# What can we do to help Smashwords (Hi Mark Coker) become the place for books?



## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

First, thank you Mark Coker for everything you are doing for bringing indie authors wider distribution and connecting us with readers. Many of us have a vested interested in seeing wanting Smashwords to become a true competitor to Amazon.

We'd like to see Smashwords help generate sales on our other titles, and become a must-go-to destination for readers. I love how easy you make distribution to other bookstores.

I know you're having growing pains with the look of the site (and you're working on that), and on customer service (they were fast and responsive anytime I've had a question, so thank you), plus security wise on credit cards, etc.

But what can *we* do to raise customer awareness that Smashwords is a viable bookstore world wide?
What can we do to attract customers that will purchase ebooks from Smashwords?

We've given Mark lots of feedback of what needs to happen on his end to raise Smashwords game, and I think posting more of those suggestions in this thread is a great idea too, but since we know bookstore marketing does fall on the backs of the authors, there must be things we can do to attract actual book buyers.

I'm interested in promoting Smashwords, because I do fear the power Amazon has without healthy competition. B&N isn't interested in indies, so that's out, but Mark is...so let's run with it and make something happen...Something wonderful...

(Cue in the 2001 Space Odessy music)

How do we make this happen?


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Excellent question.

I'd be back with Smashwords in a second if things had sold there for me. 
It's not their fault if sales at Sony or iBooks don't match Amazon's but perhaps there are ways of making Smashwords itself _the_ place to go for buying books.

An eye-catching web site would be a first step, but we have no control over that.

At this point, with the changes at Amazon, if you build it they (we) will come. If I know I can sell there, I will move to Smashwords. Right now I don't.
And readers will come if Smashwords can match Amazon's selection.


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2013)

I think the biggest thing we can do is actually use Smashwords as something other than a means to force Amazon to price match. 

Put links to Smashwords on your website.
Use Smashwords links when posting on Facebook.
Talk about Smashwords to your mailing list.

Quick little story:

In the last issue of my newsletter, I ran an article about Smashwords Library program and how we were making certain titles available for free to libraries. The following day, I checked my sales report on Smashwords and I had sales of the titles that I mentioned would be free to libraries. Customer sales at full price. I can attribute those to the newsletter and the Smashwords article because of the timing of the sales and the books purchased. 

Use Smashwords Affiliate links:

During  our October promotion for the eFesival of Words, we used Smashwords as the retailer for the promo. We got sales. If people are sold on a title, they will buy it from anywhere so long as it is easy to get.


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

For one thing, they could set up a monitored forum for their readers. There is one for writers, but it is not geared to attract readers or give them a place to make recommendations.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> I think the biggest thing we can do is actually use Smashwords as something other than a means to force Amazon to price match.
> 
> Put links to Smashwords on your website.
> Use Smashwords links when posting on Facebook.
> ...


Exactly. I think we can do more to promote Smashword links and steer sales towards them. The trick to getting Amazon to treat us good, is for them to see a viable threat elsewhere (or until they buy Mark out).

The trick to not having all our eggs in one basket is to help make that basket work.


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

There's no help for Smashwords until they help themselves.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

I, for one, hesitate to send customers to Smashwords because it is geared so much toward authors that it turns my customers into wannabe authors, rather than selling them my book.


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## Accord64 (Mar 12, 2012)

Sort of applying reverse logic here (in a twisted way).    

They say competition makes us better, so to help Smashwords become a better place, how about we instead promote other indie sites that compete with Smashwords?  That way, Mark would get the message and be motivated to move faster with needed improvements in order to stay competitive.

Honestly, I really, really want to be a fan of Smashwords. But since I started using them a little over a year ago, well, I just find it puzzling that I've had FAR less trouble dealing with Amazon.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Martitalbott said:


> For one thing, they could set up a monitored forum for their readers. There is one for writers, but it is not geared to attract readers or give them a place to make recommendations.





Cherise Kelley said:


> I, for one, hesitate to send customers to Smashwords because it is geared so much toward authors that it turns my customers into wannabe authors, rather than selling them my book.


Okay, so it needs to look more like a bookstore when customer's enter. Maybe genre lists, etc.


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## JTCochrane (Feb 6, 2012)

Every so often I tweet a line with the #Free #ebook #smashwords thing.


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

I've gone ahead and put on the adult-content filter at Smashwords because I don't want to be bombarded with lactation porn, etc everytime I go there. 

But for casual readers going there for the first time? Smashwords' system of featuring everything on the front page for a period of time before it gets bumped out by other more-newly-uploaded books an be rather off-putting to many readers.

And like others have said, it doesn't look like a bookstore. It really seems more geared towards allowing authors an easy way to self-publish. And that's great -- I'm not knocking that. But perhaps the self-publishing uploading should be links at the bottom of the page like it is with KDP or Kobo Writing Life or PubIt. I know plenty of readers who stumbled upon Smashwords after I mentioned it, only to leave because they didn't realize they could buy books there. They just thought it was for uploading books, which is great but not useful to them.

So make it look like a bookstore.


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## Kwalker (Aug 23, 2012)

Here is one of my issues with Smashwords, and I will admit that it is partially one of simple personal opinion.

In so many blog posts, articles, etc that I see that are related to Smashwords, and at times authored by Mark Coker, there is a very negative, anti-Amazon feeling. While I empathize, and can understand why that comes from, I feel like it is unprofessional.

Smashwords is more than willing to distribute books to Amazon, taking a cut of the profits for their work, but aside from that, there seems to be a huge "Amazon is our enemy" mentality. That gives me the illusion that supporting them is stepping into the ring and there is just too much drama.

While the fact that their business is personal to them is great on one hand, it makes it seem like objectivity has been lost. Personally, I just don't want to deal with that. When I look for a distributor, I want it to be about how can they help me, and how can they sell my books best, NOT about how can they beat their competitor.

My interest is in finding a reputable, professional, objective company that is business oriented to distribute my books. I don't feel like Smashwords treats it like it is business, and nothing personal. Mark's passion is one of their strengths, and it is evident in a lot they do. But at the same time, it is one of their weaknesses, and their personal feelings about Amazon may be holding them back.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

YES! 

Step 1: Make Smashwords look like a bookstore.

BUT.

Step 2: Make Smashwords a bookstore where customers find what they want.

Step 3: Make Smashwords a vendor where authors' books get discovered.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

smreine said:


> There's no help for Smashwords until they help themselves.


What she said.


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## Catana (Mar 27, 2012)

smreine said:


> There's no help for Smashwords until they help themselves.


I used to promote Smashwords, but I no longer bother, even though I still publish there. I'm sure Mark's had plenty of input from authors. But as long as he keeps traipsing around the country, using his talks to bash Amazon, and acting like an absentee landlord toward his own site, a lot of us will no longer give a d-mn.


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## L.M. Pfalz (Aug 31, 2012)

Martitalbott said:


> For one thing, they could set up a monitored forum for their readers. There is one for writers, but it is not geared to attract readers or give them a place to make recommendations.


I like this idea. I like Smashwords as a distributor (thus far, haven't been with them very long), but I could see how customers might be turned off. The site feels a bit clinical to me, even uninviting. Trying to build a community where readers could talk about books and make recommendations would be a good start.

A lot of focus is on drawing in authors, and not readers IMO. I never even heard of Smashwords until I started contemplating self-publishing, and even then I was still a bit confused by it. The layout should be more user-friendly to appeal to book buyers. They don't need the main part of the site to focus on appealing to authors; authors will go there regardless, since there's not much competition for free distributors for the time being. Authors of course give them their "stock", but readers give them their money, so they're the ones they should be marketing/promoting to. It would be a win-win for Smashwords and authors.

And in regards to Amazon, I have heard things in passing that seem very anti-Amazon, which seems silly and unproductive to me. A distributor for the most part should be neutral, acting as a middle man between authors and retailers. Any beef they have with a retailer should be dealt with "behind closed doors", so to speak.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

We're authors. We're going to focus on what we think suits our own needs, such as really speedy delivery of $0 books to B&N.

If they want to know how to serve readers, they need to go to the non-author readers. A social networking site, like Goodreads, would likely be a massive undertaking, and yet, it's going to take something huge like that to get people to switch. 

Another option would be paid editors who sift through the dross and create portal pages to highlight the absolute best dross (as George might say), thus marketing the unmarketable dross.


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## TexasGirl (Dec 21, 2011)

This is an interesting idea, and I know Smash has fans and foes all over the KB. (I'm a fan after the erotical/PayPal deal. Some sites caved. Mark stood firm and won.)

But I'm interested in this affiliate idea. Smash is a really really excellent deal on that. I'm going to make an effort to set up affliates with other author books that dovetail with mine, and to learn how the affiliate will be an advantage for my own books. I've seen my affiliate money sink and sink and sink on Amazon (I'm down to 20% of old levels and without free books--it might not be much at all). I might as well try something new.

I have managed in the last few months, through marketing, a single short permafree, and changing around the order of links (so, awareness) to make my iTunes checks MATCH my Amazon checks. Doubled my income.

My personal mission is to get Smash checks there too.

I like having a mission, and I just moved into 1000 True Fans territory for Smash. To avoid the home page erotica issue (the erotica there IS a little gamey--I find it hilarious, but I can see the point), I direct link to where I want them to go on the inside pages, book pages.

*One suggestion for Mark--maybe it's part of the resdesign--

On the book pages, I love the sidebar where it has "Other books by this author." It could be prettier, but it works.

What needs to happen now, is that below that is a list of also-boughts, or keyword matches, or genre matches, SOMETHING.*

That ONE change means that direct linking to a book page means I could get multiple sales as an affiliate.

Make it happen!


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> "I'm interested in promoting Smashwords, because I do fear the power Amazon has without healthy competition."


I think they primarily concentrate on two different markets. Amazon serves the consumer. SW serves the author.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> I think they primarily concentrate on two different markets. Amazon serves the consumer. SW serves the author.


SW is like the garage sale or babysitting job of publishing. They pay by Paypal, so it's a great way for people to publish a new short story every few days and *make a few bucks here and there tax-free*. If you hang out on the front page and watch the new arrivals click in, there are a lot of people putting out short, specific work, regularly.


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## Susan Kaye Quinn (Aug 8, 2011)

smreine said:


> There's no help for Smashwords until they help themselves.


This. If you want to compete, then COMPETE DANG-IT. At least try to be in the game. No one is stopping Smash from upping their game. I suspect they make enough off distribution that they're not really interested in retail.


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

L.M. Pfalz said:


> IAuthors of course give them their "stock", but readers give them their money, so they're the ones they should be marketing/promoting to. It would be a win-win for Smashwords and authors.


This.



L.M. Pfalz said:


> And in regards to Amazon, I have heard things in passing that seem very anti-Amazon, which seems silly and unproductive to me. A distributor for the most part should be neutral, acting as a middle man between authors and retailers. Any beef they have with a retailer should be dealt with "behind closed doors", so to speak.


And this.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

Dalya said:


> SW is like the garage sale or babysitting job of publishing. They pay by Paypal, so it's a great way for people to publish a new short story every few days and *make a few bucks here and there tax-free*. If you hang out on the front page and watch the new arrivals click in, there are a lot of people putting out short, specific work, regularly.


I'm not sure what you mean by tax free, but here in the US Paypal is required to issue 1099s. So, no. Here the money we make there is not tax free. Not to mention any income should be reported regardless of how or who pays you.


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## dwallacefleming (Aug 10, 2011)

I've already found myself using Smashwords more simply because it's more flexible and convenient.

KDP has been a dissapointment to me. Sure, thousands of people download, but very _very_ few actually write a review. (If anyone has any advice on getting KDP free downloads to convert into reviews, I'm all ears.)

Recently, my strategy has been to host ebook giveaways through Goodreads. For these giveaways, I'm much more inclined to leave a link to my Smashwords page for the particular book. I've had good engagement and I don't think readers really care that it's from Smashwords. Since I'm sending people straight to the page for my book, the overall format of the site isn't as much of an issue.

Plus, with Smashwords, I don't have to worry about if I'm marketing to a Kindle or a Nook reader. One link gets them both the ebook and it's not a big nightmare of having to worry if the book will go off the free list before the promotion ends.


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

Deanna Chase said:


> I'm not sure what you mean by tax free, but here in the US Paypal is required to issue 1099s. So, no. Here the money we make there is not tax free. Not to mention any income should be reported regardless of how or who pays you.


Paypal is only required to issue 1099s when gross sales is over $20,000.

And yes, of course the income should be reported regardless of how or who pays you. However, I am positive there are many people who do not report income that they do not get 1099s or W2s for, simply because for all intents and purposes it's "under the table."

(Yes, Smashwords issues 1099s on all royalties over $10. But 1099s only apply to US taxes, and there are a lot of authors overseas who use Smashwords.)

Illegal? Yes. But you know it's done in some instances.

So I think Dalya was saying that there are writers out there who publish a ton of stuff on Smashwords simply because they're more likely to get away with not reporting it (because it's paid through Paypal) than they would at the other retailers. (Amazon loves to tout all its exclusive content, but there's actually a ton of material that's exclusive to Smashwords -- never gets published at other stores for this very reason.)


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2013)

Dalya said:


> SW is like the garage sale or babysitting job of publishing. They pay by Paypal, so it's a great way for people to publish a new short story every few days and *make a few bucks here and there tax-free*. If you hang out on the front page and watch the new arrivals click in, there are a lot of people putting out short, specific work, regularly.


Tax-free? I got a 1099 from Smashwords. I have to claim that income just like everything else.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

1. Issuing a 1099 is not the same as withholding taxes.**

2. I'm in Canada, and I never had to give SW my tax identity.

3. I've never actually received a dime from SW, despite my efforts, LOL, so I probably don't know.

I stand by my claim that if they don't withhold taxes, and issue payment by paypal, then that looks like a duck to me.**

**ETA: For international authors.


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## Joe_Nobody (Oct 23, 2012)

I'll answer this question with why I don't use SW:

1. My instruction guides have lots of pictures, charts, tables, diagrams and other non-text entries. I couldn't get them to upload through their meat-grinder thingie.

2. When I visit their webpage, even today, it is so full of bugs I have issues trusting their conversion, distribution, or sales reporting. Examples - On the 100 downloads and the top 25 authors, no numerical rank displays, only a #. Another - When I use the web view of the style guide, the TOC links don't work.

3. Why would I give someone 40% to distribute my work when all of the major players (with the exception of iTunes) will accept, convert and publish just fine from a Word Doc? Those conversations work well.

4. I don't use free books, and SW appears to be overloaded with free content. Take a look at the Top 100 downloads - I only saw free books listed.

5. The search capabilities are really, really poor when compared with Amazon or B&N. Try searching for "Lisa G" complete with the quotation marks.

6. The paypal thingie is a deal breaker. Its another percentage off the top. Set up direct deposit.

I strongly believe The Mighty Zom needs a competitor and would welcome, promote and use a worthy alternative. If SW steps up its game, I'll be happy to at least list my works there. I wish anyone running a business the absolute best and hope my input helps Mr. Coker.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

Amanda Brice said:


> Paypal is only required to issue 1099s when gross sales is over $20,000.
> 
> And yes, of course the income should be reported regardless of how or who pays you. However, I am positive there are many people who do not report income that they do not get 1099s or W2s for, simply because for all intents and purposes it's "under the table."
> 
> ...


Of course you're right. I forgot about the Paypal limit (we use it almost exclusively for our other business). But Smashwords does issue 1099s too. I guess I'm thinking it's not a good idea to think one can get away without paying taxes on Smashwords income at least in the US. I don't know anything about taxes in other countries.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

I just read a completely demoralizing and dark post on G+ about the future of indies at Amazon (the feeling there being that, now that the big publishers are lowering prices to what Amazon likes to see, Amazon no longer needs the "amateurs".

Maybe we're all going to need Mark's services awfully badly very soon.

Chris


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## Kwalker (Aug 23, 2012)

They may not *need* us, but why would they turn us away? We still make them a boatload of money.


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

Deanna Chase said:


> Of course you're right. I forgot about the Paypal limit (we use it almost exclusively for our other business). But Smashwords does issue 1099s too. I guess I'm thinking it's not a good idea to think one can get away without paying taxes on Smashwords income at least in the US. I don't know anything about taxes in other countries.


Agreed.


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2013)

Dalya said:


> 1. Issuing a 1099 is not the same as withholding taxes.
> 
> 2. I'm in Canada, and I never had to give SW my tax identity.
> 
> ...


Using that logic, Amazon doesn't withhold taxes either (I'm in the U.S. so I don't pretend to know international tax law), and wire transfers aren't any different from Paypal (when the IRS decides to go hunting for money, they WILL find your paypal account lol).


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Kwalker said:


> They may not *need* us, but why would they turn us away? We still make them a boatload of money.


Not so much turn us away but manage their site so that the trad houses are promoted while the indies sink out of sight.
They can still boast that they have millions of books, but that doesn't mean anyone can actually find them.

Comes back down to what seller can offer us the best visibility. The feeling (in that other thread) seems to be that it won't be Amazon any more.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> First, thank you Mark Coker for everything you are doing for bringing indie authors wider distribution and connecting us with readers. Many of us have a vested interested in seeing wanting Smashwords to become a true competitor to Amazon.
> 
> We'd like to see Smashwords help generate sales on our other titles, and become a must-go-to destination for readers. I love how easy you make distribution to other bookstores.
> 
> ...


Hi Lisa. I love the sentiment.

I'll share a few thoughts on how I view the Amazon vs. Smashwords situation as you framed it, and then some broader thoughts.

First, I think it's unfortunate that Amazon views us as a competitor, and treats us as such. We'd much rather be their partner, as we are with Apple, B&N, Sony and the other retailers we serve. Amazon's view is more symptomatic of how they view retailing ecosystems. Their motto is "your margin is my opportunity," and they apply that thinking with a crusader's zeal to everyone in the book ecosystem, from author to publisher to book printer to wholesaler to distributor to retail competitor. They've created a brilliantly vertically integrated business that disintermediates everyone who stands between them and the customer. If they succeed at rendering their ebook retailing competitors irrelevant (either by reducing their market share or putting them out of business), then the next margin they'll go after is the author's margin. This is actually already happening with KDP-S, which creates a caste system within KDP of authors who have preferential discoverability and marketing tools, and ordinary KDP authors who are disadvantaged. Authors who want to receive 70% in India, Japan and Brazil must enroll in KDP-S, otherwise they get 35%.

To the extent Amazon views Smashwords as a competitor, it's not because of the meager sales at the Smashwords.com store. Although our retail store's sales have grown significantly over the last five years (despite the neglect we've shown it with the outdated UI), our store represents an insignificant and declining percentage of our overall book sales. Over 90% of our sales are generated at the retail outlets to which we distribute. We're an ebook distributor, first and foremost. We're committed to helping all our retail partners succeed with our books, because their success creates success for our authors.

Here are all our sales outlets, ranked by January sales performance:


Apple
B&N
Kobo
Smashwords
Amazon (~200 titles only)
Sony
Diesel
Baker & Taylor
Page Foundry


So if Amazon views us as a competitor, it's probably because we supply their competitors, and we're helping their competitors succeed in the marketplace. We make it quick and efficient for Amazon's competitors to carry the world's largest catalog of indie-published ebooks.

Over the last few years, several of the major ebook retailers we supply have launched their own direct publishing platforms. In an ironic twist, this actually strengthened Amazon's hand, while harming Smashwords (the harm: about 20% of our authors going direct when offered the choice, while 80% opting to remain fully distributed). For authors who have maintained non-stop distribution of their titles through the Smashwords network, they've seen their sales grow over the years, and often surpass their sales at Amazon. For more recent authors who entered the indie world in the last year, many of them might have published direct at only a couple of the big retailers, say Amazon and B&N, or Amazon, B&N and Kobo. These authors, when confronted with the decision to move to KDP-S or not, base their decision on the data that stands before them: Their sales at Amazon probably trump the sales at these other two or three. Therefore, for many of these authors, it's an easier decision to go with KDP-S. Obviously, these indies are lacking the data of what's possible if they were distributing everywhere with Smashwords, and receiving consolidated sales reports.

Amazon's KDP, and their competitor's decisions to create KDP clones, has created a divide and conquer situation. The retailers have played into Amazon's hands. I'd argue that an author fully distributed with Smashwords is less likely to defect to KDP-S for the sole reason that they're more likely to have observed and experienced the benefits of full distribution. Amazon has always been brilliant at shaping competitor behavior, BTW. They're brilliant at launching initiatives that motivate their competitors to take actions that undermine the competitor's best interest. They're also brilliant at carrot-and-sticking authors in such a way that authors make decisions favorable to Amazon, but not always favorable to the author.

So back to your original question, what can indies do to support Smashwords? The first and most important thing is to publish with us, and the second most important thing is to distribute with us.

Beyond that, the discussion should move more to what indies can do to support a healthy and vibrant ebook retailing ecosystem in the future. Five years from now, it would be very bad if there were only one or two ebook retailers standing. Competition is a good thing because it creates opportunities for indies, and helps preserve the freedom that we indie authors hold so dear. The reason Amazon offered 70% with KDP in 2010 was because Apple was offering 70% with the launch of the iBookstore. If Apple has never opened the iBookstore, the indie world would be a very different place. If ebook retailing consolidates around one or two players, indies will lose freedom, and would be vulnerable to having the screws tightened in the form of reduced royalties or the demand for coop payments in exchange for merchandising. Look at the rates paid by Audible.com (owned by Amazon), and you'll see what happens when one player monopolizes the market in a category. Or look at the aforementioned 35% rates at KDP for Japan, Brazil and India. The supplier or creator gets squeezed.

*Here's what indies can do to support all retailers:*

1. Resist the temptation to do KDP Select, even for three months. This is a long term game of attrition. If Amazon can remove only 5% or 10% of indie ebooks off the shelves of its competitors, that benefit to Amazon, compounded over the course of years, will be significant (Amazon plays business like a chess match, thinking out its moves five years or longer in advance). Authors who do well at KDP-S risk finding themselves overly dependent upon Amazon, and vulnerable to algorithm changes or policy changes. Assuming Amazon controls 60% of the global ebook market today, and an author is earning more than 60% of their income from Amazon, it means they're overexposed to Amazon much in the same way that an investment adviser would tell you you're over-exposed to a single investment. Diversify your portfolio so a rainy day at one retailer doesn't crush you.

2. Whether or not you distribute through Smashwords, make sure that your blog, website, newsletters and other marketing materials give your fans direct hyperlinks to your books at each retailer. There are millions of readers who shop only at the iBookstore, B&N or Kobo, yet many authors today still link to only Amazon. Give your readers a choice. Choice makes your books more available, more accessible, and more easily purchased by your fans.



Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> I think the biggest thing we can do is actually use Smashwords as something other than a means to force Amazon to price match.


