Kindle vs PubIt vs Smashwords vs...

Smashwords does a very nice job with its file conversion; the author ends up getting many, many different formats. However, the site design is a bit clunky, authors basically have to give people direct links in order for anyone to actually find the book, and the work might be surrounded by gigantic piles of erotica (not meaning any offense by this, but there's a lot of that on SW), which may or may not make a difference. The premium distribution is okay; it takes bloody forever.

Amazon DTP has a simple interface with what I believe is the best royalty deal around: 70% (read the terms, it's not without strings). Amazon also has the biggest ebook market at the moment, so the sheer amount of potential traffic is staggering. Case in point: Haven sold maybe 50 copies on Amazon in several months. Last week, Amazon put it to free for 5 days. Haven had 9000 downloads in that time, and, after being put back to the normal 99cent price, has sold 500+ more.

I can't say anything about PubIt at the moment, as I don't have experience.

In the end, I'd say that self-publishing at all places independently is the best bet when possible. Smashwords premium distribution is nice but not anything spectacular, and it takes so long that going to it directly seems quicker and entails less fuss. Since it's possible to opt out of any individual distribution deal, do so with the PubIt and Amazon and upload to those sites individually. However, since there's still Kobo, iBooks, etc, put it on Smashwords as well to get the greatest potential site exposure.

I agree with what Kemp said re: Smashwords and Amazon DTP. One bonus of SW is that you can download your MS in .mobi format and upload it to Amazon DTP, so you don't need to covert via DTP. SW is also good when a reviewer requests a digital copy of the MS, because the coupon generator on the site lets you provide a free download. Have also been very happy with Createspace for the print version. No experience with Pubit, but SW gets it on B&N as part of the Premium cataolg. DTP just increased royalties to 70% for the UK site, and SW pays 85%

Peace,

Sean

I say offer your book anywhere, anywhere you can. Then do a trade study to see which location makes you the most profit. My friend did smashowords and kindle with great success.

One advantage of Smashwords over PubIt is that you can set the price (even on B&N) to zero if you choose. I was giving a couple of short stories away and found that they got more readers on B&N via the Smashwords Premium catalog for free than they did at the minimum PubIt price of $.99. (I used PubIt while waiting for the Smashwords version to show up.) One drawback to Smashwords is that I don't think there is a way to track your B&N sales figures in real time like you can with PubIt.

Oh, and for those who don't care about the ability to offer ebooks for free, another reason to use the Smashwords route to B&N as opposed to the PubIt one: The Smashwords edition does not come with the notice underneath saying, "Not compatible with Mac and Blackberry Clients." I want to reach as many potential readers as possible.

I agree with Nitaworm, offer your book anywhere you can. You never know where your best sales are going to come from.

Also, books published to B&N via PubIt! have a big, red, blinking arrow on them saying Self-Published! OK, maybe it's just the PubIt! logo, but the Smashwords versions don't have it. The drawback to using SW to publish to B&N is that the book's blurb is much shorter. Using PubIt!, you could write a longer description.

Smashwords is great for file conversion if you want to sell at your own author page. It's also great for giveaway copies for blog reviewers, etc., but they're incredibly slow to get books into B&N and iBookstore and even slower to report sales.

I have a 'short novelette' listed on both, and I've managed to sell a couple thousand on Kindle, thanks to them putting it on sale for a few days for free (sales continued at a brisk pace thereafter). But absolutely nothing on Smashwords. I think most of the people who go to smashwords do not expect quality work, so they don't download anything unless it's free.

I'm planning on placing it on Pubit! and iBookstore asap.

I just started this entire process two weeks ago because I got rights back to my backlisted books. After a lot of consideration, I decided to do bn and amazon myself and use Smashwords to fill in all the gaps those don't meet. The amazon and bn files were easy to load and I could use the same word doc for both. I just uploaded my first book on Smashwords, so the juries out on how good I did with the formatting requirements.

But, these are backlist books, not new works, so it's a totally different game. I wouldn't even know how to begin marketing a book from scratch.

I put two short stories on Smashwords, more or less as practice formatting them, one that had been previously published and an old one that I had no plans for. Following their guide, I had no problems with the conversion (Admittedly, they were short and simple manuscripts) and had about 75 downloads apiece during the first week. Both stories were up for free at that point. After a week or so, they were approved for the premium catalogue. That was actually today, they have yet to appear on the various sites premium catalogue items get placed on (Amazon, Sony, Apple, Kobo, B&N). I kept the old one free and raised the price of the previously published story to .99. I'll see how it goes.

