confused about smashwords and Kindle

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thrillerz

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I am in the process of e-publishing through smashwords.com. However, I want the ebook to be ON/IN in the amazon.com website for kindle purchase. It looks like smashwords is working on a relationship to distribute to amazon.com but it's currently doing doing what I want (above). Please confirm or let me know how to do that.

Many thanks!
 

veinglory

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Smashwords seems to be effectively stalled on the Kindle channel. However they make a Kindle version that you are free to upload to Amazon yourself.
 

thrillerz

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except that Amazon won't allow *.mobi upload
 

veinglory

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I mean to say a Kindle ready version rather than a Kindle version per se. I haven't got around to it yet but I suspect they need html.
 

thrillerz

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Actually they accept *.doc as well. I use openoffice and I don't like the way it interprets carriage returns as paragraphs - wish I could change that. Excited it should be available on Kindle with a day or two - yeah! Now starts the marketing - when do I have time to write??
 

veinglory

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When I use .doc it tend to go to hell--I must have very messy files. The meatgrinder makes sure all that sundry code is weeded out (in its own painful way).
 

movieman

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Yeah, I tried taking the .doc I'd used for Smashwords, revising it to remove the Smashwords references and uploading it at Amazon and the end result wasn't good (e.g. no paragraph indentation). I exported from the .doc to HTML, uploaded that and it seems fine.
 

Deirdre

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Since Amazon's royalties are already low (for a lot of books), why cut it another 40% by going through Smashwords when you can upload it to Amazon yourself?

Just curious.
 

VoireyLinger

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Actually they accept *.doc as well. I use openoffice and I don't like the way it interprets carriage returns as paragraphs - wish I could change that. Excited it should be available on Kindle with a day or two - yeah! Now starts the marketing - when do I have time to write??

You can change that. It's under format>paragraph

As for Kindle, I listed directly at Amazon and used a doc file with no problems... known problems, anyway.
 

Irysangel

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AFAIK, you can create a Kindle-format ebook at Smashwords, but they don't distribute to Amazon. I think the options are there but it's not turned on.

That being said, there are a lot of formatting programs and formatting guides that can walk you through how to change your format for Amazon. Guido Henkel and Nadia Lee both have excellent ones.
 

The Grump

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Thrillerz, you put your finger on the writer's dilemma. You get something published, and you have to market [at least a little] which takes time away from your writing which if you publish again you have to spend more time marketing, etc.

Solution? It's as simple as setting priorities -- provided you don't have a life.
 

thrillerz

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VoireyLinger - I don't see it as an option under formet > paragraph. Do you do more specifics? Thanks.

movieman - I did the same and it formatted really ugly on the preview kindle, during the upload process for kindle.
 

deana

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The mobi format in Smashwords is for those readers who want to upload to their kindle. It's really handy to be on Smashwords because they have so many different eBook formats that when you sent someone to your author's page, they can just pick and choose which format they want to download.

Very handy. Especially if, like some authors (I haven't used it yet) setup coupons for people to buy their books for free from Smashwords, and Smashwords get you on Barnes and Noble (though some say they get paid more using PubIT...I haven't tested that yet).

I like Smashwords because there's also Apple and Sony on there (if your epub format is accept correctly).

Lots and lots to do :)
 

thrillerz

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thanks. Had not heard of pubit, will check them out. Lots to learn.
 
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