Amen, Hallelujah Julie! Although we welcome free books, it's disconcerting when I receive those 2am emails and an author's screaming at me, "I changed my price back to $2.99 yesterday and your retailers are still pricing at free and I'm losing thousands of dollars because Amazon is price-matching!" In many cases, our service team has scrambled to request manual take downs at our retail partners, but the incidence of these queue-jumpers have become so frequent that some retailers pushed back and insisted the author wait for the the retailer to process our automated metadata feeds. Our retailers know they're being played for price-matching at Amazon. It's also disconcerting when some authors use us only for free distribution, then upload their priced books direct. If you're going to use us for free distribution (like to B&N), please consider distributing your priced titles through us as well. It's on the honor system.



Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Put links to Smashwords on your website.
> Use Smashwords links when posting on Facebook.
> Talk about Smashwords to your mailing list.
> 
> ...


Thanks for sharing that!



Quiss said:


> I'd be back with Smashwords in a second if things had sold there for me.
> It's not their fault if sales at Sony or iBooks don't match Amazon's but perhaps there are ways of making Smashwords itself _the_ place to go for buying books.


Quiss, we sold over $15 million in ebooks in 2012, and 2013 is already on track to be up significantly from that. Most sales come through our distribution network. The Apple iBookstore has shown incredible growth over the last 12 months. They'll be the #2 ebook store in the US this year. In 2012, they were already the #2 global ebook player. Despite the hand-wringing and premature reports of B&N's demise, we're seeing strong sales there as well since after Christmas. Kobo had an great January. By getting your books fully distributed, you won't need to treat ebook retailing like a horse race, where you're challenged to pick the winners. With full distribution, the winners will be whoever they might be, and if you're there you'll benefit. You'll also find that a book will break out at different retailers at different times, and often without rhyme nor reason. We've seen books break out first at smaller retailers months before they break out at large retailers. We've seen books break out at B&N (or Apple) but not breakout elsewhere. We've seen books do nothing at major retailers for a months or years, and then suddenly break out. I'd encourage you to get your book out everywhere, remain fully distributed, and then focus on producing the next books.


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2013)

MarkCoker said:


> You'll also find that a book will break out at different retailers at different times, and often without rhyme nor reason. We've seen books break out first at smaller retailers months before they break out at large retailers. We've seen books break out at B&N (or Apple) but not breakout elsewhere. We've seen books do nothing at major retailers for a months or years, and then suddenly break out. I'd encourage you to get your book out everywhere, remain fully distributed, and then focus on producing the next books.


This has been my experience as well. Some titles do well with some retailers but flop with others. Each retail outlet does attract its own reader demographic. What excites customers at Kobo may flop on Amazon. I have a title that has only sold a handful of copies on Amazon but does very well at Kobo to the point where I actually asked the author one day if he was actively promoting the Kobo site. His respons was "What's kobo?"


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## DRMarvello (Dec 3, 2011)

MarkCoker said:


> We're an ebook distributor, first and foremost.


This is an important point. If anything, Smashwords should probably move away from retail; otherwise, they are undermining their primary customers: retailers, not readers.

Imagine Smashwords making their online store so good that it successfully competes against Amazon. Do you think B&N, Kobo, or any other retailer would still be excited about supporting Smashwords by accepting their feeds? Maybe. But probably not.

I think Smashwords should concentrate on being the best e-book distribution option in the business. They should be modeling their new features and site changes on what they see at Draft2Digital, not Amazon. Have you noticed that Draft2Digital does not have a retail store? I guess they know where the money is coming from...the retailers.


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2013)

DRMarvello said:


> This is an important point. If anything, Smashwords should probably move away from retail; otherwise, they are undermining their primary customers: retailers, not readers.


Actually, some of us use the Smashwords store quite often, than you very much.  

For a lot of customers, Smashwords is one of the few options to get ebooks because they accept PayPal. As surprising as this is, there are millions of people who do not have credit cards but instead use Paypal to make purchases online. And as has been noted by others, it is the only way international customers can get ebooks without getting hit with extra fees.


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## ChristopherDavidPetersen (Mar 24, 2011)

I recently enrolled directly to Kobo. I'm so glad I did. There's no waiting on data, and changes are made easy. Because of this experience, I'll be enrolling directly to other vendors that allow it.

Smashwords is just a middle man. I'm now realizing they add an element of difficulty and frustration I don't get by going directly to the other vendors.

If you're going to be a middle man, you better make sure you are less painful than the main man, otherwise why would I use you in the first place.


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2013)

I think the widgets were the most useful thing I've worked on to help Smashwords. 

If I could have anything from Smashwords it would probably be more control over distribution and pricing. For example, for each title, a list of the stores it is distributed in with the price it is at in each store and the ability to adjust the price/generate store specific deals through one single dashboard and have it updated within 24 hours. Also the ability to upload a file and then have an option to review it or reject it myself, before it gets sent to checking for premium distribution.

(Also TxtR integration as a marketplace, but that might just be me...)


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## Tony Bertauski (May 18, 2012)

There are lots of great points on this post, but the Smashwords website needs a facelift. A big expensive one. Currently, it looks like Bruce Jenner. I think I could do better. Probably not, though.


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## David Alastair Hayden (Mar 19, 2011)

I returned to Smashwords when they accepted ePub, but then my books went missing from the Dashboard for three weeks. After the first week, customer service told me the problem was fixed, even though it wasn't. I got no further help. I eventually solved it myself, discovering my books had been assigned to the author account instead of the publisher account during the "fix." I wasn't happy losing control of my books.

So I moved iBooks distribution to Draft2Digital where I get daily reports and monthly payments. I go direct to Kobo and B&N. I'm sticking with Smashwords only for the readers who use the site itself, by choice or necessity, and anyone who uses Sony. I don't encourage readers to go to Smashwords.


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## DRMarvello (Dec 3, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Actually, some of us use the Smashwords store quite often, than you very much.
> 
> For a lot of customers, Smashwords is one of the few options to get ebooks because they accept PayPal. As surprising as this is, there are millions of people who do not have credit cards but instead use Paypal to make purchases online. And as has been noted by others, it is the only way international customers can get ebooks without getting hit with extra fees.


I wasn't bashing the Smashwords retail site at all. I've used it and there are things I love about it too. Just the coupon feature is practically worth putting your books there. For people who don't have their own retail site, it is a fairly painless way to implement e-commerce for your publishing empire.

I'm just saying that, as a business, Smashwords should probably be more concerned with the segment that represents 90% of the revenue, not 10%. It's probably also a good idea not to alienate the 90% you already have trying to grow a 10% against extremely difficult competition.


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## BrianKittrell (Jan 8, 2011)

Technically, to correct everyone, Smashwords, Amazon, et. al. do *not* withhold taxes. They file 1099s; you are required to file and pay the taxes on your own. But... you WILL pay...


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

BrianKittrell said:


> Technically, to correct everyone, Smashwords, Amazon, et. al. do *not* withhold taxes. They file 1099s; you are required to file and pay the taxes on your own. But... you WILL pay...


Ah, right. I always forget that. Anyhoo ... KDP only allows you to have one account, but SW doesn't have any restrictions.

I think maybe in another life, I am a tax investigator. Maybe I am just being suspicious. 

Anyway, my experience with SW is that you might sell a copy or two of something the day you upload. *My main thesis is that if you upload a short story every few days, you could get a regular bit of income. *Nothing huge, but it would make a difference for some people. And that's the business model they have right now, as I see it.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Dalya said:


> I could set up a Paypal account and SW account and write some Step-Daddies stuff and be making entire dollars of commissions every day, tax-free, if I wanted. And so can everyone else. And by the look of it, that's what they're doing.


I don't know why you keep calling it tax free. You still have to pay taxes on your income in Canada, don't you?


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Monique said:


> I don't know why you keep calling it tax free. You still have to pay taxes on your income in Canada, don't you?


I need to de-blergh myself out of this entire thread. What I'm saying only applies to international authors. I APOLOGIZE! I HAVE WRONGED YOU ALL with my opinions.  

Also, nobody commits tax fraud, ever, using Paypal. The idea is too preposterous, like something out of a fiction novel. That is all.

Goodnight!


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## Ty Johnston (Jun 19, 2009)

For all of Smashwords' faults (and there are a number, as this thread has pointed out), this has been my experience: Smashwords is better suited for a long-term strategy than a short-term plan. Keeping one's e-books distributed through SW _over time_ will show a rise in sales. However, dropping out of SW, even for a limited time (such as 3 months for Select), can kill an e-book's momentum at the other retailers.

I'd suggest new indie authors put up at least one of their e-books on SW, but give it at least a year, or maybe two. I realize that seems like a long time, but it might be worth it.


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2013)

Dalya said:


> Also, nobody commits tax fraud, ever, using Paypal. The idea is too preposterous, like something out of a fiction novel. That is all.


Nobody said that. We all just wonder why you are making it Smashwords fault and finding fault with SW for what people do.

People commit plagiarism all the time and make money by selling their plagiarized books on Amazon (just ask erotica authors how often this happens!) Is it Amazon's poor business structure that causes it? Do you as vehemently accuse Amazon of having a bad business for allowing plagiarism to happen on their site?


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

I didn't get that she was finding fault with SW for it, but rather sort of, suggesting it as a benefit of SW.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

DRMarvello said:


> This is an important point. If anything, Smashwords should probably move away from retail; otherwise, they are undermining their primary customers: retailers, not readers.
> 
> Imagine Smashwords making their online store so good that it successfully competes against Amazon. Do you think B&N, Kobo, or any other retailer would still be excited about supporting Smashwords by accepting their feeds? Maybe. But probably not.
> 
> I think Smashwords should concentrate on being the best e-book distribution option in the business. They should be modeling their new features and site changes on what they see at Draft2Digital, not Amazon. Have you noticed that Draft2Digital does not have a retail store? I guess they know where the money is coming from...the retailers.


Excellent points, as usual from you.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Joe_Nobody said:


> I'll answer this question with why I don't use SW:
> 
> 1. My instruction guides have lots of pictures, charts, tables, diagrams and other non-text entries. I couldn't get them to upload through their meat-grinder thingie.


We now support direct .epub upload if you've got a book that can't be accomodated by our Word .doc workflow: http://blog.smashwords.com/2012/12/smashwords-supports-epub-uploads-with.html



Joe_Nobody said:


> 2. When I visit their webpage, even today, it is so full of bugs I have issues trusting their conversion, distribution, or sales reporting. Examples - On the 100 downloads and the top 25 authors, no numerical rank displays, only a #. Another - When I use the web view of the style guide, the TOC links don't work.


Although it would be great if the TOC links worked in the browser versions, they don't, and we discuss this in the Style Guide. That's been a known limitation of the HTML and Javascript viewers for a long time. The other stuff you refer to is not bug-related, but some good ideas we can consider in the refresh.[/quote]



Joe_Nobody said:


> 3. Why would I give someone 40% to distribute my work when all of the major players (with the exception of iTunes) will accept, convert and publish just fine from a Word Doc? Those conversations work well.


Our commission works out to 10% of the retail price for distributed works. The retailer takes 30%. For sales at the Smashwords.com store, you receive 85% net, where net = the sale price minus the credit card fee, multiplied by 85%.



Joe_Nobody said:


> 4. I don't use free books, and SW appears to be overloaded with free content. Take a look at the Top 100 downloads - I only saw free books listed.


Remember that SW is first and foremost a distributor, and we're a distributor that happens to operate a small retailer. These free books you see are also available at Apple, B&N, Kobo, etc. Their presence is not harmful to you.

Top 100 downloads will be always be dominated by free, because free books always get more downloads.

If you click to our bestseller list at https://www.smashwords.com/books/category/1/bestsellers/0/any/any these books all have prices. Our bestseller list is ranked by gross dollar sales, rather than units.
[/quote]



Joe_Nobody said:


> 5. The search capabilities are really, really poor when compared with Amazon or B&N. Try searching for "Lisa G" complete with the quotation marks.


Agreed, our free form search is weak. We've got good tools, though, if you want to search by category, and lots of filters to drill down by subcategory, word length, bestseller/highest rated, etc.



Joe_Nobody said:


> 6. The paypal thingie is a deal breaker. Its another percentage off the top. Set up direct deposit.


We eat the PayPal fees so you don't have to. If you live in the US, you can get paper check payment. If you're earning thousands each quarter, we'll set up direct deposit. We've been doing this on an experimental basis in recent quarters, and will probably roll it out formally next quarter for authors owed more than $10,000.



Joe_Nobody said:


> I strongly believe The Mighty Zom needs a competitor and would welcome, promote and use a worthy alternative. If SW steps up its game, I'll be happy to at least list my works there. I wish anyone running a business the absolute best and hope my input helps Mr. Coker.


I appreciate your feedback, Joe! Thanks. Give us a try. At a minimum, we'll help you reach some new retailers.


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## Gregory Lynn (Aug 9, 2011)

Quiss said:


> I just read a completely demoralizing and dark post on G+ about the future of indies at Amazon (the feeling there being that, now that the big publishers are lowering prices to what Amazon likes to see, Amazon no longer needs the "amateurs", especially if that means putting up with the likes of "How to Print Business Cards")
> 
> Maybe we're all going to need Mark's services awfully badly very soon.
> 
> Chris


I'm pretty sure I read the same thing. It's twaddle.

Amazon doesn't really care what they sell as long as the customer buys it and I rather suspect that won't change, which will mean there will always be a place for books that the big publishers can't, or won't, publish.

Which is not to say having your book available to as many readers as possible is a bad strategy, because it isn't.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Cherise Kelley said:


> I, for one, hesitate to send customers to Smashwords because it is geared so much toward authors that it turns my customers into wannabe authors, rather than selling them my book.


It's a fair point. The site is more author-centric than customer-centric. To overcome this, link directly to your book page or author page. The reader will then be less distracted. Never send a reader to our home page because then they'll be distracted by all the other books and options.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

As a computer-comfortable indie author, I don't have a lot of use for the 90% of Smashwords that's focused on distribution. I wld have used them to get on iTunes, but now D2D is an option and I'm using them instead.

No, my interest is in Smashwords as a more author-friendly storefront alternative to Am. None of this creeping movement toward having to be in Select to get 70% royalties, for instance. 

Unfortunately, I don't feel comfortable directing readers to my book's Smashwords page b/c I can't make a sample available b/c, when I do, Smashwords makes the whole book the sample.

So, yeah, I desperately want Sm to become a viable alternative to Am, but they're not, and it's not their goal to become such. Their eggs are in the distributor basket. Problems like the sampling glitch aren't going to get fixed.

Sent from my LG-VS700 using Tapatalk 2


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Accord64 said:


> Sort of applying reverse logic here (in a twisted way).
> 
> They say competition makes us better, so to help Smashwords become a better place, how about we instead promote other indie sites that compete with Smashwords? That way, Mark would get the message and be motivated to move faster with needed improvements in order to stay competitive.


If you could have been a fly on the wall at any moment for the last five years of our business, I think you'd appreciate the urgency every one of us feels every day.  The fire is lit under our butts every day. We've got 50,000 authors telling us what they like and what they don't like. We've got a roadmap with over 2,000 planned enhancements and new features. Even though we're 19 people now (vs 2.5 just three years ago), and every one of us is working like there's no tomorrow, we still face the same challenges that every company large and small faces, and that's resource prioritization. The projects that get first prioritization are usually the ones we know will help the greatest number of our authors sell the greatest number of books. It also means that we'll always have authors who disagree with our prioritization. The Smashwords store, for example, which I agree is circa 1990s and needs to be improved, generates less than 10% of our sales. With 90%+ of our sales coming from our distribution network, and massive low-hanging fruit just waiting to be grabbed for our authors with some of the cool things we're doing and have planned, that's why our distribution systems get more investment. But those folks who want a refresh, it's coming this year!


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

I, personally, would love to see Smashwords become a retail competitor to Amazon et al. The royalty rate is great, customers can pay using Paypal (believe me, this is a HUGE plus), they can buy books in any format, and you can offer coupons. My sales on Smash itself are 15% of my total sales, and I've found people buying three, even four of my titles at once, so I'm carving out a fanbase over there. But we've just heard from Mark himself that being a rival retailer isn't really the game plan, so things that make it easier for customers to find and purchase books aren't prioritised. That's the main reason why I don't send people there. It's a shame, really, considering it's one of the only places readers can find all the edgy/niche titles they'd never get from traditional publishers. 

Another reason is that payment is just too slow. It should be monthly, that's it. 

Smashwords also really needs to work on how effective its distribution actually is, if that's its main source of income. Because when books are showing up on the retailer websites months after being uploaded, or showing up without covers and/or descriptions, that doesn't instil much confidence in prospective clients (authors). 

So, right now, as others have pointed out, we can't do anything until Smashwords helps itself.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

Smashwords needs:

1) To accept EPUBs and convert them for sale to all partner outlets OR to simply allow people to upload their own formatted things.
2) To drop the completely unprofessional-looking "Smashwords Edition" requirement.
3) To have an improved website UX.
4) To offer quicker payments (monthly) for authors.
5) To have improved and faster reporting for all outlets.

There's more, but these five might encourage me to use them.

Until they're worth using I see no need to promote them in any way.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Lisa Grace,

I appreciate Mark Coker's advocacy on behalf of indies as much as ANY indie.

Also, I would like to see Smashwords enjoy success.

But, honestly -- and I hate to sound like a contrarian here -- but why should we as authors become Smashwords advocates, any more than we should become Kindle/Amazon advocates or B&N/Nook advocates or Kobo advocates?

It seems to me the first and primary loyalty all authors must have is to their READERS.

The fact of the matter is, I distribute my indie books to any company willing to offer them for sale, and who seems reasonably well-known and trustworthy when it comes to performing that task.

It is NOT my job as an author to dictate to READERS where THEY should buy their eBooks.

If they wanna shop Amazon, iTunes Books, Kobo, Nook, Smashwords, or wherever else... my primary concern is to make sure my books are available wherever readers who want my books choose to shop.

In fact, I feel guilty about not distributing to Google.Play Books, because I'm not sure I trust them and no one really distributes to them, including Smashwords. I'm NOT anti-Google... I own and love both my Android phone AND my Google tablet. But because I don't quite trust them NOT to attempt to take over my copyright when I die instead of respecting my family's right to that money for "life plus 70," I currently don't distribute to GooglePlay Books.

But I should, or I should find a way to.

Why?

Because advocating which retailers my readers should use is NOT my job; selling my books wherever my readers are, is my job. (In fact, that's partly why I started using Smashwords to begin with... to get my books in more places with less effort.)

Again... I appreciate Mark as a person and Smashwords as a service... but advocacy of one retailer over another isn't what authors ought to be doing. Just my two cents.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

MarkCoker said:


> First, I think it's unfortunate that Amazon views us as a competitor, and treats us as such.


And all the complaining in the world about this isn't going to change Amazon's view in this regard. Move on, Mark. If that means acting like a competitor, despite every fiber in your being fighting against this impulse, then suck it up. You can't control what Amazon does. Smashwords doesn't operate in a vacuum, yet too often that's how it seems.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Actually, some of us use the Smashwords store quite often, than you very much.
> 
> For a lot of customers, Smashwords is one of the few options to get ebooks because they accept PayPal. As surprising as this is, there are millions of people who do not have credit cards but instead use Paypal to make purchases online. And as has been noted by others, it is the only way international customers can get ebooks without getting hit with extra fees.


I did not know this. So I can tweet, Have a Paypal account? Buy your ebooks from Smashwords.com All formats available.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

Just as an aside on the Paypal issue:

You can use Ganxy and get 90% of your cover while having access to Paypal processing. They allow you to offer any format you choose. Payout costs you a dollar processing fee, and can be requested at any time.

This is my page for The Partners showing direct sales and the other "normal" outlets.


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## David Alastair Hayden (Mar 19, 2011)

Kobo takes PayPal.

http://www.kobobooks.com/paypal

Barnes & Noble also accepts PayPal.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Kwalker said:


> In so many blog posts, articles, etc that I see that are related to Smashwords, and at times authored by Mark Coker, there is a very negative, anti-Amazon feeling. While I empathize, and can understand why that comes from, I feel like it is unprofessional.


I have been anti-Smashwords for a long time without really knowing why. I used to blame the Meatgrinder, but once that was fixed, I was no less eager to do business with the company. And then you posted this, and I realized why I don't like Smashwords. They have always presented themselves as the enemy of my friend. This must be why Mark has always grated on my nerves. Amazon has done legions for indie authors. Amazon changed my life. They have reached out to me, asked me how they can do their jobs better, and acted like a partner with me. I feel like they are my primary publisher. Anyone who aligns against them aligns against me.

Frankly, I don't think Smashwords can do anything to win my business. It's far swifter and more advantageous for me to have accounts with each distributor.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Kwalker said:


> Here is one of my issues with Smashwords, and I will admit that it is partially one of simple personal opinion.
> 
> In so many blog posts, articles, etc that I see that are related to Smashwords, and at times authored by Mark Coker, there is a very negative, anti-Amazon feeling. While I empathize, and can understand why that comes from, I feel like it is unprofessional.
> 
> ...


It's true, I've said a lot of negative things about Amazon's KDP Select program, and unfortunately that has overshadowed the many complimentary things I've said about them both privately and publicly. They are not an evil villain. However, they do play the ebook game differently (and more brilliantly) than most other players. I trust my comments have helped some authors understand the long term business implications of Amazon's moves.



VH Folland said:


> If I could have anything from Smashwords it would probably be more control over distribution and pricing. For example, for each title, a list of the stores it is distributed in with the price it is at in each store and the ability to adjust the price/generate store specific deals through one single dashboard and have it updated within 24 hours.


In fairness to our retailers, we broadcast the same prices to everyone.

We are working to increase the speed of shipments and metadata updates. A couple years ago, we were shipping once weekly to each retailer. Today, we ship daily to Apple and Kobo, and twice-weekly to B&N. Are distribution systems are ready today to ship faster once the retailers give us the green light.



VH Folland said:


> Also the ability to upload a file and then have an option to review it or reject it myself, before it gets sent to checking for premium distribution.


Thanks, on our roadmap to create a sandbox.


VH Folland said:


> (Also TxtR integration as a marketplace, but that might just be me...)


Stay tuned. The integration is in process.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

Hugh Howey said:


> I have been anti-Smashwords for a long time without really knowing why. I used to blame the Meatgrinder, but once that was fixed, I was no less eager to do business with the company. And then you posted this, and I realized why I don't like Smashwords. They have always presented themselves as the enemy of my friend. This must be why Mark has always grated on my nerves. Amazon has done legions for indie authors. Amazon changed my life. They have reached out to me, asked me how they can do their jobs better, and acted like a partner with me. I feel like they are my primary publisher. Anyone who aligns against them aligns against me.
> 
> Frankly, I don't think Smashwords can do anything to win my business. It's far swifter and more advantageous for me to have accounts with each distributor.


ABout the only thing I might consider doing if they were to fix the issues I previously Identified is use them for themselves, Sony, and Diesel.

And that's a big MAYBE because I actually need better/faster control over pricing as well, and I don;t know that they can offer that for those partner outlets.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Catana said:


> I used to promote Smashwords, but I no longer bother, even though I still publish there. I'm sure Mark's had plenty of input from authors. But as long as he keeps traipsing around the country, using his talks to bash Amazon, and acting like an absentee landlord toward his own site, a lot of us will no longer give a d-mn.