I don't know if my experience is typical, but Smashwords has been very frustrating. They take an age to check for the Premium Catalogue (one of my books has been waiting for approval since 13th of March, so it's now coming up to a month). Their autovetter also throws up errors. I had one of my books rejected for the Premium Catalogue--but not reason given. The space for 'fix this error' was blank. Two emails about this have so far gone unanswered (waiting a week for a reply). The volume of books they're getting is also telling on their infrastructure. I tried resubmitting a reformatted ms. today (after going through the Style Guide for the nth time), and it's now #1924 in the queue for the meatgrinder.

Compared to Amazon, very frustrating indeed. Not impressed.

You might give bookbaby.com a look. They don't distribute to as many places as Smashwords, but they've got all the big distributors.

Warning though: they charge an up-front fee. However, they take no percentage. I do not have experience with them yet, but I'm leaning their way.

Thanks for the suggestion, but bookbaby are asking $99 per ebook. As I'm selling reprints of short stories, that doesn't really make economic sense. If it was a one-time sign-up fee, I'd consider it, but per ebook, that's a lot.

Oh, yeah, definitely not for shorts. Sorry I missed that part.

Thank you for the great opinions. I'm also weighing up whether to do smashwords for their plethora of smaller retail outlets, but haven't made up my mind.

Is it possible for a self published author to gain access to the Sony Reader and the Apple Bookstore on their own?

If so, maybe it's worthwhile dealing directly with Kindle, PubIt, Apple, and Sony to get a larger slice of royalties? (As in, not paying a cut to Smashwords.)

I mean, writing books is not just an art but a business too, right? I tend to think that the extra cents per sale you could get should be weighed against the pros of what Smashwords can give.

Edit: did some looking around, and Apple does have a page where you can contact them about getting into their store, but i'm guessing they might refer you to an aggregate at their discretion and Sony has a page which says publishers can contact them and deal directly... unless you are a publisher with only a handful of titles, wherein it's suggested you deal with SW.

Links:
http://ebookstore.sony.com/publishers/
https://itunesconnect.apple.com/WebObjects/iTunesConnect.woa/wo/6.0.0.9.7.3.1.1

Todsplace said:

...
Is it possible for a self published author to gain access to the Sony Reader and the Apple Bookstore on their own?
...
Edit: did some looking around, and Apple does have a page where you can contact them about getting into their store, but i'm guessing they might refer you to an aggregate at their discretion and Sony has a page which says publishers can contact them and deal directly... unless you are a publisher with only a handful of titles, wherein it's suggested you deal with SW.

Links:
http://ebookstore.sony.com/publishers/
https://itunesconnect.apple.com/WebObjects/iTunesConnect.woa/wo/6.0.0.9.7.3.1.1

Click to expand...

One of the reasons why Apple encourages authors to go through an aggregator is so that the aggregator (Smashwords, Lulu, etc..) will validate the conversion. But copyblogger has step-by-step directions for doing it directly with Apple here (Note: You do need to have a Mac!):
http://www.copyblogger.com/publish-in-ibookstore/

Lulu is also an aggregator for Apple:
http://www.lulu.com/blog/2010/04/03/lulu-on-the-ipad/

jimbro said:

One of the reasons why Apple encourages authors to go through an aggregator is so that the aggregator (Smashwords, Lulu, etc..) will validate the conversion. But copyblogger has step-by-step directions for doing it directly with Apple here (Note: You do need to have a Mac!):
http://www.copyblogger.com/publish-in-ibookstore/

Lulu is also an aggregator for Apple:
http://www.lulu.com/blog/2010/04/03/lulu-on-the-ipad/

Click to expand...

Thanks Jimbro! I will investigate both links.

Important note for international authors:

PubIt is currently for those in the U.S. only.

So, for us, Smashwords is essential to get listed on B&N. And as far as I am aware, Smashwords is the only way to get listed with Diesel and Kobo (unless you are set up as a business with financials, Kobo will send you to Smashwords).

Of course, you could always just list on Smashwords and turn off the distribution channels you don't want. And there are some sales through Smashwords site itself, but I don't think anybody is making real money there.

Not to confuse things, but shouldn't this be in the self-publishing forum? I think the lines between e-publishing and e-self-publishing are being blurred a little.

I really like that Smashwords works to support so many of the platforms ibookstore, kobo, etc. But...some of the time for updates to feeds and royalty reporting from other sources can be VERY slow. The more distribution sources the better so I say you should be on all the platforms. For me, that means using DKP for Amazon Kindle, Pubit for B&N Nook, and Smashwords for all else.

I had planned to submit directly to all the ones I can (just to learn the ropes), but that's interesting about the delays with Smashwords. Good to know.

Darn. PubIt is only for American citizens?

At the moment, yes (although you can get around that with a U.S. address & bank account).

With Smashwords, you can get listed on B&N (and others), but the downside is they take 10%.