was buying my book - and then B&N updated their reports to Smashwords and turns out I'd sold 1400 over there! That would have been sort of fun to watch as it was happening.

So when I put my second book up this week, I uploaded it to Smashwords and then uploaded it to Amazon the same day.
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Old 06-20-2012, 05:09 AM   #68
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Smashwords has made some recent updates so book and updates will go to Apple and Kobo faster (as in hours, not days or weeks). They also report that overall most of their sales occur through Apple's iBookstore.

My experience with formatting for both Smashwords and Kindle is that you don't want to upload the .doc file to Amazon. Export it as filtered html and then upload it and it will turn out much better. You don't need to change any of the formatting except to bookmark your Table of Contents as TOC.
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Old 06-20-2012, 04:58 PM   #69
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My experience with formatting for both Smashwords and Kindle is that you don't want to upload the .doc file to Amazon. Export it as filtered html and then upload it and it will turn out much better. You don't need to change any of the formatting except to bookmark your Table of Contents as TOC.
Yes. And I think Amazon states that in their formatting guide.
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Old 06-21-2012, 05:32 AM   #70
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Anyone thinking of ebook publishing at Amazon as well as Apple, new requirements for book covers come into effect on the 15th July 2012.
Cover sizes will need to be approximately 2,500 pixels high and no less than 1,400 pixels wide. Smashwords will also require this after that date or they won't be able to distribute your ebooks.
Any covers published prior to 15th July 2012 are ok and will still be accepted by those distributors.
Strong advice is that you don't try to enlarge current photographic covers by simply using your photo shop packages or they will lose clarity when changed.

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Old 06-22-2012, 12:03 AM   #71
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GeorgeJames View Post
Anyone thinking of ebook publishing at Amazon as well as Apple, new requirements for book covers come into effect on the 15th July 2012.
Cover sizes will need to be approximately 2,500 pixels high and no less than 1,400 pixels wide. Smashwords will also require this after that date or they won't be able to distribute your ebooks.
Any covers published prior to 15th July 2012 are ok and will still be accepted by those distributors.
Strong advice is that you don't try to enlarge current photographic covers by simply using your photo shop packages or they will lose clarity when changed.

Regards

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Appreciate the notice, George. Anything changing at PubIt?
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Old 06-22-2012, 04:50 AM   #72
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Appreciate the notice, George. Anything changing at PubIt?
Hi MartinD.

At a guess I'd say they will be changing everywhere. I believe it is to do with a new digital capacity for readers coming very shortly that have the ability to show full size books as if actual paperback sizes?
I don't know if this will be an upgrade download to readers or brand new readers?
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Old 06-22-2012, 06:25 AM   #73
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Apple is so annoying. The reality will remain that the real resolution that's important for epublishing will be the small postage stamp version that people actually see when they're looking through books.
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Old 06-22-2012, 08:41 AM   #74
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This may help to what I was previously describing regarding larger cover requirements ebooks.

http://blog.smashwords.com/2012/06/n...uirements.html

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Old 06-22-2012, 10:38 AM   #75
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Quote:
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Smashwords has made some recent updates so book and updates will go to Apple and Kobo faster (as in hours, not days or weeks).
any idea when that's supposed to kick in? my books been "pending review" for almost three weeks now.
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