Catana, that's simply not true. Amazon rarely appears in my talks, and more often than not when I do talk specifically about Amazon, it's a result of a direct question from audience, such as "What do you think about KDP-Select." If you've never attended my talks, I'd encourage you to come. Other than the few introductory slides about Smashwords and why I founded it, the talks are 95% focused on educating writers about best practices, and these best practices can be universally applied even if the author doesn't work with us.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

TexasGirl said:


> *One suggestion for Mark--maybe it's part of the resdesign--
> 
> On the book pages, I love the sidebar where it has "Other books by this author." It could be prettier, but it works.
> 
> ...


YES! We actually have that feature coded, and it was up for a period of many months, but somehow it recently disappeared in one of the updates. I'll talk engineers and try to get it back up very soon!


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> Amazon has done legions for indie authors. Amazon changed my life. They have reached out to me, asked me how they can do their jobs better, and acted like a partner with me. I feel like they are my primary publisher. Anyone who aligns against them aligns against me.


I have no real loyalty to any publisher or distributor. Any of them would happily throw me to the wolves if it benefited their bottom line, and I am very aware of that fact. That being said, I do think Amazon has done a lot for authors. They essentially invented easy, cheap indie publishing. And though I have no loyalty, I do have some respect and gratitude for what they've done, and it does grate on my nerves when Mark criticizes them so frequently.

I like Smashwords. I've done well with them (though lately my iTunes distribution has come to a standstill, and I have no idea if the problem is SW or iTunes-- and no way of knowing unless I try a different distributor, which I'm unwilling to do yet). But Mark's constant Amazon bashing does bother me, and prevents me from being the wholehearted SW supporter I once was.



> Catana, that's simply not true. Amazon rarely appears in my talks, and more often than not when I do talk specifically about Amazon, it's a result of a direct question from audience, such as "What do you think about KDP-Select."


Maybe that's so, but I've seen enough quotes from you about Amazon that I do feel like you're demonizing them a bit, and I really wish you wouldn't. As someone said above, it seems a little less than professional.


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2013)

Monique said:


> I didn't get that she was finding fault with SW for it, but rather sort of, suggesting it as a benefit of SW.


She said:

"SW is like the garage sale or babysitting job of publishing." because they use Paypal so people don't have to pay taxes. I don't know about you, but I don't interpret one of my primary distributors being called a garage sale a compliment.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> She said:
> 
> "SW is like the garage sale or babysitting job of publishing." because they use Paypal so people don't have to pay taxes. I don't know about you, but I don't interpret one of my primary distributors being called a garage sale a compliment.


I dunno. There's an entire subculture of people who do nothing but hop garage sales on their weekends.


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## sbaum4853 (May 3, 2010)

I've been with Smashwords for three years now. Despite the arrival of other ebook distribution services, I've stuck with Smashwords because their 10% cut is 5% cheaper than what I'm seeing from all the new players, and I do feel some loyalty to them. 

I am chiming in to add my voice to those who think Smashwords should get rid of the "Smashwords edition" language requirement. Other ebook aggregators aren't doing this. It has become a selling point for leaving Smashwords. It seems like a small thing, but it comes up so often I think it's actually a big thing.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Susan Kaye Quinn said:


> This. If you want to compete, then COMPETE DANG-IT. At least try to be in the game. No one is stopping Smash from upping their game. I suspect they make enough off distribution that they're not really interested in retail.


We're competing every day. Every day we're creating exclusive opportunities for our authors they wouldn't get by going direct. Every day our engineers are working on making everything we do better, faster and more reliable. They're working on new things that will surprise and wow people later this year. Every day, our service team is focused on answering support questions faster, and helping authors achieve premium catalog distribution faster.

We *are* interested in retail, but not for the obvious reasons. We know a lot of our authors prefer to sell at Smashwords because the royalties are higher. We also know a lot of readers prefer to shop at Smashwords because we're 100% DRM-free, and we offer multiple formats and generous sampling. However, the primary reason. See my Smashwords 2012 Year in Review for the full reason: http://blog.smashwords.com/2012/12/smashwords-year-in-review-2012-power-in.html


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

sbaum4853 said:


> I am chiming in to add my voice to those who think Smashwords should get rid of the "Smashwords edition" language requirement. Other ebook aggregators aren't doing this. It has become a selling point for leaving Smashwords. It seems like a small thing, but it comes up so often I think it's actually a big thing.


I have an SW account. I could have my epubs up on SW in 5 minutes.

But they require copyright in the front (I put mine in the VERY back) and that I give them credit.

No.

*shrug*


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

sbaum4853 said:


> I've been with Smashwords for three years now. Despite the arrival of other ebook distribution services, I've stuck with Smashwords because their 10% cut is 5% cheaper than what I'm seeing from all the new players, and I do feel some loyalty to them.


Actually, it's the same cut. Smashwords' cut is not 10%, but 15% of the list. It just looks like 10% because it's 10% less than going direct to iTunes, but in reality it's 15% either way, whether you use D2D or Smashwords. It works out to the same revenue for the author in the end.


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2013)

Mathew Reuther said:


> I have an SW account. I could have my epubs up on SW in 5 minutes.
> 
> But they require copyright in the front (I put mine in the VERY back) and that I give them credit.


We've had this conversation elsewhere, but there is no legitimate reason to willfully spite reader expectations regarding the copyright notice. Most of us see a book without a copyright notice where we expect it, and we think the book is pirated. Most POD services also require the copyright notice be on either the title page or the dedicated "copyright" page of the book. It's ONE LINE of text (c) 2013 ***** Ann *****. It really should be in the front matter just because it is the professional thing to do.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Amanda Brice said:


> Actually, it's the same cut. Smashwords' cut is not 10%, but 15% of the list. It just looks like 10% because it's 10% less than going direct to iTunes, but in reality it's 15% either way, whether you use D2D or Smashwords. It works out to the same revenue for the author in the end.


SW and D2D have negotiated different terms*, so the author's cut differs between the aggregators. But otherwise, you're right.

edited to add: *in some cases


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

DRMarvello said:


> Imagine Smashwords making their online store so good that it successfully competes against Amazon. Do you think B&N, Kobo, or any other retailer would still be excited about supporting Smashwords by accepting their feeds? Maybe. But probably not.


I don't think any of our retailers doubt our commitment to serving them first and foremost. Later this year, it'll become even more apparent when we start linking to our retail partners. When I advise authors to link to all their retailers, I mean it. We'll start doing that too, one step at a time.

Although authors get higher royalty rate from Smashwords (or from selling on their own site), what they don't get from us that they do get at the larger retailers is the amplification that comes when a customer's purchase gets reflected in the also boughts. This is why retailers are golden, and why we love it when readers purchase at a Smashwords retailer.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> We've had this conversation elsewhere, but there is no legitimate reason to willfully spite reader expectations regarding the copyright notice. Most of us see a book without a copyright notice where we expect it, and we think the book is pirated. Most POD services also require the copyright notice be on either the title page or the dedicated "copyright" page of the book. It's ONE LINE of text (c) 2013 Julie Ann Dawson. It really should be in the front matter just because it is the professional thing to do.


Considering the ebook shift to having it in back matter with Traditional Publishing (all my Orbit books are back matter), I'm going to have to say that I feel you are looking at a "what used to be" and not a "what is" . . .

I have a direct link to the copyright page on my "quickmenu" which immediately follows my title page. It is clear that there is a copyright, as such.

Times change. Expectations change.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Dalya said:


> Anyway, my experience with SW is that you might sell a copy or two of something the day you upload. *My main thesis is that if you upload a short story every few days, you could get a regular bit of income. *Nothing huge, but it would make a difference for some people. And that's the business model they have right now, as I see it.


Those short stories actually don't sell well. By far, our bestsellers are full-length genre fiction. Last year when we analyzed the correlation between word count and sales, we found strong evidence that if you want to sell more books, writer longer books. The survey is here: http://blog.smashwords.com/2012/04/can-ebook-data-reveal-new-viral.html thanks.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

MarkCoker said:


> Those short stories actually don't sell well. By far, our bestsellers are full-length genre fiction. Last year when we analyzed the correlation between word count and sales, we found strong evidence that if you want to sell more books, writer longer books. The survey is here: http://blog.smashwords.com/2012/04/can-ebook-data-reveal-new-viral.html thanks.


She's suggesting that people should post a few throwaway stories every day that sell a few copies on the day of the release and then sink. All tax-free too!


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> I think the biggest thing we can do is actually use Smashwords as something other than a means to force Amazon to price match.
> 
> Put links to Smashwords on your website.
> Use Smashwords links when posting on Facebook.
> ...


Thanks to Mark Coker for services to writers (in Britain he'd be knighted as soon as he turned fifty), to Lisa for starting this thread and to Julie for these specific tips, which I've copied to my desktop as an aide memoire.

We need a diversity of vendors and distribution channels out of pure self-protection against a predatory oligopolist who will do anything to obtain a monopoly. The reason I don't even have to name the oligopolist I have in mind is that most of you know in your hearts not only who it is but that Lisa is right, that we should support Smashwords however we can. (I'm also supporting Draft2Digital and I expect that Mark Coker, a smart guy, will welcome them.)


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

Monique said:


> She's suggesting that people should post a few throwaway stories every day that sell a few copies on the day of the release and then sink. All tax-free too!


I think she's just saying that the taxes aren't taken out by the vendor before disbursement, like how Amazon deducts a certain percentage if you have an international address and no ITIN. Of course you still pay taxes on the royalties.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

smreine said:


> I think she's just saying that the taxes aren't taken out by the vendor before disbursement, like how Amazon deducts a certain percentage if you have an international address and no ITIN. Of course you still pay taxes on the royalties.


I think she's saying this is the best way to repurpose all your old person sex eroms.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

smreine said:


> I think she's just saying that the taxes aren't taken out by the vendor before disbursement, like how Amazon deducts a certain percentage if you have an international address and no ITIN. Of course you still pay taxes on the royalties.


I think she's saying a little more than that. But we may never know because of zee flounce!


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Mathew Reuther said:


> Smashwords needs:
> 
> 1) To accept EPUBs and convert them for sale to all partner outlets OR to simply allow people to upload their own formatted things.


Done. In public beta: http://blog.smashwords.com/2012/12/smashwords-supports-epub-uploads-with.html



Mathew Reuther said:


> 2) To drop the completely unprofessional-looking "Smashwords Edition" requirement.


We think it gives our community of authors a subtle advantage. A book doesn't reach distribution with that label until our vetting team has vetted it and approved it. Our formatting requirements are stricter than most of the retailer's own requirements, which is why you won't see novels with first-line-indended block paragraphs. Our retailers get essentially 0% complaints on the formatting of our books. The label helps us work with customers to confirm that the book they're having a problem with is in fact from us.



Mathew Reuther said:


> 3) To have an improved website UX.


Agreed!



Mathew Reuther said:


> 4) To offer quicker payments (monthly) for authors.


This is certainly something we want to work toward.



Mathew Reuther said:


> 5) To have improved and faster reporting for all outlets.


This is a high priority. We've made progress here over the years, but significant progress remains. We also need to improve our aggregated reports so they're easier to read. All the data is there in all its glory, but unless you're a spreadsheet expert, it's tough to mine it. We can do better.


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## Nathan Elliott (May 29, 2012)

Mark, you mention people only distributing freebies through you for price-matching and then going direct with the paid books....  A big reason for that is probably that they need the ability to quickly raise and lower prices in order to be able to run across-the-board sales for things like BookBub promos.  If you could set up a mechanism for scheduling price changes at all retailers ahead of time, I think people could use your distribution more.  As it is, it is difficult to do any promotion with books that go through your system aside from the sales that you and Smashwords organize.  If an author were to pay for ads to promote a sale or to set up a BookBub/ENT/POI bargain post or something similar, it could all be wasted if a price change failed to go through.  As it is, it is hard to rely on timely price changes (and probably an annoyance on your end too to get hit with rapid price change requests.)  Unless I'm overlooking something, it seems like permafree and price-matching is the only choice a Smashwords author has to really do much promotion.

If you and your partners could streamline the transfer of price info and metadata to the point where it took no people-time on your part and could be done reliably on a schedule to accomodate advertised promos, I think you would see more books going through your channels.


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## Christopher Bunn (Oct 26, 2010)

I wonder if there would be any merit to splitting the Smashwords site into two separate sites? An author-distribution site and a book-selling site?


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## SBJones (Jun 13, 2011)

Increased speed.  So far when I upload or make changes at Amazon it takes place in less than 24 hours.  Making changes through SW is like Regan era trickle down economics.  If you miss the metadata push, it can be a week or longer before changes are sent, then you are waiting for each sites update algorithms to crank in.

Quarterly royalty payments.  The line I have read about how it takes time to verify the funds are not contested against copyright claims and there is only one person doing it, just doesn't sit well in an age of digital purchases.  These need to be stepped up to monthly even if payment is 2 or 3 month delayed.  As you said, you're a distributor and you don't like it when we distribute directly to the vendors.  Well, when you show us that we can sell there, then don't pay in a timely fashion, why wouldn't an author go direct with the vendor?

"Smashwords Edition and Copyright Page" requirements.  You already take 10%, but now I am required to advertise for you?  I'm required to put that ugly copyright page and advertisement up front and viewable in the sample instead of the end of the e-book where it belongs.  It's one more page swipe the reader has to get past before they get to the book.  This is like the 15 second ad you're forced to watch before the video clip starts.  Of everything about SW, the "Smashwords Edition" bit bugs me the most.  Even the language is insulting, like this edition is somehow different than the one on Amazon.  "Distributed by Smashwords" would be a lot better.  Smashwords already gets it's name up front and center on the product page of each book in the details.  Does it need to be inside my book as well?

"Printed in the USA"  This is a bit picky, however I did have the torn cover bit because my books are on the shelf in some Barnes and Noble book stores.  The torn cover disclaimer caused my book to fail the premium distribution check adding an additional week of delay.  Creating a different copyright page for Smashwords is time wasting.

And that brings me back to speed.  My first upload took six days to get rejected for the torn cover comment in the copyright page.  I fix it and it took another five days before it got approved.  The books been selling for two weeks on Amazon already and it's yet to get distributed by SW.  If I release a new book and add sample chapters to the previous, it takes a week before it's approved by meatgrinder cleanup crew before it's pushed.  Premium catalog validation needs to be much quicker, like 24 hours max quicker.  Lightning Source doesn't even take that long for a print version.

As far as the Smashwords website goes...  It's pretty bottom barrel and clear to any visitor that it's second rate.  I think this has lead to a lot of misrepresentation and reputation that the company has.  Quality is not a word used when someone talks about Smashwords.  Remember that advertising requirement you force on authors?  That reflects on us as well.

If you click on Bestsellers, the books are not in English and are only a month or two old.  With all the data you have access to from other vendors, I think you should take a page from Amazon's playbook and create some algorithms to showcase a little better.  I'm sure Bên Thắng Cuộc: Quyền bính is a fine book and deserves it's bestsellers rank.

On a lighter note, once everything is in place and pushed through, Smashwords does a good job.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Oligopoly? Who are the members of the oligopoly? Is there an oligopoly for online distributors like SW? Is SW a member?

Monopoly? Anyone have an example of a retail monopoly?


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

MarkCoker said:


> We think it gives our community of authors a subtle advantage. A book doesn't reach distribution with that label until our vetting team has vetted it and approved it. Our formatting requirements are stricter than most of the retailer's own requirements, which is why you won't see novels with first-line-indended block paragraphs. Our retailers get essentially 0% complaints on the formatting of our books. The label helps us work with customers to confirm that the book they're having a problem with is in fact from us.


As long as you're fine with the fact that some of us won't ever use SW as a result of this policy.

Two of my books are free today Mark. Grab them and have a look at how they look. The only problem is that I put my copyright at the back (like a crapload of tradpub books) and I will not advertise for you. Both trivial things considering you have the potential to earn revenue off of my sales were I to list with you.

I'm not the only author who has a problem with your branding being required. And with D2D offering a superior service for the outlets they do currently support, I think it might behoove you to not force authors to format in a specific manner, and pimp your site.

*shrug*


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> Lisa Grace,
> 
> I appreciate Mark Coker's advocacy on behalf of indies as much as ANY indie.
> 
> ...


I'd argue that your first loyalty should be to yourself, then your readers, and then your partners, of which we hope to be one. Indies, though the decisions they make every day (who to distribute through, who hire for cover design, who to hire for editing, which retailers to distribute to, etc), will define the future of publishing. The big publishers aren't as relevant as they once were. Five years from now, most bestselling titles will be self-published, and most will be ebooks.

This means that the publishing service providers (retailers included) that earn and deserve the support of indie authors today will be ones who are around providing those services five years from now.

I wouldn't want an author to favor Smashwords as a retailer over Amazon (there have been many times when an author emailed me that they were fed up with Amazon, and were going to pull their books from Amazon and work with us exclusively. Each time, I admonished them to not drop Amazon, because I believe it's in the authors best interest to be everywhere. Would Amazon do the same?). I'd like to see all authors show the love to all retailers, all the time. Link to Amazon, the Smashwords store, Kobo, B&N, Diesel, iBookstore, everyone.

We've been around 5 years, and we're only here because more indies supported us than didn't. We think we've supported indies like no one else, and I'm constantly blown away by how much they've supported us back. We've had heavy competition for the distribution business of indie authors for three years, and for the most part I think we've done pretty well. We've grown larger and stronger, and more capable to realize advantages for our authors that they might not be able to get on their own. We've made our mistakes, but I think mistakes are a competitive advantage if you learn from them, and that's what I teach my staff. I want our staff out there pushing the envelope. If we stumble, we'll learn from it, get smarter and stronger, and move on.

If an author believes that Smashwords has their back (and we do!), and you want us to continuing protecting your back, then it's easy to support us - just publish and distribute with us. That's where it all starts. If you think our vision of the future of publishing aligns with your vision, then support us, because we're more likely to get there working together than working apart. Unlike some other companies that earn most of their money selling expensive service packages to authors, we only earn money if we help the author earn money. When you distribute with us, and you sell books, you're supporting us, and you're supporting our ability to help your fellow indies. Your distribution with us helps us hire more engineers and more service staff to achieve more for you. And just to be clear, even if an author uses us for some channels but not others, we're still appreciative of their support, and we'll do what we can in the future to earn more of their support. thanks.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Monique said:


> She's suggesting that people should post a few throwaway stories every day that sell a few copies on the day of the release and then sink. All tax-free too!


Actually, I was trying to contribute something to this discussion without directly attacking other people.

Also, I know people who do the above-noted strategy. I guess I just hang out in edgier, wilder circles!


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

Dalya said:


> Actually, I was trying to contribute something to this discussion without directly attacking other people.
> 
> Also, I know people who do the above-noted strategy. I guess I just hang out in edgier, wilder circles!


You're probably in one of those wild Canadian Vespa gangs, aren't you?

Leather jacket with the name "2Hott" on the back.

Canadian flag on the shoulder.

Tie-dyed bandana . . .


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

MarkCoker said:


> Quote from: Mathew Reuther on Today at 02:35:35 PM
> 
> 
> > 2) To drop the completely unprofessional-looking "Smashwords Edition" requirement.
> ...


It's overdone. No major publisher or distributor would do something so ego-driven. Everything you need is:

Copyright 2013 This Author
First published by This Publisher 2013

Everyone else should note what Mark already knows, that the copyright symbol © is a nicety, not a legal requirement. If you really insist on having the Smashwords name on the title verso, then this would appear more professional and be more exact:

Copyright ©2013 This Author
First published by This Publisher 2013
Distributed by Smashwords

Though I confess a small nostalgic attachment to something akin to the venerable "at the Sign of the Green Man":

Copyright ©2013 This Author
First published by This Publisher 2013 at Smashwords

This gives credit where it is necessary, is a minimal interruption of the flow of the reader's attention, and has more class than the verbiage you force writers to include, which has meaning only to you, as you demonstrated above.

***
While I have your attention. It's your business in which you do as you please, and I appreciate your service, but your entirely personal hatred of CAPITAL TITLES is insensitive. It is standard practice in the publishing trades that titles may be upper and lower case or all upper case or all capitals (three different things to a typographer, the last one being incised Roman column script). Some of us, who've been around a long time, use all caps in titles not only because it is traditional for a certain class of title, but to avoid an excess of punctuation in a title. IDITAROD a novel of The Greatest Race on Earth is an example that in U/l case needs an extra comma and then still loses all impact. To be forced to change it in order to enter the premium program is a slap in the face.

***
These are admittedly minor quibbles, but with people from traditional publishing backgrounds they niggle all the more because you do so much right, including the right attitude to writers which is missing in so much of indieland.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

MarkCoker said:


> We think it gives our community of authors a subtle advantage. A book doesn't reach distribution with that label until our vetting team has vetted it and approved it. Our formatting requirements are stricter than most of the retailer's own requirements, which is why you won't see novels with first-line-indended block paragraphs. Our retailers get essentially 0% complaints on the formatting of our books. The label helps us work with customers to confirm that the book they're having a problem with is in fact from us.


I've been going round and round thinking about this statement, and I believe you think this is true, Mark. But if it's a marketing tool for the authors you so adamantly support, then don't force it on them. And if it's truly the benefit to the authors who so adamantly support you, they'll gladly add it in voluntarily.


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

Mathew Reuther said:


> You're probably in one of those wild Canadian Vespa gangs, aren't you?
> 
> Leather jacket with the name "2Hott" on the back.
> 
> ...


And she putters in circles around mildly irritated Mounties.


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## Maggie Dana (Oct 26, 2011)

An OT question for Mark (mods, please delete if inappropriate).

To Mark ... do you plan to give more push/promotion to books that come to Smashwords via literary agents? I ask because I heard about this via an agent last year who attended a meeting with you and other agents. She also said that Amazon was considering the same approach as a way to separate agented from non-agented books to help give them more visibility/credibility with readers.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Quote from: MarkCoker on Today at 12:40:51 PM
First, I think it's unfortunate that Amazon views us as a competitor, and treats us as such.



Saul Tanpepper said:


> And all the complaining in the world about this isn't going to change Amazon's view in this regard. Move on, Mark. If that means acting like a competitor, despite every fiber in your being fighting against this impulse, then suck it up. You can't control what Amazon does. Smashwords doesn't operate in a vacuum, yet too often that's how it seems.


Saul, I'm not complaining. I was responding to the opening post on this thread which referred to Amazon as a Smashwords competitor. You question our competitive spirit? If so, that's almost funny. We're very competitive, in action and spirit. We would have gone out of business four years ago, and every month since, if this was not for our competitive spirit. We've made enormous competitive strides over the last few years, yet we've only scratched the surface of where we're taking this. With the continued support of our incredible authors, I think we have a good shot at turning a few heads over the next couples years, especially among those who doubt us.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

Maggie Dana said:


> An OT question for Mark (mods, please delete if inappropriate).
> 
> To Mark ... do you plan to give more push/promotion to books that come to Smashwords via literary agents? I ask because I heard about this via an agent last year who attended a meeting with you and other agents. She also said that Amazon was considering the same approach as a way to separate agented from non-agented books to help give them more visibility/credibility with readers.


Which amounts to basically paying 15% of your royalties forever for some more exposure.

Where do I sign up to have my money taken away?


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

MarkCoker said:


> Quote from: MarkCoker on Today at 12:40:51 PM
> First, I think it's unfortunate that Amazon views us as a competitor, and treats us as such.
> 
> Saul, I'm not complaining. I was responding to the opening post on this thread which referred to Amazon as a Smashwords competitor. You question our competitive spirit? If so, that's almost funny. We're very competitive, in action and spirit. We would have gone out of business four years ago, and every month since, if this was not for our competitive spirit. We've made enormous competitive strides over the last few years, yet we've only scratched the surface of where we're taking this. With the continued support of our incredible authors, I think we have a good shot at turning a few heads over the next couples years, especially among those who doubt us.


Mark, I don't question your competitiveness. But acting competitively and being competitive are two different things. When you act competitively, you don't bemoan your competitor's tactics.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Oligopoly? Who are the members of the oligopoly? Is there an oligopoly for online distributors like SW? Is SW a member?


In booksellers the first member of the oligopoly is Amazon, with more than 60% of the market still. You can add the rest by your personal prejudices. Here's my number one peeve, who should be investigated by the Justice Department long, long before they investigate Apple and the Big Six: Google attempted to add themselves to the oligopoly (with clear monopolist tendencies) when they tried forcibly to steal everyone's books with a onetime sixty dollar payment, but were stopped by a judge, who was amazed at their infernal cheek.



Terrence OBrien said:


> Monopoly? Anyone have an example of a retail monopoly?


In booksellers? Amazon a couple of years ago came as near as made no difference. They sold the Kindle at a loss in their attempt to create a monopoly market, and among their tricks cheapened literature possibly terminally.

***

Delighted to help you out, Terrence. Any time I can decline your Latin tenses for you, too, love to do it for any old sixpence you have lying around.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Mathew Reuther said:


> You're probably in one of those wild Canadian Vespa gangs, aren't you?
> 
> Leather jacket with the name "2Hott" on the back.
> 
> ...


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Amazon was never a monopoly. There were lots of places that sold books. Still are.

So, anyone have an example of a retail monopoly?


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

Monique said:


>


LOL.

I can see Dalya on the left.


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## phildukephd (Jan 6, 2013)

IF Mr. Coker would ever reply to his emails, instead of just repeatedly claiming he does, and if I and my friends and paid formatters could ever get even just one ebook published with Smashwords.com, and if Draft2Digital.com an obviously superior organization were not available, then perhaps I might again try to help. As of now, I already wasted far too much time with Mr. Coker. And I do mean wasted.

Phil Duke Ph.D.
25 ebooks published.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Andre Jute said:


> In booksellers the first member of the oligopoly is Amazon, with more than 60% of the market still. You can add the rest by your personal prejudices. Here's my number one peeve, who should be investigated by the Justice Department long, long before they investigate Apple and the Big Six: Google attempted to add themselves to the oligopoly (with clear monopolist tendencies) when they tried forcibly to steal everyone's books with a onetime sixty dollar payment, but were stopped by a judge, who was amazed at their infernal cheek.
> 
> In booksellers? Amazon a couple of years ago came as near as made no difference. They sold the Kindle at a loss in their attempt to create a monopoly market, and among their tricks cheapened literature possibly terminally.
> on
> ...


Having a majority of a market does not make a business a monopoly. Neither does selling something as a loss leader although there is good evidence that Kindle sells at a profit (albeit a small one), not a loss.

From your ire, I have to assume that six huge multinational corporations conspiring to fix prices is just dandy with you. I assume you would feel differently if Amazon did it. Come up with evidence of Amazon conspiring to fix prices and I'm sure the DoJ will be pleased to go after them too.

ETA: Which is totally off-topic. I have nothing to say about the OT. It isn't my business to "help Smashwords".


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Hugh Howey said:


> I have been anti-Smashwords for a long time without really knowing why. I used to blame the Meatgrinder, but once that was fixed, I was no less eager to do business with the company. And then you posted this, and I realized why I don't like Smashwords. They have always presented themselves as the enemy of my friend. This must be why Mark has always grated on my nerves. Amazon has done legions for indie authors. Amazon changed my life. They have reached out to me, asked me how they can do their jobs better, and acted like a partner with me. I feel like they are my primary publisher. Anyone who aligns against them aligns against me.
> 
> Frankly, I don't think Smashwords can do anything to win my business. It's far swifter and more advantageous for me to have accounts with each distributor.


Hugh, I'm sorry to hear you feel that way. Prejudice and hate can flow from unexpected places. I've always been surprised by how my opposition to KDP-Select was taken so negatively by some authors, but now you've given me some insight. It's unfortunate. In the hundreds of blog posts I've written over the years, the number where I spoke out against Amazon's KDP-Select have been so few and far between, while my positive words about Amazon both in public and private have gone unheard. When I speak about KDP-Select, I speak against the exclusivity, not against Amazon. No doubt, you've been amazingly successful and don't need much help. I'm happy for your success. I hope one day you'll reconsider. Best wishes.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> I have been anti-Smashwords for a long time without really knowing why. I used to blame the Meatgrinder, but once that was fixed, I was no less eager to do business with the company. And then you posted this, and I realized why I don't like Smashwords. They have always presented themselves as the enemy of my friend. This must be why Mark has always grated on my nerves. Amazon has done legions for indie authors. Amazon changed my life. They have reached out to me, asked me how they can do their jobs better, and acted like a partner with me. I feel like they are my primary publisher. Anyone who aligns against them aligns against me.
> 
> Frankly, I don't think Smashwords can do anything to win my business. It's far swifter and more advantageous for me to have accounts with each distributor.


Thanks, Hugh. I have wondered why SW grates on my nerves so much, and I think you hit it.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> I've always been surprised by how my opposition to KDP-Select was taken so negatively by some authors, but now you've given me some insight. It's unfortunate. In the hundreds of blog posts I've written over the years, the number where I spoke out against Amazon's KDP-Select have been so few and far between, while my positive words about Amazon both in public and private have gone unheard. When I speak about KDP-Select, I speak against the exclusivity, not against Amazon.


True, Mark, but you have come across as extremely negative upon occasion. For example, in a single blog post in late 2011 you said Select was a "predatory business practice," described authors who participated as "tenant farmers" and compared the program's probable results to the great Irish potato famine, suggested that Amazon was working toward creating a monopoly, stated that indies should react to Select with "horror," and headed the post with a picture of a leopard killing an antelope to get your point across. It's hard not to take this negatively.


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## David Alastair Hayden (Mar 19, 2011)

MarkCoker said:


> Hugh, I'm sorry to hear you feel that way. Prejudice and hate can flow from unexpected places. I've always been surprised by how my opposition to KDP-Select was taken so negatively by some authors, but now you've given me some insight. It's unfortunate. In the hundreds of blog posts I've written over the years, the number where I spoke out against Amazon's KDP-Select have been so few and far between, while my positive words about Amazon both in public and private have gone unheard. When I speak about KDP-Select, I speak against the exclusivity, not against Amazon. No doubt, you've been amazingly successful and don't need much help. I'm happy for your success. I hope one day you'll reconsider. Best wishes.


Mark, I'm sorry but that's clearly not how you're coming across to a lot of us who are in the loop on all this stuff. Remember, not everyone visits the Smashwords blog. Every time I see an article outside of your blog, on the Huffington Post or wherever else, there's negativity about Amazon from you. I realize that when you're not writing it that what gets focused on is what the journalist chooses, but still ...

And you have this way of almost seeming to attack authors who've chosen KDP Select, as if they don't know what they're doing or how to run their business. I think the majority of authors who've chosen Select know the risks and potential and so forth but you act as if there's some conspiracy that they will blindly follow unless you educate them. And you also sound very threatened. Again, that's how it comes across whether you intend for it to or not. Clearly I'm not the only one who's picked up on this.

My sales via the Smashwords channels were abysmal. I did a stint in Select. Made enough money to recoup my publishing investments and pay for future covers then returned to wider distribution, though not through Smashwords until ePub Direct. That was my business decision. It worked well. I wasn't an ignorant pawn of Amazon. And I'm now doing well with wider distribution.


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## 鬼 (Sep 30, 2012)

I'd also like to raise my hand about the whole Published by Smashwords requirement... I was so excited to see that they now accept epub direct but yet I can't get more than half of my books to pass the test. Everything keeps coming back as autovetter errors due to the whole copyright thing regardless of how I type it, even matching the requirements exactly. So frustrating.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Amanda Brice said:


> Actually, it's the same cut. Smashwords' cut is not 10%, but 15% of the list. It just looks like 10% because it's 10% less than going direct to iTunes, but in reality it's 15% either way, whether you use D2D or Smashwords. It works out to the same revenue for the author in the end.


I can't comment on how other distributors do it, though for us in most cases it's 10% list for books sold at retailers. 10% list works out to slightly less than 15% net. We've negotiated agency terms with all our retailers. They pay us 70% list, we earn 10% list and we pay you 60% list. There are cases, such as with B&N's Pubit, where books under $2.99 or over $9.99 earn 60% through us yet earn the author less if they go direct.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

MegHarris said:


> True, Mark, but you have come across as extremely negative upon occasion. For example, in a single blog post in late 2011 you said Select was a "predatory business practice," described authors who participated "tenant farmers" and compared the program to the great Irish potato famine, suggested that Amazon was working toward creating a monopoly, stated that indies should react to Select with "horror," and headed the post with a picture of a leopard killing an antelope to get your point across. It's hard not to take this negatively.


I remember that post. It happened right after I put my first and (coincidentally?) only title up on SW, which I've since pulled.

I'm all for stating your opinion. I think I've made that clear enough on KB.

But it would have been enough to stop at saying that exclusivity was not in an author's best interests (which would be true if discovery were worth a damn on any platform outside of Amazon) and not stray into the realm of "y'all are dummies if you bite" . . .


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## LeonardDHilleyII (May 23, 2011)

Quiss said:


> Excellent question.
> 
> I'd be back with Smashwords in a second if things had sold there for me.
> It's not their fault if sales at Sony or iBooks don't match Amazon's but perhaps there are ways of making Smashwords itself _the_ place to go for buying books.
> ...


^^^This!


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Nathan Elliott said:


> Mark, you mention people only distributing freebies through you for price-matching and then going direct with the paid books.... A big reason for that is probably that they need the ability to quickly raise and lower prices in order to be able to run across-the-board sales for things like BookBub promos. If you could set up a mechanism for scheduling price changes at all retailers ahead of time, I think people could use your distribution more. As it is, it is difficult to do any promotion with books that go through your system aside from the sales that you and Smashwords organize. If an author were to pay for ads to promote a sale or to set up a BookBub/ENT/POI bargain post or something similar, it could all be wasted if a price change failed to go through. As it is, it is hard to rely on timely price changes (and probably an annoyance on your end too to get hit with rapid price change requests.) Unless I'm overlooking something, it seems like permafree and price-matching is the only choice a Smashwords author has to really do much promotion.
> 
> If you and your partners could streamline the transfer of price info and metadata to the point where it took no people-time on your part and could be done reliably on a schedule to accomodate advertised promos, I think you would see more books going through your channels.


Nathan, agreed. We'd like to move all our retailers to near real-time price updating. We have the technical capability. It's just a matter of them giving us the green light. In the meantime, I think you'll see us making progress at multiple retailers this year on this front, even if we don't get to near-instant.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

When Coker suggested I was a tenant farmer, I took him at his word.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> ETA: Which is totally off-topic. I have nothing to say about the OT. It isn't my business to "help Smashwords".


Not only isn't a discussion of oligopoly not off-topic, it is the essence of the principle on which we should support Smashwords.

All the same, old top, I'll honour your desire to be gone from this thread, merely wondering what you were doing in it in the first instance if, as you say, you have nothing to say.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Andre Jute said:


> Google attempted to add themselves to the oligopoly (with clear monopolist tendencies) when they tried forcibly to steal everyone's books with a onetime sixty dollar payment, but were stopped by a judge, who was amazed at their infernal cheek.


Wow! Can you point me to more information on this? The story slipped my attention somehow, and wow. No wonder people say not to put your books on Google.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Maggie Dana said:


> An OT question for Mark (mods, please delete if inappropriate).
> 
> To Mark ... do you plan to give more push/promotion to books that come to Smashwords via literary agents? I ask because I heard about this via an agent last year who attended a meeting with you and other agents. She also said that Amazon was considering the same approach as a way to separate agented from non-agented books to help give them more visibility/credibility with readers.


Hi Maggie. If an agent comes to us with a big-name author and a highly-anticipated book, then yes, we'll do what we can to get it some merchandising love. But in the last six months I can think of only one instance where we did this for an agent, and I can think of about 100 other instances where we secured our authors merchandising advantage simply because they deserved it.


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## Maggie Dana (Oct 26, 2011)

MarkCoker said:


> Hi Maggie. If an agent comes to us with a big-name author and a highly-anticipated book, then yes, we'll do what we can to get it some merchandising love. But in the last six months I can think of only one instance where we did this for an agent, and I can think of about 100 other instances where we secured our authors merchandising advantage simply because they deserved it.


Thanks, Mark. However I got the impression from this agent that SW would put some serious marketing muscle behind all agented books. I'd be curious to learn how many agented books you distribute, and what you've done for them. Actual titles would be very helpful.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Saul Tanpepper said:


> Mark, I don't question your competitiveness. But acting competitively and being competitive are two different things. When you act competitively, you don't bemoan your competitor's tactics.


Saul, here's the thing. I honestly think that KDP-Select is hell spawn son of satan, *but* I don't think Amazon is Satan. I've spoken to several of Amazon's biggest authors and they HATE it too. Exclusivity is not good for authors. If every author said no to KDP-S next month, Amazon would drop the exclusivity requirement. The challenge here is that they give some tasty perks that yield participants some great benefits. I think Amazon would be more successful in the long run if they dropped the exclusivity. They've got the industry's best book discovery, and the biggest most trusted brand name. They'd get more authors, more books and more customers if they dropped the exclusivity. As much as it pains me to learn my opposition of KDP-Select is heard as an attack on one's best friend, I feel I have a responsibility to speak the truth about the long term implications of exclusivity. That's it, end of story. Beyond KDP-S, I actively encourage all authors to to be on KDP. I've met all the key Kindle executives, and to a person I like them all. They respect indie authors. They're not trying to screw anyone but their competitors. I think it's unfortunate authors get caught in the middle.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

phildukephd said:


> IF Mr. Coker would ever reply to his emails, instead of just repeatedly claiming he does, and if I and my friends and paid formatters could ever get even just one ebook published with Smashwords.com, and if Draft2Digital.com an obviously superior organization were not available, then perhaps I might again try to help. As of now, I already wasted far too much time with Mr. Coker. And I do mean wasted.
> 
> Phil Duke Ph.D.
> 25 ebooks published.


Phil, I don't ever recall receiving an email from you. Please try again. I try to respond to every email I receive, even though I'm not the best recipient for most inquiries. If I don't respond, try me again, because I do intend to respond. My email address is below in my signature. You can also reach our support team via the "Comments/questions" link at the top of any Smashwords page.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

MarkCoker said:


> I'd argue that your first loyalty should be to yourself, then your readers, and then your partners, of which we hope to be one...
> 
> I wouldn't want an author to favor Smashwords as a retailer over Amazon (there have been many times when an author emailed me that they were fed up with Amazon, and were going to pull their books from Amazon and work with us exclusively. Each time, I admonished them to not drop Amazon, because I believe it's in the authors best interest to be everywhere. Would Amazon do the same?). I'd like to see all authors show the love to all retailers, all the time. Link to Amazon, the Smashwords store, Kobo, B&N, Diesel, iBookstore, everyone...


Mark,

As I suspected, you and I are largely of the same mindset on this. Treat everyone willing to carry/distribute and sell one's books well... don't play favorites. 

As always, all best!


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Cherise Kelley said:


> Wow! Can you point me to more information on this? The story slipped my attention somehow, and wow. No wonder people say not to put your books on Google.


Cherise, I've opened a thread to answer you so as not to dilute Lisa's thread here. The answer is at http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,143697.0.html


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## Mark Fassett (Aug 25, 2010)

I am limiting my distribution from smashwords as I get the opportunity to go direct. At this point, if there was anyone else that could get my books on Sony, I'd switch.

The reason?

The smashwords licensing agreement and the Smashwords Edition text. I hate them. You don't see Ingram Edition on books that publishers distribute through Ingram. It's bad enough that I can't buy a cheap Isbn from smashwords anymore, but I have to put your name inside the book, too? Not at Amazon, not at Kobo, not at Apple, and not at Barnes & Noble.

Unless things change, as opportunities to go direct come my way, I'll switch.

I like the idea behind Smashwords, just not the execution.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Well, that's the great thing about being indie or self published. 

Some have no desire to help Smashwords, fine. 

Some see value in having another distribution channel like Smashwords, and we do. Uploading books for distribution through Smashwords is a route many of us will take.  I do not want all my eggs in one basket.

For those who don't, fine. But this threads' purpose is about what we can do. Mark and his employees are working hard to make it a great place to distribute. Are things perfect? I don't know many places where they are. 

Amazon is making changes that may not help indies on a weekly basis. Their concern is profit first, which I totally understand. Hence the change to affiliates that directly & negatively impacts their income. The fall out may be negative for indie free runs with Select too. 

Smashwords is trying to make changes that benefit indies. 

I was taught in another business that some will, some won't, so what? I hope Mark doesn't take any negativity personally, just that some don't see a value to them for going with Smashwords at this time.

Some of us do.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> Some see value in having another distribution channel like Smashwords, and we do. Uploading books for distribution through Smashwords is a route many of us will take. I do not want all my eggs in one basket.


Nor do I, but SW is not the only way to ensure that.



> Smashwords is trying to make changes that benefit indies.


And Mark needs to know what SW currently does which isn't benefitting us.

How can SW become a place more of us will use? By fixing the problems which cause those of us who don't use them to make that decision.

There have been a lot of good suggestions in this thread. You can identify the weakest spots in SW from the things which have been repeated. GIven that his responses have highlighted that at least some of those things are already in the works, I'd say he's well aware of some of the issues.

The fact that he's adamant that copyright needs to be in the front of the book (like a paperback) and that Smashwords Edition needs to be present (like no other outlet) just shows that regardless of what we say there are some things that SW will never change. (ETA: ALLCAPS TITLES, etc.)

And that's not the indie author's fault. That's a problem with the service provider.

I support the people I find do good work. Forcing me to jump through hoops when my books are impeccably formatted is not the way to go about getting my business.

ETA: I simply cannot say this often enough, or clear enough, or loud enough: NO other place requires that an author format their book in a specific manner in the way Smashwords does. They can say it is for quality control all they want, but the fact is that if I want my book to look like one put out by Orbit, I can't distribute through Smashwords.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Maggie Dana said:


> Thanks, Mark. However I got the impression from this agent that SW would put some serious marketing muscle behind all agented books. I'd be curious to learn how many agented books you distribute, and what you've done for them. Actual titles would be very helpful.


If Smashwords were to start putting extra effort behind writers merely because they are represented, the majority of indies would be back where they started, being rejected by semi-literate dealmakers.

It makes no rational sense for Smashwords to give any preference whatsoever to represented books, or for that matter the books of publishers rather than indies.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Mark Fassett said:


> I am limiting my distribution from smashwords as I get the opportunity to go direct. At this point, if there was anyone else that could get my books on Sony, I'd switch.
> 
> The reason?
> 
> ...


To Mark Fassett (and the others who hate adding the words "Smashwords Edition" or "Published by authorname at Smashwords" or "Distributed by Smashwords": If we dropped this requirement next week, would you switch all your Pubit/KWL/iBookstore books back to Smashwords distribution? Let's see a show of hands.


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## X. Aratare (Feb 5, 2013)

@Mark - regarding this: To Mark Fassett (and the others who hate adding the words "Smashwords Edition" or "Published by authorname at Smashwords" or "Distributed by Smashwords":  If we dropped this requirement next week, would you switch all your Pubit/KWL/iBookstore books back to Smashwords distribution?  Let's see a show of hands."

I can tell you that I absolutely WILL NOT use Smashwords with this requirement.  So while it's not a definitive yes.  It's most certainly a NO.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

If I were able to drop the requirement of branding my book with your company's name, and I were allowed to do what I feel is right for my book's front and back matter, I would upload my non-select titles (3 of 5 until March/April) in EPUB and make them available to SW, Sony, and Diesel on a provisional basis. I would keep SW regardless of how those other two behaved. (But I've heard of issues with both of those oyutlets and the lack of responsiveness/control. Plus, it took two weeks for Sony to delist the one book I did publish through you, and two weeks to list it originally. I shudder to think what might happen if I needed to coordinate a price change.)


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## ChrisWard (Mar 10, 2012)

Two weeks ago I gave away 14,000 ebooks on a Select promo.  In the time since then I've managed to scrape just over 100 post-free sales, a massive 37 in the US where I gave away roughly 12,500 copies.  If Select and the exclusivity is really still worth it I'm struggling to see how.

I've been gradually moving my stuff across to Smashwords as I value the opportunity to have wider distribution, and as a Brit it's not possible to go direct with some outlets, B&N, for example.  I also think that with a large catalogue of material, perma-free is probably a better option than Select promos.

Other posters have mentioned a dislike for the Smashwords branding.  Personally I have no particular problem with it, and the Smashwords formatting guide has helped me no end.  I don't consider myself a fan or non-fan, but I appreciate it for what it is, an opportunity to reach a wider audience.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

While the Smashwords edition thing is annoying to me, it's not a make or break situation. I would prefer to not have it, but whatever. I go direct everywhere I can because of timing control on pricing, and I can see real-time sales. Once I went direct with Apple and Kobo, I got a lot more sales there than I ever did going through SW. I have no idea why that is, but it's true. Right now I'm pretty much only using SM for Sony and Diesel. I've never sold one book on Diesel and Sony is almost laughable, but I do get a trickle of sales there. Now when I run sales, the SW price always stays the same (higher price) and I just change the rest of the vendors. It is what it is. I will never use SW to distribute somewhere if I can go direct. Not unless there is some sort of perk. I see no reason to.

But I will continue to put my books there cause I do see a sale off SW once a month or so.


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## Paul Clayton (Sep 12, 2009)

I would say, first change the home page and get rid of the booty and sculpted ab covers.  Looks like the lower counter at the liquor store near the bus station -- back in the day.  Put them under a tab with a warning.  This portal, and that's what it is, should be more inviting.  I'll leave it up to others as to how to make it so.  That said, I grateful for all Mark has done for us, making our books available all over.


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## 60911 (Jun 13, 2012)

I like Smashwords. I continue to use them to distribute to Sony and Diesel, as well as the library distributors, and a couple freebies through Barnes & Noble (sorry, Mark, but in fairness I make Smashwords a few bucks here and there, so I don't really feel that guilty about doing it). Even if I somehow found a way to go direct to Sony, I'd still do a Smashwords edition because I sell a little on the SW storefront, and there's always the possibility I could sell *more* through them at some point in the future. If I'm looking to build a long-term career, so long as an exclusivity arrangement doesn't preclude me listing somewhere (NOTE: not arguing about KDP-S, just mentioning that it's not for me), I'm gonna list there. Why wouldn't I, unless the requirements were so ridiculous as to preclude me doing so? (NOTE 2: I do not view adding the words "Smashwords Edition" to the title page as such a requirement. As always, YMMV.) 

There are some great points in this thread that I'd take a second to echo. Do I like quarterly royalties? No. It's why I bought a MacMini so I could go direct to Apple (that and the higher percentage made it worthwhile for me). That'd be a big thing I'd like to see change. Also as mentioned, nimbleness of pricing changes was another reason I went direct to Kobo and Apple, as well as real-time sales data. Those are big things for me.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

Mathew Reuther said:


> If I were able to drop the requirement of branding my book with your company's name, and I were allowed to do what I feel is right for my book's front and back matter, I would upload my non-select titles (3 of 5 until March/April) in EPUB and make them available to SW, Sony, and Diesel on a provisional basis. I would keep SW regardless of how those other two behaved. (But I've heard of issues with both of those oyutlets and the lack of responsiveness/control. Plus, it took two weeks for Sony to delist the one book I did publish through you, and two weeks to list it originally. I shudder to think what might happen if I needed to coordinate a price change.)


And yet, this sort of situation isn't limited to Smashwords. On page 28 of the D2D thread, someone is having trouble getting Kobo to drop a price after they changed it with D2D, and it is costing her money because Amazon has pricematched (http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,137808.675.html post 675).

It's also important to remember that D2D, which is billing itself as Smashwords major competitor (post 1 of the above thread), is still in closed beta and is yet to open its services to the general public. Nor does it seem that D2D has actually paid anyone as yet, so we don't know how they pay and whether they absord the paypal fees like Smashwords does (they don't do direct debit for non-USA folk).

At the moment, Smashwords is the ONLY fully operational and viable service for distributing ebooks to retailers. D2D has potential and I would definitely use the service (yeah, no more cheques or Payoneer from Amazon), but it is far from being a complete product.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Deanna Chase said:


> While the Smashwords edition thing is annoying to me, it's not a make or break situation. I would prefer to not have it, but whatever. I go direct everywhere I can because of timing control on pricing, and I can see real-time sales. Once I went direct with Apple and Kobo, I got a lot more sales there than I ever did going through SM. I have no idea why that is, but it's true. Right now I'm pretty much only using SM for Sony and Diesel. I've never sold one book on Diesel and Sony is almost laughable, but I do get a trickle of sales there. Now when I run sales, the SW price always stays the same (higher price) and I just change the rest of the vendors. It is what it is. I will never use SM to distribute somewhere if I can go direct. Not unless there is some sort of perk. I see no reason to.
> 
> But I will continue to put my books there cause I so see a sale off SM once a month or so.


I don't care about the edition thing, because one, it's true. And two, if I asked my readers, they wouldn't care either. I mean seriously, how many times do you look at a copyright page? Maybe at the year to figure out how old the book is, but seriously, I do not understand why this would be a deal breaker.

I'm not selling a lot on other sites, yet. Most of my orders are Amazon, some on B&N and from what I can see a few on Apple, Kobo, and Sony. However, if I step up my marketing to those markets I think that will improve.


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## telracs (Jul 12, 2009)

how to help smashwords?

make it more user friendly for the READERS!  when people offer me a smashwords coupon, i turn them down, because i've never been able to figure out how to actually buy a book and load it from that site.

i frequent amazon because they make it easy for me to buy stuff.  i used baen books website because the had a user friendly site and made it easy for me to get my books.  and they had stuff that was not available on amazon.

but if i have to hunt for things, not gonna happen.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

Herc- The Reluctant Geek said:


> And yet, this sort of situation isn't limited to Smashwords. On page 28 of the D2D thread, someone is having trouble getting Kobo to drop a price after they changed it with D2D, and it is costing her money because Amazon has pricematched (http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,137808.675.html post 675).


I never said it was. I go direct to Kobo, B&N, Amazon, iBooks, OmniLit, and am adding more outlets as I get time/inclination. I go direct because I can have better control.



> It's also important to remember that D2D, which is billing itself as Smashwords major competitor (post 1 of the above thread), is still in closed beta and is yet to open its services to the general public. Nor does it seem that D2D has actually paid anyone as yet, so we don't know how they pay and whether they absord the paypal fees like Smashwords does (they don't do direct debit for non-USA folk).


I was approved in 5 minutes for a D2D account. Yes, it is Beta, but it's not locked down hard.



> At the moment, Smashwords is the ONLY fully operational and viable service for distributing ebooks to retailers. D2D has potential and I would definitely use the service (yeah, no more cheques or Payoneer from Amazon), but it is far from being a complete product.


I agree with you on all counts, and were in not in the US I would doubtless be forced to compromise my vision of what makes a professional, readable ebook and bow to Mark's requirements that copyright be up front with Smashwords displayed for all to see.

Fortunately I came back from Europe in 2009 and I'm able to control almost all my uploads personally.



LisaGraceBooks said:


> I don't care about the edition thing, because one, it's true.


It's true that your edition is customized to Smashwords? What additional content have you added?

An edition is a specific format (which if you meatgrind, it might be, but if you upload your own epub, it should be identical) with a specific text, principally concerned with the prose (front, back, and story, but not really the various TOC/Works/Author info etc. pages) . . .

Speaking from a PUBLISHER'S standpoint (not as an author) naming something a new edition is not something you do just because you put one slightly different link in, or modify "EPUB" to "MOBI" on a single page.

It may seem to be nitpicking, but if nobody looks at it, why does it need to be there, and in a specific location in the book? If it's not important, why is it a requirement?

Because from Mark's perspective he wants to brand. It's that simple. If his desire is that people buy from partners, putting SW in the book is counter-intuitive. If he wants it there so authors know about him? That's also counter intuitive. He's got as much penetration as he needs in the market. All indie authors are told about SW as soon as they ask how to publish.

*shrug*


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

genevieveaclark said:


> LOL. It's really, really difficult to take this seriously.
> 
> So all of the people on KB who've told you, repeatedly, that the Select program has unequivocally helped them, simply don't count? There's more than one success story floating around, more than one author who's made the leap from aspirational amateur to full-time professional because of the exposure that Select has given them in the biggest ebook market in the world. They don't matter to you?
> 
> We can be sure that KDP-Select is not good for _you_. I'm really starting to question whether you understand that your interests are not aligned with those of all indie authors.


Long term. Long term. I completely agree, exclusivity is a very bad idea (I don't even practice this in my relationships!) The minute Amazon decides to change their algorithms arbitrarily -- as many consistent sellers saw a couple of months ago -- it could adversely affect your sales in a split second. Then what? Dangerous game. I would never agree to my book selling in just one bricks and mortar store, so why would I do it online?

But authors should go right ahead and be exclusive to one store if that's what they think is best for them. It just means there'll be fewer books in the other stores where my books are, making it that much easier for prospective readers to find me. And I'll still be on Amazon.


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## Guest (Feb 28, 2013)

Mathew Reuther said:


> The fact that he's adamant that copyright needs to be in the front of the book (like a paperback) and that Smashwords Edition needs to be present (like no other outlet) just shows that regardless of what we say there are some things that SW will never change. (ETA: ALLCAPS TITLES, etc.)


And again, since the buying public sort of expects a book to have the copyright on the title page then Mark is correct.

Honestly, deliberately doing things that make your book NOT look like a book just reinforces a whole lot of bad stereotypes about indies. I have never in ten years of selling ebooks heard a single person whine about "OMG! There is totally this huge copyright notice on the title page! I can't read this book!" Normally, its the opposite. "Is this pirated? It doesn't look right."


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

MarkCoker said:


> I honestly think that KDP-Select is hell spawn son of satan, *but* I don't think Amazon is Satan.


*sigh*



MarkCoker said:


> If every author said no to KDP-S next month, Amazon would drop the exclusivity requirement.


Well, since it's not going to happen, we'll never know.



MarkCoker said:


> I think Amazon would be more successful in the long run if they dropped the exclusivity.


I think Amazon would be more successful in the long run if they could convince more authors go exclusive. (Better for authors, as a group? Of course not.)



MarkCoker said:


> They'd get more authors, more books and more customers if they dropped the exclusivity.


I don't think this is their objective. I think they're objective is to keep authors, books and readers off other sites as much as possible.



MarkCoker said:


> Exclusivity is not good for authors.


It doesn't have to be good for authors. It has to be good for Amazon. Besides, exclusivity isn't anything new. The entire traditional publishing industry is built on exclusivity, and it's been pretty darn good for a lot of authors and hasn't killed the industry. Yes, it's all changing now, but _because _of Amazon. Ironic, isn't it?

Mark, I truly applaud your efforts and your successes. I honestly respect your hard work as a champion for indies, and it makes me cringe every time I feel compelled to write some sort of condemnation of you or Smashwords, but you said it yourself: authors should first look to their own self-interests. That's what we're doing. And when your service or your words and actions counter that, we're going to be defensive. I think a lot of valid complaints have been aired here. We've heard you say that improvements are in store. Excellent. I look forward to them, because if they translate to more brand exposure, less risk exposure, better control, faster responsiveness, then it's all good for authors and readers. And that will be good for Smashwords.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Amazon can't become a monopoly because the barriers to market entry are too low. It took a lot of capital to open an old-fashioned publishing house or a chain of retail stores. But for a fraction of the price of opening one tiny retail store in a stripmall, you can set up your very own Amazon. So it's rather pointless to fear monopolization of the on-line market by anyone, short of some kind of political fix.


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## Sarah Woodbury (Jan 30, 2011)

Huh. Interesting thread.

I've done very well through Smashwords, gradually building over the last two and a half years since I uploaded my first book in September 2010. Have I gotten frustrated over the years with the speed of the distribution to other outlets?  Yes. There was a bad patch last spring where I was tearing out my hair. Speed has improved greatly in the last few months, however, such that a book description I modify one day is approved within a day, and sent quickly to the vendor. I would love a better spreadsheet/report. Hopefully that's coming soon.

I haven't had any problems once my books are distributed, SW has always paid correctly and on time, and quite frankly, I have 15 books/bundles for sale. To upload them all to one site and not have to work with each vendor individually is of significant benefit to me in terms of time and hair-tearing. I'm happy with them, overall, and accepting of some growing pains.

And Mark does advocate for Indies. Just recently, Apple did a 'Breakout Book' feature, highlighting many Smashwords books and displaying them with a big banner on the front page of the bookstore for a week. Lots of KB'ers among them, both SW authors and not.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> "Amazon can't become a monopoly because the barriers to market entry are too low. It took a lot of capital to open an old-fashioned publishing house or a chain of retail stores. But for a fraction of the price of opening one tiny retail store in a stripmall, you can set up your very own Amazon. So it's rather pointless to fear monopolization of the on-line market by anyone, short of some kind of political fix.


Agree. Not only are there no barriers, we saw Sony was already in the eBook business when Amazon introduced Kindle. Both B&N and Apple demonstrated there were no barriers when they entered the market.

A monopolist also has to control production. Otherwise producers sell to someone else. That is exactly what happened. Producers sold to Amazon, B&N, Apple, Sony, etc.

Since a retailer is not a producer, a retail monopolist has to be both a monopolist and a monopsonist. It's very hard to do either. Doing both is truly gifted. That's why I keep asking for an example of a retail monopolist. If we can find one, we can learn a lot.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> And again, since the buying public sort of expects a book to have the copyright on the title page then Mark is correct.
> 
> Honestly, deliberately doing things that make your book NOT look like a book just reinforces a whole lot of bad stereotypes about indies. I have never in ten years of selling ebooks heard a single person whine about "OMG! There is totally this huge copyright notice on the title page! I can't read this book!" Normally, its the opposite. "Is this pirated? It doesn't look right."


Go ahead and send your complaints to all the other publishers doing the same thing then, Julie. Because I'm not even remotely close to the only person (again, Orbit/Gollancz does this... potentially Bantam-Spectra as well, so sorry that they don't share your rigid view of what a book is) publishing with copyright in the back. Like Konrath. Eisler. Hundreds of others.

Mark has an opinion. One you share, fine. But it's an opinion. As a distributor it's not really his place to be forcing his opinions on publishers. He can, but it's not, in my eyes, a good decision. You can disagree, but as has already been demonstrated, some of the things that SW does are not universally well-received.

As for the entire notion of the page in the first place: legally, I have copyright over my words the instant they leave my head. I don't have to protect them. It's inherent. The warnings are just there to remind other people that it's true.

As such, ANY reader knows that they've got a piece of work in their hands that isn't theirs. So while we're talking about EXPECTATIONS, I EXPECT that you understand readers aren't stupid. *shrug*

You're arguing this point because it fits your world view. But the top publisher in one of my genres worldwide does it MY WAY. People who sell very, very well in my genres do it MY WAY.

YOUR WAY can work for you, and I don't fault you for it. But more and more people do it in different ways (TOR has one paragraph now for a lot of their stuff, not a whole page) as ebooks evolve and it becomes more important to put the least amount of junk up front possible to leverage previewers which cut off quickly, etc.

The issue should not be what you or I think is the superior way to do anything, it should be that we have the right, as publishers, to determine how we present our works.

And no distributor should be getting in the way of that. Because maybe next time it's something you DON'T like that you're required to do...

ETA: Paperbacks have the pages in the front to be destroyed for fulfilling the publisher's requirements to return or destroy. Resellers never have to trash a copyright page on an ebook. There's no need for it to occupy any given position in an ebook, so burying it with a link (I link to it twice, actually) makes sense. Because this is 2013. And we're talking about digital media.


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

Andre Jute said:


> Any time I can decline your Latin tenses for you, too, love to do it for any old sixpence you have lying around.


Not to be nitpicky, BUT, one conjugates the verbs and declines the nouns in Latin.


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> That's why I keep asking for an example of a retail monopolist. If we can find one, we can learn a lot.


And I keep searching. Aside from the none-too-useful-in-the-internet-age example of company town general stores, the closest I've been able to come is the Coles-Woolworths duopoly in Australian. We'll have to wait for the night squad to ride in on their marsupials to tell us more.



Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Honestly, deliberately doing things that make your book NOT look like a book just reinforces a whole lot of bad stereotypes about indies. I have never in ten years of selling ebooks heard a single person whine about "OMG! There is totally this huge copyright notice on the title page! I can't read this book!" Normally, its the opposite. "Is this pirated? It doesn't look right.


This is interesting, Julie. I've gotten a few Emails from readers saying that they like less front matter because it expands the amount of novel content available in the free sample. I was actually thinking of moving some of my front matter to the keister in order to sate this desire. Maybe a single line announcing copyright on the cover page would be a good compromise?

B.


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

I have to come to the defense of Smashwords' customer service. I had a problem having my manuscript accepted for premium status due to a glitch in some of the bookmarks in my ToC. Two different people at Smashwords worked with me on a timely basis to help me solve my problem. They went out of their way to assist this first-time, still 1-book author. I appreciated their help.


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## Mark Fassett (Aug 25, 2010)

MarkCoker said:


> To Mark Fassett (and the others who hate adding the words "Smashwords Edition" or "Published by authorname at Smashwords" or "Distributed by Smashwords": If we dropped this requirement next week, would you switch all your Pubit/KWL/iBookstore books back to Smashwords distribution? Let's see a show of hands.


It wouldn't get me to bring my books back that I've already distributed directly. That wouldn't make any financial sense at all, considering the effort I went through to put them up and that I don't have to pay you a cut if I keep them that way. It would, however, make me think twice about going direct to Sony, if that option ever became available, or moving to D2D if they manage to get their books on Sony.

Currently, I haven't moved any books out of distribution, I just have declined distribution for new titles. In the future, I plan on pulling them out, but being able to remove that text from my titles might forestall that effort.

But, ultimately, I'll go direct wherever I can (if it's easy enough), because I can, which means I don't have to pay a distributor a cut. Someone mentioned eggs in a basket. I don't want all my eggs in Amazon's basket, and I don't want them all in a distributors basket, either.

I will still use Smashwords for markets that I don't have access to, whether you remove the requirement or not.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

B. Justin Shier said:


> This is interesting, Julie. I've gotten a few Emails from readers saying that they like less front matter because it expands the amount of novel content available in the free sample. I was actually thinking of moving some of my front matter to the kiester in order to sate this desire. Maybe a single line announcing copyright on the cover page would be a good compromise?


The page following my title page in my books looks like this:

Start Reading (Direct link to the first page of the story.)
Table of Contents (Direct link to the TOC, situated at the end of the story. Notable, contains links to all the chapters and all the pages, including copyright.)
Afterword (Right after the TOC.)
A Request (After the afterword.)
By Mathew Reuther (Following that.)
About Mathew Reuther (Again, next.)
Copyright (At the back.)

It is clear upon flipping through that the book has a copyright. But I do that with a single word, while offering quick, easy navigation to my readers.

Digital media.


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

MarkCoker said:


> To Mark Fassett (and the others who hate adding the words "Smashwords Edition" or "Published by authorname at Smashwords" or "Distributed by Smashwords": If we dropped this requirement next week, would you switch all your Pubit/KWL/iBookstore books back to Smashwords distribution? Let's see a show of hands.


I would be about 20% less likely to complain about SW on Kindleboards every time threads like this pop up if you fixed that.  Consider it good PR!


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Based on a poll I did, I'm apparently in the minority, but I don't typically even look at the front matter.  The book opens at the beginning of the story (hopefully to include the prologue if one exists) and I'm off and reading.  It's one of the beauties of the Kindle that I don't have to page through all that other stuff.  I don't much care where the copyright is as long as I can find it when I want it and it doesn't get in the way when I don't.  But again, I'm in the minority.  Most people seem to page through the stuff. 

Betsy


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> "And I keep searching. Aside from the none-too-useful-in-the-internet-age example of company town general stores, the closest I've been able to come is the Coles-Woolworths duopoly in Australian. We'll have to wait for the night squad to ride in on their marsupials to tell us more."


I didn't know about Coles-Woolworths in Australia. Interesting. A very quick Google scan showed the duopoly has 56% of the grocery market. Not sure how accurate that is.

It sounds a bit like the dominant position A&P had in the US market in the 1930s. Both producers and smaller retailers were complaining about the company. That led to a series of federal legislative attempts to curb its activities. Public relations and the threat of higher food prices turned the public against the legislation, but A&P subsequently lost its market edge to innovators who simply did a better job.

Any Australians who can add some perspective on the duopoly?


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## MegSilver (Feb 26, 2012)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Based on a poll I did, I'm apparently in the minority, but I don't typically even look at the front matter. The book opens at the beginning of the story (hopefully to include the prologue if one exists) and I'm off and reading. It's one of the beauties of the Kindle that I don't have to page through all that other stuff. I don't much care where the copyright is as long as I can find it when I want it and it doesn't get in the way when I don't. But again, I'm in the minority. Most people seem to page through the stuff.
> 
> Betsy


Personally, I get annoyed if I have to page through front matter.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Sapphire said:


> Not to be nitpicky, BUT, one conjugates the verbs and declines the nouns in Latin.


Not to be nitpicky, Sheryl, BUT the declination is of nouns AND pronouns and adjectives.

Heh-heh. Actually, I put that that nit out there for Terrence to pick, but he fell at the first hurdle. Happy to meet you instead. Would you like to succeed Terrence as my nitpicker?

And, of course, it now politically incorrect for a male of the species to use such a verb as conjugate, but, since you offer to use it on my behalf, why, thank you.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Based on a poll I did, I'm apparently in the minority, but I don't typically even look at the front matter. The book opens at the beginning of the story (hopefully to include the prologue if one exists) and I'm off and reading.


That's set by a variable in the file. Authors can choose where it opens to, or let it default. (To the start of the story.)

There's some logic which says "open with a description of the book" because people download so many that it's nice to remind them. But in essence the publisher needs to make a choice about front matter, start point, etc. Which is why I like to have the short nav menu. Empowers readers.


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Based on a poll I did, I'm apparently in the minority, but I don't typically even look at the front matter. The book opens at the beginning of the story (hopefully to include the prologue if one exists) and I'm off and reading. It's one of the beauties of the Kindle that I don't have to page through all that other stuff. I don't much care where the copyright is as long as I can find it when I want it and it doesn't get in the way when I don't. But again, I'm in the minority. Most people seem to page through the stuff.
> 
> Betsy


No matter where the book opens, I have the wild compulsion to page back and examine the cover and front matter. I assume it's a writer thing, though, because I'm a Judgy McJudgypants, and I like to see the copyright info, the team attributed, and chuckle at the poor contrast of great covers in grayscale.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

smreine said:


> ... chuckle at the poor contrast of great covers in grayscale.


YOU ARE IN MY HEAD.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

smreine said:


> I assume it's a writer thing


Well, that it explains my own compulsion to hit the back button till I hit the wall.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Any Australians who can add some perspective on the duopoly?


Actually, I'm an Australian, and an economist with an interest in economic history, but now is the time for me to ride my exercise machine and paint a butterfly. Maybe Herc wants to tell you.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Any Australians here who know anything about Coles-Woolworths? Monopolies? Latin?


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

smreine said:


> No matter where the book opens, I have the wild compulsion to page back and examine the cover and front matter. I assume it's a writer thing, though, because I'm a Judgy McJudgypants, and I like to see the copyright info, the team attributed, and chuckle at the poor contrast of great covers in grayscale.


As I said, based on my poll, I'm in the minority. More people are like you.



Mathew Reuther said:


> That's set by a variable in the file. Authors can choose where it opens to, or let it default. (To the start of the story.)


I understand that. Fact is, every book I've ever read on Kindle starts at the beginning of the story. And I like it that way. 

Betsy


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## Bec (Aug 24, 2012)

> Any Australians here who know anything about Coles-Woolworths? Monopolies? Latin?


I'm a bit out of touch on the day-to-day side, having lived in Canada for the past 3 years, but I keep up with some Aussie newspapers, including my hometown local which is in the middle of dairy country and well.... Coles and Woolworths are not good for farmers.

Just one example is milk and dairy products. Between them, they have pushed the price of milk so low over the last couple of years that farmer's are really struggling. When criticised for this, Coles and Woolies both blame the other. Other retailers find it every hard to compete - Coles and Woolies both pulled a Kindle. They started selling milk for $1 a litre and absorbed the cost themselves (even Woolworths admits that this is unsustainable in the long term, but it's not stopping them from doing it). But then the other retailers who were selling it for the normal price couldn't compete - whose ging to buy milk for $3 a litre when you can grab that Coles brand for $1?. After awhile, the farmgate prices offered to the farmers just got ridiculously low.

One of the things I loved when I first moved to Canada was the array of different Supermarket brands! I actually had a choice! And they're not all the same! Back home, you really don't have much of a choice - Coles and Woolies are pretty much identical when it comes to products and prices (just a few different labels). Some people have access to I.G.A's (Independent Grocers of Australia) which come in a huge variety of standards, and then there are smaller chain supermarkets that are usually a fair amount more expensive than Coles or Woolies.

tl;dr Most Aussies don't have much of a choice, they're very similar anyway, they do not treat farmers or suppliers very well.

Between them, they also own most Australian retail/liquor chains. Which is kind of good when you work for one of them and kind of surprising when you see how many different stores you can use your employee discount card at...


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

Yeah, the Coles-Woolworths thing is pretty big here in Aus. They control a big hunk of the grocery market, have a big hand in petrol sales as well (the voucher system has driven many independent petrol stations out of business), as well as a hand in liquor sales and hardware.They've been putting the squeeze on farmers for years now because there are very few options if the big two don't buy your stuff. My brother in law was a dairy farmer but had to give it away because of the squeezed margins (not to mention the bloody hard work).

Australia's banking system is also pretty crap. We have 4 major banks that do as they please, making record profits year upon year. The GFC wiped out what little competition there was. It's so bad that the big four have started opening subsidiary banks to give an illusion of competition. Westpac, one of the big 4, wholly owns The Bank of Melbourne, St Georges Bank and BankSA and promoted them as alternatives to the oligarchy banks 

Australia, the land of the gouged


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Mark Fassett said:


> It's bad enough that I can't buy a cheap Isbn from smashwords anymore, but...


Yes, this is just terrible. Except you're mistaken.

Smashwords offers the same three options they always have regarding ISBNs.

1) Bring your own.

2) For only $9.95, get a premium ISBN that lists you as publisher in the R.R. Bowker catalog.

3) For FREE, get an ISBN that saves Smashwords some paperwork by allowing them to keep the ISBN you're using under their name in the Bowker catalog, even though they make no claims to any rights to your work.

Yeah... there's just NO "cheap ISBN" options at Smashwords anymore... *bzzzzt!* Thanks for playing.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> And again, since the buying public sort of expects a book to have the copyright on the title page then Mark is correct.
> 
> Honestly, deliberately doing things that make your book NOT look like a book just reinforces a whole lot of bad stereotypes about indies. I have never in ten years of selling ebooks heard a single person whine about "OMG! There is totally this huge copyright notice on the title page! I can't read this book!" Normally, its the opposite. "Is this pirated? It doesn't look right."


Amen, Julie.


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## Mark Fassett (Aug 25, 2010)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> Yes, this is just terrible. Except you're mistaken.
> 
> Smashwords offers the same three options they always have regarding ISBNs.
> 
> ...


Umm - have you tried to buy one of the $9.95 ISBNs lately? I haven't been able to buy one since September. They're always "out of stock." I couldn't do it at the end of January. Unless they've changed in the last 27 days, good luck with that.

And I don't consider the free ones to be "cheap" since they list Smashwords as the publisher.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

OK...let's move on from the whole copyright page thing so that it doesn't derail the thread.  Agree to disagree.  It's related to the topic but I think both sides have said their piece on it.

Betsy
KB Moderator


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Mark Fassett said:


> Umm - have you tried to buy one of the $9.95 ISBNs lately? I haven't been able to buy one since September. They're always "out of stock." I couldn't do it at the end of January. Unless they've changed in the last 27 days, good luck with that.
> 
> And I don't consider the free ones to be "cheap" since they list Smashwords as the publisher.


Nope, I haven't tried... because to me, free is way better than $9.95, and I don't get my undergarments in a twist over paperwork.

Mark/Smashwords have always said they don't assert anything over that, it's just a paperwork thing... and he/SW has never done anything to prove that wrong.  No reason not to trust him.

(Now, Google on the other hand.... they have a history of trying to make tons of stuff public domain before its time...)


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## matthewturner (Aug 1, 2012)

Like others are saying, Smashwords aren't very reader friendly. It's a good place for writers (lots of great info) but it is complex and not user friendly.

If they want it to become a viable bookstore they have to re-do the entire site/create a sub-site that is aimed at readers above all else.

Amazon is a great place for the customer, and it is this why they're such a success.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

Mark Fassett said:


> Umm - have you tried to buy one of the $9.95 ISBNs lately? I haven't been able to buy one since September. They're always "out of stock." I couldn't do it at the end of January. Unless they've changed in the last 27 days, good luck with that.


Shame. If something is an option, it should be kept well-stocked.  Maybe you've just been unlucky. Did you try contacting CS about it by any chance? They might have been able to give you a head's up as to when they expected to restock.



> And I don't consider the free ones to be "cheap" since they list Smashwords as the publisher.


That's giving up your own identity to save ten bucks, yeah.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

matthewturner said:


> Amazon is a great place for the customer, and it is this why they're such a success.


Amazon's very good for customers.

But in terms of its overall look and feel, even Amazon.com could be improved upon.

If Smashwords' storefront looks 90s, Amazons is no better than early 2000s... which is about the last time I can recall their site having any sort of major upgrade in terms of look/feel for the customer.

While Amazon.com has EXPANDED their offerings greatly, the site has the same general look as it did a decade ago. Even Amazon.com could stand some modernization.

That's not to say it's not effective, or that I'm anti-Amazon.

I just think there are ways any retailer can improve... esp. when their site has only been expanding upon a decade-old design for the last 10 years.


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## Mark Fassett (Aug 25, 2010)

Mathew Reuther said:


> Shame. If something is an option, it should be kept well-stocked.  Maybe you've just been unlucky. Did you try contacting CS about it by any chance? They might have been able to give you a head's up as to when they expected to restock.


Mark said in a blog post back in September that he didn't know if they would ever restock.


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## Mark Fassett (Aug 25, 2010)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> Nope, I haven't tried... because to me, free is way better than $9.95, and I don't get my undergarments in a twist over paperwork.
> 
> Mark/Smashwords have always said they don't assert anything over that, it's just a paperwork thing... and he/SW has never done anything to prove that wrong.  No reason not to trust him.
> 
> (Now, Google on the other hand.... they have a history of trying to make tons of stuff public domain before its time...)


I take pride in the books I publish, and I want the name of my publisher on them, not the name of the distributor. It's not about saving $10. If I had the money, I'd lay put $1000 for a nice big block of iSBNs, but I don't have $1000. I usually do have $10' and it drives me nuts that he won't take my money.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

Mark Fassett said:


> I take pride in the books I publish, and I want the name of my publisher on them, not the name of the distributor. It's not about saving $10. If I had the money, I'd lay put $1000 for a nice big block of iSBNs, but I don't have $1000. I usually do have $10' and it drives me nuts that he won't take my money.


Our tax return went in part to buying 100 ISBNs because of this exact reason. I wish I could have managed the extra $425, but dropping nearly 6 c-notes on them was a stretch.

A lot of what I do has to do with professionalism. It's like while I'd like to get library distribution as an option, I'm not willing to use a Createspace ISBN.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Mark Fassett said:


> I take pride in the books I publish, and I want the name of my publisher on them, not the name of the distributor. It's not about saving $10. If I had the money, I'd lay put $1000 for a nice big block of iSBNs, but I don't have $1000. I usually do have $10' and it drives me nuts that he won't take my money.


Mark, I take pride in the books I publish, too. So we have that in common.

How you choose to publish vs. how I do does not change that.

And I'm the publisher of my first three books, so my name's all over them already.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

First, I said this to you on Reddit and held my powder on complaints. I'm a smut peddler. You went to bat for us when nobody else would and I am deeply appreciative. I am someone who really wants to use you for distribution, but for everything possible I've moved to D2D.

There are two reasons for this. The first is Smashwords is a PITA to use. I have to recompile my books. I have to change the frontmatter. I need to upscale a cover--pointless since it's higher than the source. I have to change the formatting--more below.

But most importantly, Smashwords was giving my work away on Apple as the sample was the entire work. I know for a fact you had been getting these reports as far back as July. When I got an ipad to check in December, I reported it. A week later I was told what basically amounted to "too bad, so sad, learn2use the meatgrinder noob!".

Here's a contrast: I was one of the first using D2D and they had the same problem with Apple sampling the entire book, I emailed them, and they got back to me within hours, it was fixed within a day, and within a week they put a system in to sample themselves so it wouldn't happen again and it hasn't.

Obviously just my opinion, but for all the talk about Amazon being or trending towards a monopoly, Smashwords has had a defacto monopoly on distribution to Apple for non-Mac users and to B&N for non-US based authors and IMHO Smashwords has fallen into the lazy practices of a monopoly relying on its market power rather than responding to your authors.

You need to up your game. You need to take care of these things like communication, reporting numbers, conversion of epub uploads to other formats ASAP, not "by the end of the year," which will actually be a half baked job on December 31st at 3:30pm.

On formatting.



> A book doesn't reach distribution with that label until our vetting team has vetted it and approved it. Our formatting requirements are stricter than most of the retailer's own requirements, which is why you won't see novels with first-line-indended block paragraphs. Our retailers get essentially 0% complaints on the formatting of our books. The label helps us work with customers to confirm that the book they're having a problem with is in fact from us.


To me, the vetting does two things. First it delays distribution for an untold length of time, often for trivial nonsense. Second, the meatgrinder and your automated formatting requirements in general take my preferred formatting and beats it with the ugly stick.

I use very small indents with a 6 point space between paragraphs--with 1.2em line spacing that's like 1/3rd of a line?. It's not double spacing. It's not indent and block paragraphs. It's a tiny bit of space. It's a really nice layout. Your formatting forces me to remove that space, leaving a very cramped wall of text. So, you compensate with a bigger indent, but it ends up looking like a high school research paper. I guess this pretty much says it all: _When I get books from friends that are put through the meatgrinder, I actually run them through Calibre to reformat because I find the Smash formatting so unpleasant to read on a kindle._

This is a bug, not a feature.


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## P.C. (Peter) Anders (Feb 6, 2013)

For me, the best thing about Smashwords is that it exists at all, as an alternative for writers, and that it strongly supports freedom of expression.

The negatives for me are the delays between publication and shipping to the outlets, the incorrect categorization or listing at outlets, and the lack of monthly results and payments. One has no way to know if a book is having an impact until three months later . . . !


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## OliviaF (Feb 3, 2013)

Sapphire said:


> I have to come to the defense of Smashwords' customer service. I had a problem having my manuscript accepted for premium status due to a glitch in some of the bookmarks in my ToC. Two different people at Smashwords worked with me on a timely basis to help me solve my problem. They went out of their way to assist this first-time, still 1-book author. I appreciated their help.


I'd also like to put in my two cents on that issue. Every email I've ever sent to customer service has not only been answered but answered in a very timely manner. Most recently it was when I was having the same copyright issue that others mentioned with their ePubs (no matter what I did the autovetter threw back an error even though I had formatted the page properly). I finally stopped trying to fix the issue myself, emailed customer service, and in less than 24 hrs I received not one, but two very nice responses telling me the issue had been fixed. And then within 20 minutes the title was approved for the premium catalog. The same thing happened more than once in the same week: I had an issue with my own ePub and it was promptly fixed.

I just made a change to one of my books and while the autovetter error hasn't been cleared yet, I'm pretty confident that it will be fixed soon based on my own previous experience


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Getting back to the OP, what can we do to help Smashwords become stronger in the retail/distributor marketplace? It's a valid question and one which requires a serious answer, because when Smashwords gets stronger, it increases competition, reduces our own risk exposure and increases our own success. The simple (and likely only) answer to how _we _can help is for us to refer our readers to our books there, just as we do to other retailers. I already do that. Many of us do. Beyond that, the ball is in Mark's court to implement the changes we would like to see so that we'll be even more excited to submit and promote our books on Smashwords.



Katie Elle said:


> ...for all the talk about Amazon being or trending towards a monopoly, Smashwords has had a defacto monopoly on distribution to Apple for non-Mac users and to B&N for non-US based authors and IMHO Smashwords has fallen into the lazy practices of a monopoly relying on its market power rather than responding to your authors.


I think there's some truth in this. Let's do our part (even if only for "selfish" reasons); whether/how Mark does his in the coming months will be very insightful regarding his commitment to indies.


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

Sapphire said:


> I have to come to the defense of Smashwords' customer service. I had a problem having my manuscript accepted for premium status due to a glitch in some of the bookmarks in my ToC. Two different people at Smashwords worked with me on a timely basis to help me solve my problem. They went out of their way to assist this first-time, still 1-book author. I appreciated their help.


Yes, Smashwords has really stepped up their customer service game in recent months. It used to be that MAYBE someone would reply 2 weeks later (or not at all -- which was often the case), but now I'm getting responses within minutes of sending the question. And they're actually helpful responses -- you can tell the person there is actually reading it and brainstorming ways to help rather than the canned responses you get from KDP.


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## scottnicholson (Jan 31, 2010)

Less energy wasted on bashing Amazon from an individual ideological viewpoint and more energy put on improving service. (These viewpoints always come off as "Amazon won't let me play in their sandbox so they are evil! And, by the way, Apple and Nook are soaring while Amazon is flat!") Every time I see the square press report this junk as expert opinion, I roll my eyes.

Most of us here have been treated exceedingly well by Amazon. Exceedingly well. Amazon is not an evil force--it features and promotes not only indie writers, musicians, and filmmakers, but small business owners and crafts people of all kinds.

Indeed, it may well be the most egalitarian market in the world. The entire world. Their store is open to almost anyone who wants to sell a legal product. Amazon is a platform for dreamers and is an enabler of dreams in a free market. I love Amazon and I say God bless Jeff Bezos. If every company in America operated like Amazon, we'd all be living a Northern European lifestyle.

So the constant attacks on Amazon just don't sit well, and these dire warnings of the crushing of the proles just gets very tiresome. Amazon is not Wal-Mart. Sure, they make changes to improve their success. So do us proles.

How about creating value and service that's better than Amazon? How about adding emerging channels the way Xinxii does, instead of these theoretical channels that no one is sure even exist? Then Smashwords will never have to worry about ideological propaganda again. It will sell itself. Even us dumb proles can figure out who is treating us well and putting bread on the table.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Anyone think it's in your long term self-interest to act in my short term self-interest? If I can keep people convinced of that, my long term self-interest looks pretty good, too.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

scottnicholson said:


> Less energy wasted on bashing Amazon from an individual ideological viewpoint and more energy put on improving service. (These viewpoints always come off as "Amazon won't let me play in their sandbox so they are evil! And, by the way, Apple and Nook are soaring while Amazon is flat!") Every time I see the square press report this junk as expert opinion, I roll my eyes.
> 
> Most of us here have been treated exceedingly well by Amazon. Exceedingly well. Amazon is not an evil force--it features and promotes not only indie writers, musicians, and filmmakers, but small business owners and crafts people of all kinds.
> 
> ...


Scott, we aren't often in agreement, but this time I think you put it very well indeed.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Anyone think it's in your long term self-interest to act in my short term self-interest? If I can keep people convinced of that, my long term self-interest looks pretty good, too.


Happens all the time. That's what venture capital investors do.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Katie Elle said:


> First, I said this to you on Reddit and held my powder on complaints. I'm a smut peddler. You went to bat for us when nobody else would and I am deeply appreciative. I am someone who really wants to use you for distribution, but for everything possible I've moved to D2D.


I'm sorry to hear that.



Katie Elle said:


> There are two reasons for this. The first is Smashwords is a PITA to use. I have to recompile my books. I have to change the frontmatter.
> I need to upscale a cover--pointless since it's higher than the source.


We require a cover with a minimum width of 1,400 pixels. This is what Apple requires, and it's very close to B&N's increased requirements from last year. Also close to Amazon's.



Katie Elle said:


> I have to change the formatting--more below.
> 
> But most importantly, Smashwords was giving my work away on Apple as the sample was the entire work. I know for a fact you had been getting these reports as far back as July. When I got an ipad to check in December, I reported it. A week later I was told what basically amounted to "too bad, so sad, learn2use the meatgrinder noob!".


Please send me that email. I seriously doubt our support staffer wrote anything even remotely close to what you state, and if they did, I owe you a huge apology. I'm aware there have been some instances of apple incorrectly generating their sample files. As I recall, it was mostly for books with low word counts and missing multi-part NCxes. When we learn of them we provide the authors instructions on how to fix, and that probably meant our support staffer referred you to Step 21 in the Style Guide which explains how to create a multi-part NCX.



Katie Elle said:


> Here's a contrast: I was one of the first using D2D and they had the same problem with Apple sampling the entire book, I emailed them, and they got back to me within hours, it was fixed within a day, and within a week they put a system in to sample themselves so it wouldn't happen again and it hasn't.
> 
> Obviously just my opinion, but for all the talk about Amazon being or trending towards a monopoly, Smashwords has had a defacto monopoly on distribution to Apple for non-Mac users and to B&N for non-US based authors and IMHO Smashwords has fallen into the lazy practices of a monopoly relying on its market power rather than responding to your authors.


I strongly disagree here both on monopoly and lazy. There's not a bone of laziness or lackadaisical complacence anywhere on the Smashwords staff. Every day, every one of us is working to improve everything we do. There was a time Meatgrinder took up to 30 hours to complete an ebook conversion. Now it takes 1-3 minutes from upload to the time it appears for sale on the Smashwords home page. I don't think anyone does that faster. Premium Catalog approve (vetting) used to take up to three weeks, now it's usually 1-3 days, and getting faster. As some have noted here (thank you), there was a time not long ago it took two weeks to receive a response to a support request. As promised, we increased staffing and made other process changes and now many emails are answered same-day. We've made changes to our distribution systems over the last few months that are making them faster and more reliable, and we're not done improving. We've got some innovative things on the roadmap this year that will surprise people, and which will create new selling opportunities for our authors. We're not a monopoly. We created the first ebook distribution company focused on indie authors back when noone would give indies the time of day. We opened up distribution that wasn't available any other way. But it wasn't long after we opened our distribution services that others followed suit. For the last 2+ years, authors have had multiple choices. Many of our authors have left to try these other services then came back. In the next couple years, we'll have even more competition. We're the largest distributor of indie ebooks, but not because we're a monopoly. It's because our authors made us this, and we work hard every day to earn it. For over two years they've had multiple other options to reach Apple, B&N, Sony and others, but our authors chose us. We value and cherish every author relationship, whether the author's a NYT bestseller or hasn't sold a single book, and we provide the services to everyone at no cost.



Katie Elle said:


> You need to up your game. You need to take care of these things like communication, reporting numbers, conversion of epub uploads to other formats ASAP, not "by the end of the year," which will actually be a half baked job on December 31st at 3:30pm.


I totally agree we need to up our game. This will never change. 5 years from now, we'll have an even longer list of things we can do to up our game. We're always setting higher goals for ourselves on every facet of our business.



Katie Elle said:


> On formatting.
> 
> To me, the vetting does two things. First it delays distribution for an untold length of time, often for trivial nonsense. Second, the meatgrinder and your automated formatting requirements in general take my preferred formatting and beats it with the ugly stick.
> 
> ...


The size of the first line indent is up to the author. We recommend around .3 inch. If our vetting team rejects a book because of the spacing between first-line indents, and the author writes our service team and insists that's the way the want it, our service team will almost always overrule the vetting team. In the end, it's your book, and we try to be as accommodative as possible. Re: your Kindle example, Kindle will auto-insert first-line indents if the author didn't specify them, so it's possible what you're referring to there is a Kindle feature, not a Smashwords formatting issue.


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## Accord64 (Mar 12, 2012)

Mark, if you're still tuned in, here's a current situation that exemplifies my frustration with Smashwords.

My latest book was uploaded this week (2/25) to Smashwords, Amazon, and B&N (Pubit).

*Amazon* had it up within 12 hours. No issues, other than that I had to wait 24 hours to see the "look inside" feature. This was the first time I've seen a delay on this.

*B&N* had it up within 24 hours. No issues.

*Smashwords *had trouble accepting my file, because, well, I'm not sure. The auto-message said that my .doc was really not a word file. After trying a few more times (with tweaks), I went over to my other PC and uploaded the file without any rejection. The only thing that might have been different is that my laptop always has the up-to-date version of Firefox, and my PC might be a step behind.

Fast-forward to today. My book is still in "Pending Review" for premium status. I'll give it until tomorrow morning before I drop a note to your support people if it doesn't go through.

Do you see my frustration? I'm not asking you to personally do anything about it, but it's just to show you how others (Amazon and B&N) are beating you on execution of basic functionality. Even if I didn't have the upload issues, my book is stuck the premium review, and I've lost three days (and counting) with the outlets. In my year and three novels (plus revisions), this has been a reoccurring theme.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> "Happens all the time. That's what venture capital investors do."


Agree. But I also give the VC a short term equity position.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

scottnicholson said:


> Less energy wasted on bashing Amazon from an individual ideological viewpoint and more energy put on improving service. (These viewpoints always come off as "Amazon won't let me play in their sandbox so they are evil! And, by the way, Apple and Nook are soaring while Amazon is flat!") Every time I see the square press report this junk as expert opinion, I roll my eyes.
> 
> Most of us here have been treated exceedingly well by Amazon. Exceedingly well. Amazon is not an evil force--it features and promotes not only indie writers, musicians, and filmmakers, but small business owners and crafts people of all kinds.
> 
> ...


Scott, to read your note above, someone who didn't know better might jump to the conclusion I spend every waking hour of every day sounding the alarm bells about KDP Select. This simply isn't true. I've written somewhere around 260 blog posts over the last five years, and I count five (< 2%) that have targeted KDP-Select. Here they are:

*12/8/11*, when they first launched it: http://blog.smashwords.com/2011/12/amazon-shows-predatory-spots-with-kdp.html
*12/9/11*, for HuffPost: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-coker/amazon-ebooks-kdp-select_b_1139260.html
*10/22/12*, for AII: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/blog/amazon-plays-indie-authors-like-pawns/
*11/11/12*, for WNFN: http://writenonfictioninnovember.com/2012/11/12/the-immortal-ebook-fights-for-survival/
*11/29/12*: http://blog.smashwords.com/2012/11/amazon-grinch-who-stole-christmas.html


I've written maybe a handful of others that mentioned it. Possibly you're reacting to how widely these posts were amplified by others, or possibly how some of these offended you.

Does voicing my opposition to KDP-S distract me from managing Smashwords? Definitely not. Those posts above took me maybe 16 hours to write in total. That's two days of my time out of the last 450 days.

I totally agree with you that Amazon, more than any other, has had the most positively profound impact on indie authors and the indie author revolution. My opposition to KDP-S doesn't take anything away from that.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Mark,

Is Amazon a monopoly?


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

MarkCoker said:


> [snip]We're not a monopoly. We created the first ebook distribution company focused on indie authors back when no one would give indies the time of day. We opened up distribution that wasn't available any other way. But it wasn't long after we opened our distribution services that others followed suit. For the last 2+ years, authors have had multiple choices. Many of our authors have left to try these other services then came back. In the next couple years, we'll have even more competition. We're the largest distributor of indie ebooks, but not because we're a monopoly. It's because our authors made us this, and we work hard every day to earn it.[/snip]


If one were to replace the words distribution and distributor with retailing and retailer...

B.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Mark,
> 
> Is Amazon a monopoly?


No. They're the largest, most powerful, most dominant player, but they don't have a monopoly.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

> > I was told what basically amounted to "too bad, so sad, learn2use the meatgrinder noob!".
> 
> 
> Please send me that email. I seriously doubt our support staffer wrote anything even remotely close to what you state, and if they did, I owe you a huge apology. I'm aware there have been some instances of apple incorrectly generating their sample files. As I recall, it was mostly for books with low word counts and missing multi-part NCxes. When we learn of them we provide the authors instructions on how to fix, and that probably meant our support staffer referred you to Step 21 in the Style Guide which explains how to create a multi-part NCX.


The was exactly as you said:



> Thanks for your email. Our Technical Team is working with Apple to resolve this issue. In the meantime, you can speed up the process by creating natural breaks in the story so that the Apple system properly provides only a sample instead of the whole book. To do so, create a linked TOC per Step 20 of the Style Guide, or make all headings into a "Heading Style."


However, it remains my interpretation that this amounted to little more than "tough luck." Smashwords didn't take any responsibility for fixing the problem. Instead, they pushed fixing it on me. My faith that Smashwords was or are working with Apple on it is pretty minimal. I know people who reported it back in the summer and still isn't fixed AFAIK.

In contrast, D2D took responsibility for the issue, fixed it immediately for the book in question, offered to remove it from sale until the new version was accepted by Apple, and implemented a permanent global solution in less than a week. That doesn't make them special snowflakes, it's what any company in the business should have done


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Katie Elle said:


> Please send me that email. I seriously doubt our support staffer wrote anything even remotely close to what you state, and if they did, I owe you a huge apology. I'm aware there have been some instances of apple incorrectly generating their sample files. As I recall, it was mostly for books with low word counts and missing multi-part NCxes. When we learn of them we provide the authors instructions on how to fix, and that probably meant our support staffer referred you to Step 21 in the Style Guide which explains how to create a multi-part NCX.
> 
> The was exactly as you said:
> 
> ...


Okay, Katie, so from what you pasted above, our service team sent you a polite, professional email with instructions on how to fix it. Yet here and elsewhere on KB, you've been misrepresenting the interaction, portraying our service team as rude, offensive and uncaring. That's not nice because it's not true.


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## Guest (Feb 28, 2013)

Katie Elle said:


> In contrast, D2D took responsibility for the issue, fixed it immediately for the book in question, offered to remove it from sale until the new version was accepted by Apple, and implemented a permanent global solution in less than a week. That doesn't make them special snowflakes, it's what any company in the business should have done


D2D is also in BETA and working with a couple of dozen people. It makes perfect sense that, during Beta, they would in fact be involved. Smashwords, on the other hand, has a few thousand authors they deal with.

When I first launched my magazine, I was able to get people a response to their submission in a day because I only got a handful of submissions at the beginning. Today, I get dozens of submission each day. I can no longer get through them all as quickly. It would be unfair of an author to publicly slam my for not responding in a day when I am processing dozens of submissions daily, compared to a magazine that gets two submissions a week, would it?


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> D2D is also in BETA and working with a couple of dozen people. It makes perfect sense that, during Beta, they would in fact be involved. Smashwords, on the other hand, has a few thousand authors they deal with.
> 
> When I first launched my magazine, I was able to get people a response to their submission in a day because I only got a handful of submissions at the beginning. Today, I get dozens of submission each day. I can no longer get through them all as quickly. It would be unfair of an author to publicly slam my for not responding in a day when I am processing dozens of submissions daily, compared to a magazine that gets two submissions a week, would it?


I have never understood the argument that only small operators should be expected to offer timely service. Amazon is much larger than both of these companies and has managed to respond to all my queries within 48 hours. I have no experience conversing with Smashwords (or your company for that matter). I just find the general argument strange. I expect less from a company that is booting up than from one that has established revenue streams.

B.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

MarkCoker said:


> Okay, Katie, so from what you pasted above, our service team sent you a polite, professional email with instructions on how to fix it.  Yet here and elsewhere on KB, you've been misrepresenting the interaction, portraying our service team as rude, offensive and uncaring. That's not nice because it's not true.


They sent a workaround instead of fixing the issue on your end.

Mark, is it Smashwords' policy to push back to the author, or to fix the problems?

I get that you don't want to be badmouthed, and I'll agree that the tone was misrepresented.

But what I don't agree with is that it's always on the author to fix.

It seems to me in much of what I have heard and even read on your site, that you expect everyone to do things your way, instead of empowering them to do things their way.

Hence the zillion page style guide.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, folks, but a style guide is something a publisher sets for their line. Not something a distributor dictates from on high.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

B. Justin Shier said:


> I have never understood the argument that only small operators should be expected to offer timely service. Amazon is much larger than both of these companies and has managed to respond to all my queries within 48 hours. I have no experience conversing with Smashwords (or your company for that matter). I just find the general argument strange. I expect less from a company that is booting up than from one that has established revenue streams.
> 
> B.


Julie's analogy is a flawed one anyway. Submissions are not even remotely close to the same as CS inquiries. A 24-72 hour support turnaround should be the goal for any business when assisting CUSTOMERS. (Authors submitting to a mag are not customers. We all know that even getting a response to a submission is a small victory.)

I completely agree with you that no matter how large your business, you must maintain good CS response times.

I would also stipulate that they should remain high quality, but I think we all know that ship has sailed with many companies.


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

Mathew Reuther said:


> I would also stipulate that they should remain high quality, but I think we all know that ship has sailed with many companies.


No doubt--and I fully accept that you often get only what you're willing to pay for. But for 10-15% cut of my book revenues, I'm certainly going to expect a lot.

B.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

B. Justin Shier said:


> No doubt--and I fully accept that you often get only what you're willing to pay for. But for 10-15% cut of my book revenues, I'm certainly going to expect a lot.
> 
> B.


I was more aimed at Amazon there. 

They give me back some silly stuff at times. I am sure SW and D2D are both, on average, more literate in their replies.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Mathew Reuther said:


> They sent a workaround instead of fixing the issue on your end.
> 
> Mark, is it Smashwords' policy to push back to the author, or to fix the problems?
> 
> ...


Smashwords is a self-serve service. We give you free tools, and instructions on how to use the tools to greatest benefit. In instances where we can create global, programmatic fixes to common problems so the author doesn't lift a finger, we do, and we have done this on numerous occasions, from autofixing line spacing bugs created by Open Office, to autorepairing common EPUBCHECK errors, and dozens of others over the years. Kobo had a similar problem as Apple a couple years ago, where they were automatically sampling full ebooks that didn't contain at least a two-part NCX. We created a programmatic fix for that. Our Style Guide focuses on professional best practices for line spacing, paragraph construction, etc., and it attempts to bridge conventional best practices with new best practices for creating reflowable ebooks. It leaves you plenty of leeway for your own creative expression.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

genevieveaclark said:


> In the end, most of us are business people. We're not sentimental. We'll go wherever the service is best.


And this is the reality of the situation.

For a long time SW has been the best available option. At this point D2D is new, yea, but trying very hard to get better all the time. If at some point they can crack the markets they don't have yet chances are extremely good that from a distribution standpoint they will be superior to SW.

All any of us in this thread are trying to do is point out where Smashwords calls down. LOADS of great ideas have been given here. With a competent dev team (and I speak from years of software industry experience) SW is 3-6 months away from absolutely dominating as a distributor while offering a proper UX for shoppers.

But there would need to be a philosophical shift towards author empowerment, and moving away from the rigid requirements which do not actually do anything to improve the quality of submitted works. Anything that is a personal preference of the SW staff or management should be removed as criteria for publication.

HAving read the entirety of this thread I am exceptionally pessimistic about any such shift in SW policies, because it appears that Mark feels his personal opinions should be industry standards.


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

I have never found Smashwords' customer service offensive in any way. I am unhappy with the results of their efforts, but I am not convinced it was their fault, but rather the fault of the vendors that they distribute to. Perhaps more could have been done, but we will never know since I have opted out of all distribution except to Apple.

My main complaint is the reports and not getting paid monthly. I just don't have the time or the skills to wade through them to find out how many of each of my 20 odd books I have sold, where and for what amount. I would like to keep track of such things, and easily can with other reports, but Smashwords reports boggle my simple mind. My fault, I suppose, but I must keep writing instead. Someone has to write my new books, and I'm guessing it might be me. 

I am sorry, Mark if I hurt your feelings last night.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

MarkCoker said:


> Smashwords is a self-serve service.


Like every direct upload to a retailer. Nothing we don't all do on KDP, considering that's the only route onto Amazon and we're on KindleBoards.



> We give you free tools, and instructions on how to use the tools to greatest benefit.


Which you do fairly well in my opinion. I've read the documents and I find them relatively clear. Better perhaps than average.



> In instances where we can create global, programmatic fixes to common problems so the author doesn't lift a finger, we do, and we have done this on numerous occasions, from autofixing line spacing bugs created by Open Office, to autorepairing common EPUBCHECK errors, and dozens of others over the years.


All of which is good, and worthy.



> Kobo had a similar problem as Apple a couple years ago, where they were automatically sampling full ebooks that didn't contain at least a two-part NCX. We created a programmatic fix for that.


Why wasn't the similar Apple issue fixed for the author above instead of being pushed back?



> Our Style Guide focuses on professional best practices for line spacing, paragraph construction, etc., and it attempts to bridge conventional best practices with new best practices for creating reflowable ebooks. It leaves you plenty of leeway for your own creative expression.


Why can't I arrange my book to have a copyright page in the back? My publishing styleguide calls for placement of the notice in the back, direct linked from two menus (plus the generated TOC accessible from many readers' menus) . . .

Why does your personal opinion on where the copyright page goes cause a book to fail autovetter?

ETA: Or as Andre already noted: why do you dictate that initial caps are what must be in titles?


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

genevieveaclark said:


> I'd like to take this opportunity to urge you to offer your services to Barnes and Noble first. Or Kobo. Yes, also Kobo. And possibly Apple. Really, I just want a true Amazon competitor. Can you imagine if you could sell as many books as you can at Amazon at three other retailers? I want.


Apple's biggest issue is approval time. But it's so deeply entrenched in their hipster culture that they can't be saved. Kobo is pretty strong in general. They really just need work on the discovery angle. I'm interested to see where they go. B&N just can't decide what they want to do, and I am fairly sure that they have three people (not) answering emails.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Mathew Reuther said:


> Hence the zillion page style guide.
> 
> Correct me if I'm wrong here, folks, but a style guide is something a publisher sets for their line. Not something a distributor dictates from on high.


The Smashwords style guide is a very valuable document for indies who want to get their books accepted by all vendors. If Mark sold it instead of giving it away free, indies would praise it instead of attacking it.

As for the style guide of various trad publishers, I wrote a couple of those. and you won't be surprised to hear that some publishing staff used the book as an opportunity to attire themselves in jackboots, while others more gently guided their authors to use the style guide. You can guess who had more success.

Today the jackboot style of style guide is practiced by many agents, who won't even read your covering letter if you haven't followed their particular rules. Donald Maass, to cite only one instance, insists on your book titles in those capitals Mark hates so much! In the movies, television and radio, different styles have always been enforced with much greater rigour than anything the worst of the jackboots has done. I was telling Douglas Adams once about an exciting playwright - hey, Steve! - I discovered in a pile of teleplays cast aside unread for not meeting the formatting spec of a particular production company, and his eyes lit up, and he zapped out a handful of examples of doing the same thing that lasted through three bottles of Corton (which, with our lunch, we stuck on the Heinemann account at the Venezia...)

Compared to them, Mark's style guide and behavior is angelic in its offer of choice and yet more choice, as he just finished explaining on the subject of initial paragraph indents. In fact, for Mark's own firm, Smashwords, to offer your books, you can ignore his style guide; he only enforces it, and in my experience with a light touch, for books on the premium list where _his vendors_ demand compliance with certain standards.

Between 50 and 60% of indies could do with a good dose of the ur-style guide, Strunk. But, of course, they don't even know what it is.

To stop Terrence's insistent demands for definitions, yah, yah, I know I'm talking about two different kinds of style guides, one about good writing, one about good formatting. I'm paying you the compliment of presuming you're intelligent enough to follow me as I jump from rolling log to rolling log.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

Anyway, before I disappear to write more, I just want to be clear:

I want Smashwords to be as awesome as it can be. I don't level criticism in an attempt to badmouth the company, or anyone working there. I think that you'd done a great job in a lot of respects, Mark, and I don't want you to think that I (or many others) don't appreciate that.

I would love to put the 3 titles I have out right now, as well as the other 31 I have schedule to launch this year up on SW and use distribution options for Sony, Diesel, and other outlets I can't reach. But I'm not willing to resort to making new versions of those books which break my (Oakenbrand Press) style guide. That is what I am trying to make clear, and I am simply dubious about how receptive you are to these simple changes which have nothing to do with quality of product.

I also want to point out that I am sure I'm not alone in appreciating that you are taking your time to respond.



Andre Jute said:


> The Smashwords style guide is a very valuable document for indies who want to get their books accepted by all vendors. If Mark sold it instead of giving it away free, indies would praise it instead of attacking it.


I agree that it's excellent in many respects, and that many people who are inexperienced can learn a load from it.



> Compared to them, Mark's style guide and behavior is angelic in its offer of choice and yet more choice, as he just finished explaining on the subject of initial paragraph indents. In fact, for Mark's own firm, Smashwords, to offer your books, you can ignore his style guide; he only enforces it, and in my experience with a light touch, for books on the premium list where _his vendors_ demand compliance with certain standards.


Yes, but SW enforces certain things that his vendors don't care about. Such as titles like IDITAROD, placement of the front/back matter, homage to his company, etc.



> I'm paying you the compliment of presuming you're intelligent enough to follow me as I jump from rolling log to rolling log.


I played a lot of Frogger as a kid.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

genevieveaclark said:


> I can't agree with you about Apple -- their customer experience as a reader is atrocious, imo. Same with Kobo and B&N. I think discoverability and ease of use are pretty intrinsic to the customer experience, but none of the other retailers seem to have the ecommerce competence to up their game. 'Tis a bummer.


I didn't mean to insinuate that Apple's discovery was any good, sorry. Just that their BIGGEST failing is it taking five to thirty times as long as others to publish books. Part of the good of indie publishing is being quick to market. Kind of hindered by a two week wait time.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Congratulations to Mark Coker on his patient courtesy in the face so much self-centred bad manners as displayed in this thread. 

Some of you should go back and read your posts. Their refrain rings "Me!me!me!me!Gimme!gimme!gimme!" The world does not revolve around your navel.

I disassociate myself entirely from such ill manners towards someone who provides a service, free of charge until the service succeeds for you, which you can accept or pass by if you don't like a few simple house rules.


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## Benjamin A. (Oct 1, 2011)

It's not our job to make Smashwords the place for books.

I don't mean to sound harsh. Mark is a great gentlemen who helped me personally when I was having issues my first go around at Smashwords. My criticizms are leveled at nothing but the ebook service in question. I have no ill feelings toward Mark or his staff, and hope the following does not create such thoughts...

The fact is though, it's not the place for books because of what is happening on their end. I've never uploaded a book to Smashwords and not had to sort out a heap of problems. When my last book went out it had no covers, no blurbs, and was never listed as a new release, and this is on all three of the bigger retailers (B&N, Apple, and Sony). Never had an issue with Amazon in any of those respects.

I emailed Smashwords and got a response about the cover issues/blurb issues (which took multiple emails to get fixed), but they never to this day acknowledged the lack of new release time. Granted, the venues themselves are technically responsible for that, but since retailers won't work with us directly if we came through Smashwords, I was never able to do anything about it.

Mark, if you're reading this, this is my 100% honest feedback about what needs to happen with Smashwords:

1) You've got to scale up the time between upload and availability. It's hard to explain to a reader why a book is available so much quicker on one venue and not on others. I think we would all really appreciate the ability to have our works release along side each other in a much more timely manner. Within days at least, not weeks.

2) You've got to get the retailers to work with us directly, even if we came through Smashwords. B&N has helped me directly in the past, but the others flat out refuse. Having to go through Smashwords for anything just subjects us to crazy wait times again and makes problems a bigger headache.

3) Instead of rallying against KDP Select (I read your post about <2% posts about it) learn from it. In my eyes, Amazon did nothing wrong in offering additional resources to those who would go exclusive. When any author goes exclusive with anyone, whether it be a publisher or venue, it's to be expected that they will have benefits. I'll say the same thing I've said since the first day Select launched and people complained. Offer something even better so Select doesn't seem as tempting. You don't even have to go the exclusivity route, just think of a way to use a similar idea to your own advantage.

**My thoughts on this would be to work with the retailers for special deals/visibility for books that come from the Smashwords catalog. This would make authors more inclined to distribute through the service rather than go direct to the ones they can get into without Smashwords.

4) Increase payment frequency and get non paypal direct deposit by the month. I don't know the reasons for the payment type/frequency you have, there's probably a good reason, but I'm still highly disappointed I can't just get a monthly direct deposit into my bank account. I've been paid by Amazon well over a dozen times, but I've never received a dime of my (if not much less than what I've made on Amazon) money from Smashwords.

5) Update the site!!!!!

6) Learn from the KDP Dashboard. It's a million times better than Smashwords reporting. (On this note, one thing Smashwords has that I wish Amazon did was email notification of sales. Good move on that one! Now extend it out to other venues too.)

I really don't like to criticize, but being honest from my own experience, no one is doing better than Amazon when it comes to how authors are doing and how they are treated. All I can say is other venues better step it up if they want to continue competing, and continue drawing our books in. Not just Smashwords either. All of them. Help us sell more books, and we'll help you make more money.

Create the greatest venue with the greatest mutual symbiosis, and it will be Amazon scrambling to catch up. Until then, I'll be counting on them for more sales because they are PRODUCING more sales for me. My Amazon sales/downloads, for both paid and perma-free books, are many times what they are at the other venues combined each month.

I'm about being fair though, so as far as free books go, Smashwords itself is number 2 for me, well outstripping the venues they send to. Still only a small fraction of my Amazon numbers though.

The thing is Mark, we WANT to sell at other venues besides Amazon. No one wants their eggs in one basket, unless it's the only basket doing anything for them. We can advertise our books on the other venues, try to give out coupons, and reach for those sales, but in the end it's not only up to us. It's also up to the venues to have our books in front of the eyes of customers. Clearly there is more that can be done on the end that doesn't belong to the author, as Amazon still manages to bring sales into me that greatly surpass anyone else.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

genevieveaclark said:


> This has become ridiculous.
> 
> Plenty of people have made their complaints about SW known. I've had similar experiences with CS -- and no, I will not quote them, as I keep firewalls between my livelihood and my internet presence; rest assured, Mark, just because you do not recognize the name Genevieve A Clark does not mean I'm not one of your customers -- and yes, they have been rude.


Genevieve (and anyone else): For the record, I have no tolerance for anyone at Smashwords being rude ever to any author or customer. It's not how we train our staff. If you have experienced this, you have my personal email address. I will personally apologize for any error or rudeness from my staff, and I'll take steps to correct it.



genevieveaclark said:


> But don't let me convince you. The fact that many, _many_ people have had the same experience *should matter to you*. The fact that many people have had the same problems, for YEARS, with badly mapped categories, price changes, books being kept on sale when they shouldn't be, hopelessly mangled blurbs, even payments -- all of this should matter.


Our support team is standing by to correct all errors.



genevieveaclark said:


> Instead your response is to try to argue people out of their experiences. Guess what? That is disrespectful.
> 
> And it's not our job to help you fix it, especially since you seem unwilling to admit or take responsibility for the existing problems.


No, I'm not trying to argue people out of their experience. If we make an error, we own it. If our retailer makes and error, we usually end up owning that too. We're more interested to solve problems than place blame. What's disrespectful is when someone mischaracterizes the facts. We work with over 50,000 authors. We try to provide every single author incredible service. As I've said before multiple times on KB, we're not perfect, we make mistakes. I don't doubt for a second that some authors have legit reasons to feel disappointed by our past performance.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Martitalbott said:


> I have never found Smashwords' customer service offensive in any way. I am unhappy with the results of their efforts, but I am not convinced it was their fault, but rather the fault of the vendors that they distribute to. Perhaps more could have been done, but we will never know since I have opted out of all distribution except to Apple.
> 
> My main complaint is the reports and not getting paid monthly. I just don't have the time or the skills to wade through them to find out how many of each of my 20 odd books I have sold, where and for what amount. I would like to keep track of such things, and easily can with other reports, but Smashwords reports boggle my simple mind. My fault, I suppose, but I must keep writing instead. Someone has to write my new books, and I'm guessing it might be me.
> 
> I am sorry, Mark if I hurt your feelings last night.


Marti, no hurt feelings. I appreciate the feedback yesterday and above. We need to do a better job of making our reports more intuitive. The data is all there, but it's not fully accessible unless the person's a spreadsheet expert, and few of us are. Thanks.


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## Guest (Feb 28, 2013)

B. Justin Shier said:


> I have never understood the argument that only small operators should be expected to offer timely service. Amazon is much larger than both of these companies and has managed to respond to all my queries within 48 hours.


That's nice. Amazon screwed up so badly my entire catalog of titles was unavailable for _two weeks._ Fortunately, I have wide distribution so I didn't lose a whole lot. And 50% of the time when I contact Amazon with a question, I get a stock reply from some automated response system that has nothing to do with my concern. There are plenty of thread here on KB that show Amazon not only messing up, but engaging in arbitrary behavior (removing reviews for no reason, deactivating books, etc).

I love Amazon. I do a lot of business with Amazon. I use KDP and Createspace and ACX and I'm an affiliate AND a Vine reviewer. I love Amazon. But I have no delusions that they are perfect little snowflakes of awesomeness, either. They mess up a lot, and can be heavy handed when they do.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Mathew Reuther said:


> Quote
> 
> 
> > I'm paying you the compliment of presuming you're intelligent enough to follow me as I jump from rolling log to rolling log.
> ...


The logs got you! I'd changed gears from addressing you. That remark was addressed to Terrence O'Brien. The logs got you. I win!

Nah, I don't need to tell you I think you're smart, Mathew -- despite the evidence immediately at hand!

Anyhow (as we Australians say -- do we still, Herc?), like you, I must be off to write or edit the daily little something.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Mathew Reuther said:


> Why can't I arrange my book to have a copyright page in the back? My publishing styleguide calls for placement of the notice in the back, direct linked from two menus (plus the generated TOC accessible from many readers' menus) . . .
> 
> Why does your personal opinion on where the copyright page goes cause a book to fail autovetter?
> 
> ETA: Or as Andre already noted: why do you dictate that initial caps are what must be in titles?


Mathew, the anarchist in you runs strong.  Most people appreciate that the book we help them produce adheres to conventional best practices, and to the expectations of most readers. I understand you want to pioneer a new approach for sequestering front matter into the back. You and I aren't going to come to agreement on this. If the world changes and suddenly everyone wakes to the brilliance of your approach, then of course we'll adapt. I'm 100% with Julie.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

Andre Jute said:


> The logs got you! I'd changed gears from addressing you. That remark was addressed to Terrence O'Brien. The logs got you. I win!


It was an aside. Logs made me think of frogs. Not frenchies. 8-bit amphibians.

But since I know you love stories and tangents:

When we got Frogger on Christmas morning the big family gathering went on in full swing until we were done with presents and noticed that a large pile remained. Those belonged to my brother. He'd scampered off to the basement to plug in the new game, and had been playing it non-stop. We took turns for much of the rest of the day, but he played more than I did, as I was busy being social with cousins and the like.

The next day he had blisters on the webbing between his thumb and forefinger from the hard plastic of the controller

I'd like to say he learned his lesson, but he's been obsessive like that many times since. 



> Nah, I don't need to tell you I think you're smart, Mathew -- despite the evidence immediately at hand!


LOL



> Anyhow (as we Australians say -- do we still, Herc?), like you, I must be off to write or edit the daily little something.


This memoir is staring at me funny.



MarkCoker said:


> Mathew, the anarchist in you runs strong.  Most people appreciate that the book we help them produce adheres to conventional best practices, and to the expectations of most readers. I understand you want to pioneer a new approach for sequestering front matter into the back. You and I aren't going to come to agreement on this. If the world changes and suddenly everyone wakes to the brilliance of your approach, then of course we'll adapt. I'm 100% with Julie.


I'm not pioneering, Mark. It's been done for years by bestsellers in my category. It's done by Gollancz, the company with the most authors in their SFF stable worldwide, for years. I'm not leading a charge here, I'm trying to inform you that it's already run past you.

I have no clue why you don't know this already. But it's not for lack of being told. And if big sellers, big publishers, are able to understand the difference between print and digital, I'd say that you, as a DIGITAL ONLY distributor should probably be able to as well.

But again, as I've said, given your intransigence and unwillingness to open up any ebook preview by Gollancz/Orbit I have little hope for getting three dozen things up with you so you can make money off of me.

I lose your distribution channel, you lose sales.

Because copyright goes one place in your mind. *shrug*

ETA: I am convinced that you want copyright up front because of the requirement to pimp your company. If you dropped that you wouldn't care where it was because there'd be no guaranteed advertising.


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## 56139 (Jan 21, 2012)

My books come out of Select today. I've opted not to use Smashwords to upload to iTunes and B&N just because I'm not sure what you guys will give me for the percentage you'll take. I think a lot of people use SW because they can make their book free and try and go for the price match. And you have coupons. Those are cool. But my impression of SW, and I have not personal experience to back this up other than what I've heard, is that I'm giving up control by using you guys.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'll be banging on your door in a few months, p*ssed off and fed up with B&N and Apple. Who knows.

But before I give you control over my books and a portion of my sales, I'd like to see what doing it myself gives me. Because again, I'm just not convinced I _need _you.

Feel free to convince me.

And edit to add: I don't need an ISBN. I have blocks of them.


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## 60911 (Jun 13, 2012)

Andre Jute said:


> Congratulations to Mark Coker on his patient courtesy in the face so much self-centred bad manners as displayed in this thread.
> 
> Some of you should go back and read your posts. Their refrain rings "Me!me!me!me!Gimme!gimme!gimme!" The world does not revolve around your navel.
> 
> I disassociate myself entirely from such ill manners towards someone who provides a service, free of charge until the service succeeds for you, which you can accept or pass by if you don't like a few simple house rules.


Yes, and ill manners are never to be encouraged, whether it's being unkind to someone in posts or using an unsolicited critique of someone's book to make yourself look good. We should all strive to conduct ourselves in a courteous and kind manner at all times, and really endeavor to take it light on the smugness.

Or something. I might have hit the low bar on that one.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

RobertJCrane said:


> Yes, and ill manners are never to be encouraged, whether it's being unkind to someone in posts or using an unsolicited critique of someone's book to make yourself look good. We should all strive to conduct ourselves in a courteous and kind manner at all times, and really endeavor to take it light on the smugness.
> 
> Or something. I might have hit the low bar on that one.


If you keep having trouble passing the lowest of bars, lateral thinking will inexhorably lead you to limbo dancing.


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## 60911 (Jun 13, 2012)

Andre Jute said:


> If you keep having trouble passing the lowest of bars, lateral thinking will inexhorably lead you to limbo dancing.


Actually, repeated failure to pass the low bars tends to lead one toward drunkenness. Lateral thinking from that point will only tip you off your stool.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

Andre Jute said:


> Anyhow (as we Australians say -- do we still, Herc?)


No worries.

I, like you, am flat out like a lizard drinking.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

For the edification of those who think front matter copyright pages are the way things are done:

Kindle Top 20 Paid:

Dead Asleep: Back
Never Too Far: Front
Alex Cross, Run: Abbreviated Front, Full Back
Safe Haven: Abbreviated Front, Full Back
Guilt By Degrees: Abbreviated Front, Full Back
Wait For Me: Front
The Anne Stories: No Copyright
The Silver Linings Playbook: Abbreviated Front, Full Back
If You Stay: Front
Calculated in Death: Front
Raid: Non Standard
Heartsong: Front
The Storyteller: Unknown
Whole Lotta Trouble: Back
Gone Girl: Front
The Second Ship: Front
Into the Darkest Corner: Back
Wormhole: Front
Beautiful Creatures: Abbreviated Front, Full Back
Immune: Front

Notes on the classifications:

Front means copyright page is found in the front matter.
Back means the page is found in the back matter.
Abbreviated Front, Full Back means that there is a paragraph in the front, but the full page is in the back. (Note: inclusion of Publisher info, and thus Smashwords, would be in the back in this type of book.)
No Copyright means the book is in the public domain.
Non Standard means there is some kind of note about paying for the author's work in the front matter, but that it is not a copyright notice.
Unknown means that the disposition of copyright info in the book could not be discerned from the preview, but is clearly not in the front matter.

*Less than half of the top 20 Kindle ebooks would be accepted by Smashwords.*

ETA: With close to a combined 3000 days in the top 100, the Hunger Games Trilogy are all copyright in the back matter books.
Anyone who tells you that copyright in the back is unprofessional is flat out wrong. Times have changed.


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## CMTheAuthor (Dec 6, 2012)

Okay, as someone who has made quite a bit of use of Smashwords (both in publishing my own books and editing an anthology for it), here's my take. Don't get offended, I'm not out to bash anyone.

The impression I get about most of the complaints I've seen about Smashwords is that the authors in question wrote their book with a specific format or aesthetic in mind, one that obviously would not pass the Meatgrinder. They then proceeded to write the book using those style choices, baking it into every chapter, every paragraph, and so on. And then when publishing time comes around, they have to go in and quite literally undo all their formatting...and doing so is not easy, both mentally and labor-wise. I know this from experience, and thus the problems arise.

This is the nature of the choice Smashwords offers: ready distribution to all non-Amazon platforms vs. having more control over your book's format and design. If you prefer the former, you would go for Smashwords every time. If you prefer the latter, you are somewhat better off managing each store individually. Due to the business model Smashwords has (converting a single document file into every format), there is no way they can reasonably satisfy both so long as the different stores have different standards.

Since Amazon does offer the latter in comparison, Smashwords gets criticized for not doing so. It's not the most fair comparison, but people still have this view of Smashwords having to do everything Amazon does just as well, without sacrificing anything they do well. The two are different companies with different goals.

Ultimately, it's about what you want as an author. And I'd rather have broad distribution first and foremost while giving myself more time to actually write, so I will stand with Smashwords...at least for now. As for the future and what D2D or other companies bring to the table? Time will tell.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

> Okay, Katie, so from what you pasted above, our service team sent you a polite, professional email with instructions on how to fix it. Yet here and elsewhere on KB, you've been misrepresenting the interaction, portraying our service team as rude, offensive and uncaring. That's not nice because it's not true.


Have you fixed the problem?

Your competition has.


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

Katie Elle said:


> Have you fixed the problem?
> 
> Your competition has.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

JanneCO said:


> My books come out of Select today. I've opted not to use Smashwords to upload to iTunes and B&N just because I'm not sure what you guys will give me for the percentage you'll take. I think a lot of people use SW because they can make their book free and try and go for the price match. And you have coupons. Those are cool. But my impression of SW, and I have not personal experience to back this up other than what I've heard, is that I'm giving up control by using you guys.
> 
> Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'll be banging on your door in a few months, p*ssed off and fed up with B&N and Apple. Who knows.
> 
> ...


Hi JanneCo, I hope you'll consider us. By working with a distributor, you'll save a lot of time, especially if you're managing a lot of books. We pay 60% of list for prices $.99 and up. You'll have a central Dashboard at Smashwords. If you want to change the price across all channels, you just change it at Smashwords once. If you want to upgrade your cover image, you upload it once, and it propagates out. We'll give you aggregated sales reports, and aggregated year-end tax accounting. We're developing a library channel, and we let you set custom library prices. We've also got our own store (another place to sell and build platform) and cool tools like our Coupon Manager. We'll help you reach some retailers you can't reach on your own. Yes, much of what we do you can do direct with a retailer, and you can avoid our 10%-list commission on sales, and you'll often get faster metadata changes and monthly payments instead of quarterly. However, I think the reason that 80% of our authors choose to distribute with us even when they have the chance to go direct is that they appreciate the time-savings we bring them, and it gives them more time to write. Lately, we've also been helping authors, as Sarah Woodbury mentioned earlier, get preferential merchandising exposure. If you distribute everything with us, and we see you're performing in the top of your genre at our retailers, we're going to champion you for these special merchandising opps whenever a retailer asks if we can recommend some hot [name your category - romance, sci fi, fantasy, thrillers, mysteries, etc] titles with a proven track record of sales and strong reviews. This is a nice perk several of our bestsellers have been benefiting from recently. More here on how to work with us: https://www.smashwords.com/about/how_to_publish_on_smashwords


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I am with Smashwords for all of my titles.

However, when Kobo offered KWL, I jumped at the chance and my sales increased about a hundred-fold.

If PubIt opened for non-US authors, I'd make a beeline for it, because the erratic nature of B&N reporting (my second-biggest sales platform after Kobo) at Smashwords drives me nuts. Again, it's been almost two months. Really? Why can't there be regular reporting? I don't care if it's weekly or two-weekly or monthly as with Apple, but B&N reporting on Smashwords is all weirded up.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> However, when Kobo offered KWL, I jumped at the chance and my sales increased about a hundred-fold.


My sales on Kobo have increased a good deal lately, and I'm still on Smashwords. Others have observed the same thing. The increased sales may not be a function of switching to selling directly on Kobo, but simply that Kobo is finally beginning to sell well.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

genevieveaclark said:


> Dismissing customer's complaints in a public forum? Incredible.


It's right up there with implying that someone providing you with evidence contrary to your purported world view is an anarchist.


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## RM Prioleau (Mar 18, 2011)

Martitalbott said:


> For one thing, they could set up a monitored forum for their readers. There is one for writers, but it is not geared to attract readers or give them a place to make recommendations.


Smashwords has a forum? I didn't know this....

My only two gripes about Smashwords is fixing Meatgrinder and not taking almost a month just to publish to premium distribution, and 2 months or more just to finally get onto those distribution sites.

If those two things were fixed (I think we're going on 3+ years now of nothing happening), then Smashwords would be my #1 go-to place.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

Anyway, having given more than adequate information on how ludicrous an assertion it is that only certain configurations of front/back matter are professional, and having pointed out that branding every book that is distributed isn't of benefit to anyone but Mark and Smashwords (plus already having pointed out other issues) I'm going to just wash my hands of the thread.

In answer to the original question, Lisa: apparently very little, because Mark believes that authors simply don't realize how good his ideas actually are. When we pass outside his world view we become anarchists or worse. *shrug*

You can take that as him being a genius, or suffering from hubris. As you please.

I'm taking it as a sign that anything I can do to help Draft2Digital penetrate the markets SW currently has a lock on is where my priority lies, re: distributors.


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## MeiLinMiranda (Feb 17, 2011)

FWIW, my interactions with SW CS have all been professional, quick and polite. In early days, Mark answered them himself. We've had trouble fixing some issues (Sony giving away books long after the free promo was over), but it wasn't their fault and it did get fixed.

That's not to say SW doesn't have issues, but I'm pretty sure Mark's aware of them. If he wasn't, he is now.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

When all is said and done, we can only judge the services by what they have thus far achieved. 

Smashwords has tens of thousands of authors on their books, and has distributed nearly 7 billion words into the public sphere. More importantly, they have sent me thousands of dollars.

D2D is still in beta, has maybe one or two hundred authors on their list, and hasn't sent anyone any money.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Saul Tanpepper said:


> Getting back to the OP, what can we do to help Smashwords become stronger in the retail/distributor marketplace?
> ... the ball is in Mark's court to implement the changes we would like to see so that we'll be even more excited to submit and promote our books on Smashwords.
> ...whether/how Mark does his in the coming months will be very insightful regarding his commitment to indies.


Thanks, Mark, for not making us wait months to measure your commitment. This statement tells me everything I need to know about it (emphasis mine):



MarkCoker said:


> Mathew, the anarchist in you runs strong.  Most people appreciate that the book we help them produce adheres to conventional best practices, and to the expectations of most readers. I understand you want to pioneer a new approach for sequestering front matter into the back. *You and I aren't going to come to agreement on this. If the world changes and suddenly everyone wakes to the brilliance of your approach, then of course we'll adapt. * I'm 100% with Julie.


While I may not be as passionate about this issue as Mathew is, he made the point abundantly clear that you're simply wrong. You've made the point you're inflexible.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

Herc- The Reluctant Geek said:


> When all is said and done, we can only judge the services by what they have thus far achieved.


Rather ironic statement from an author. Should people have dismissed you when you put out your first title?


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

Mathew Reuther said:


> Rather ironic statement from an author. Should people have dismissed you when you put out your first title?


That's a silly thing to say and the analogy is false.

Considering D2D hasn't actually opened their services to the public (they only accept Kindleboards folk into their beta). A more accurate analogy would be 'Should people have dismissed me when my first title was sitting on my computer as a darft?' The answer to that is 'Yes'.

When D2D has several thousand authors on their books and they're churning through several hundred thousand words per month, then they will be open to judgement. Until that time, all they have is potential and that doesn't pay the bills.


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

Smashwords forum --. I haven't been there for a while and it's not very active. It crashed a while back and they are struggling to get it going again. I don't know if it is sanctioned by Mark or not.

http://smashwords-forum.proboards.com/


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

RM Prioleau said:


> My only two gripes about Smashwords is fixing Meatgrinder and not taking almost a month just to publish to premium distribution, and 2 months or more just to finally get onto those distribution sites.
> 
> If those two things were fixed (I think we're going on 3+ years now of nothing happening), then Smashwords would be my #1 go-to place.


THIS!

Twice I've had situations where it took 2 weeks to get reviewed for Premium status only to have the book kicked back to me for something that wasn't even an error! I emailed customer service and when they got back to me, they agreed it wasn't an error and I should resubmit to Premium status. Two weeks later, it finally got approved. That meant it took a month just to get approved for premium status.

Meanwhile, I'd already sold nearly 1000 copies on Amazon and B&N combined, but the book wasn't available at iTunes or Kobo (this was back before KWL) or any of the other smaller retailers. That's a LOT of potential missed sales.

Then once it finally was approved for premium status, it took weeks, if not months, before the books showed up for sale on the various sites. In fact, it took 3 months before it was up on Apple. That's 3 months on top of the month it took to get approved in the first place.

Meanwhile, that book had been for sale at Amazon and B&N for 4 months by that point. That's a LOT of potential missed sales on the Smashwords partner sites, particularly since I'd been profiled in some major publications in my niche (dance).

I really do want to support Smashwords, but economically I lose a ton of revenue every time I have a new release because the books don't show up until months later.


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## Ruth Ann Nordin (Sep 24, 2010)

I think one thing we can all agree on is that nothing is perfect.  That's because people aren't perfect.

But I do think Smashwords has offered a lot of benefits to self-published authors.  I got in at Smashwords back in 2009, around the same time I got in with KDP.  I remember when Smashwords opened up distribution to B&N, Kobo, etc.  It was a big game changer because suddenly it offered distribution to a wider audience.  This in turn, opened up a doorway to receiving income I never thought possible.  Back then, I was told self-publishing killed any chances I had of ever making money.  I had no idea how wrong that sentiment was.  I'm thankful for what Amazon has done, and I'm thankful for what Smashwords has done.  Before both of these, there was no easy and free way to get out there and make a living as a self-published author.    

I think the best way to help Smashwords is by setting up the link where people can find your books at Smashwords.  I wouldn't direct them to the Smashwords home page.  You want them to look at your books.  However, while they're at your page, they might decide to browse through and see what else is at Smashwords. I'd put the Smashwords' link where I put the links for other sites where my books are at.  The more places people can find your books, the better, and links on your blog and website are the easiest way to do it.  

Smashwords' strength is in allowing us to do free books because that has been the most successful marketing tool I've seen for me and other authors (as long as you have a good backlist).  Smashwords makes it easy to get those free books.  I don't think free has devalued the quality of books.  Only the content can do that.  I understand free had more power back in 2009 and 2010, but I don't think it's impossible to get noticed.  Free can still be used to your advantage as long as you have paid books.  The key is having books people want to read.

As for the whole copyright page and having Smashwords listed as the publisher in the product information, I don't see why this is an issue.  To date, I haven't received a single comment from a reader who was alarmed or put off by those things.  I honestly don't think most readers fret over those things.  They are concerned about reading a book they'll enjoy.  

I've had readers who thank me for being on Smashwords, so Smashwords is doing something right for a group of readers out there.  Maybe the audience isn't as big as Amazon, B&N, Kobo, or another site, but one reader who is passionate about your work and wants to tell everyone about it is worth going for.  Who knows if one of those are at Smashwords?  

BTW, I love PayPal.  As a consumer, it's my first payment of choice.  As for receiving money from Smashwords, I have never had to pay a fee to get money from my PayPal account to my bank account.  I remember reading that concern earlier in the thread and want to assure the person that they will get the full amount due to them.  

I understand the frustration over the wait time, but last time when I distributed to B&N through Smashwords, I saw that Smashwords had sent my book out within a week of it getting approved.  The hold up was on B&N's end, not Smashwords.  The book took a month to show up there.  There are probably some issues going on over at the distribution sites that Smashwords has no control over.  When I have contacted customer support, I have gotten help, and the people who answered my questions have always been nice.


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

Ruth Ann Nordin said:


> The hold up was on B&N's end, not Smashwords. The book took a month to show up there. There are probably some issues going on over at the distribution sites that Smashwords has no control over.


I understand that the majority of the hold-up is with the other sites, and that it isn't Smashwords' fault. But the fact that there is a hold-up at all is enough for me to decide that going direct is the best choice for me for the stores where I can. There is no hold-up when you go direct. It's up within hours, not months, and you control your pricing yourself as well.

I know that going direct to B&N isn't an option for those outside the US, but for me it is. And KWL is open worldwide. And I just bought myself a Mac Mini so I can go direct to iTunes. I'll continue to use Smashwords for onsite sales and coupons, and for distribution to Sony, Diesel, and the library sites, but for the major ones -- I go direct. I don't want my fans to wait for months to get my books through their preferred store.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Ruth Ann Nordin said:


> I understand the frustration over the wait time, but last time when I distributed to B&N through Smashwords, I saw that Smashwords had sent my book out within a week of it getting approved. The hold up was on B&N's end, not Smashwords. The book took a month to show up there. There are probably some issues going on over at the distribution sites that Smashwords has no control over. When I have contacted customer support, I have gotten help, and the people who answered my questions have always been nice.





Amanda Brice said:


> I understand that the majority of the hold-up is with the other sites, and that it isn't Smashwords' fault.


Weeks? Months?

D2D got my books (all seven of them) up to B&N within 24 hours. For iTunes one book took somewhat longer. That _was_ Apple acting up. D2D helped me solve the problem. I was annoyed nevertheless: uploading a book shouldn't take two days. That's just ridiculous.


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

Andre Jute said:


> Not to be nitpicky, Sheryl, BUT the declination is of nouns AND pronouns and adjectives.
> 
> Heh-heh. Actually, I put that that nit out there for Terrence to pick, but he fell at the first hurdle. Happy to meet you instead. Would you like to succeed Terrence as my nitpicker?
> 
> And, of course, it now politically incorrect for a male of the species to use such a verb as conjugate, but, since you offer to use it on my behalf, why, thank you.


I stand corrected. (Incidentally, I'm not much for the whole p.c. thing. It messes up our language and our politics.)


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

I have never used Smashwords as I didn't know about them when I started and I went direct to Amazon, B&N, kobo and ARe/Omni (who puts my books on Apple). I don't see what the big deal is about the time spent to go to each on your own. It isn't that difficult. The little time it takes me is much less than the wait to see my work up if I go through Smashwords, from what I've read here and on other posts.  Although I may try it to get on sony, diesel, etc...not sure.

The reason I would hesitate? I am really put off by Mark Coker's responses here. Wow. Makes me much less likely to try Smashwords as he sounds just like most employers. Unwilling to truly hear you, inflexible toward those who dare to speak up.  That makes me truly gunshy. A major reason I have been self-employed for 22 of the last 24 years.  

I don't really know if there is a advantage to using Smashwords if you don't do "free". I haven't done "Free".  If I ever want to, it appears I would have to go this route and that concerns me.

D2D do free? If not, is that one reason more haven't tried them?

I am really surprised that someone who owns a business dependent upon authors submitting their work would response to this thread in the way Mark Coker did. I guess I am lucky, as I HAVE received answers back by email from B&N and kobo on more than one occasion...and Amazon by and large has worked to help me, too.

Someone said on here that Smashwords earned them thousands of dollars. Was that because of making a book free or was that simply sales you would have gotten publishing directly anyway? If it was a perma-free then I can understand that. Just not thinking I am comfortable about trying Smashwords now. Besides, why pay someone 10% when I can go direct? Am I missing something?


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## Mel Comley (Oct 13, 2010)

I've pulled all but two of my books from SW as their customer service leaves a lot to be desired. Price changes take weeks, sometimes months to reach the other stores, not so with D2D where it takes a matter of hours or days in iTunes case.

The thing that really got to me about SW is, when I wrote to complain that one of my books was still free on Sony after upping the price three months earlier, the girl responding to the email said she would chase it up in two weeks when she returned from her beach holiday! What? The email ended with this person's name and a smiley face. Not very professional in my book.

Thank goodness Aaron came along when he did, I no longer have to wait months for B&N and iTunes to update, I see my sales rising daily through D2D.


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## Guest (Mar 1, 2013)

Caddy:

If you are happy setting up directly with retailers, then you SHOULD set up directly with retailers. I can personally only speak for myself. I'm lazy. (Which probably sounds funny to a lot of people considering all of the projects I have running!  ). But honestly, I have a finite amount of time and a deep backlist. I can pay Smashwords their cut, and upload my file once and get it everywhere. When Smashwords started distributing to Apple, I didn't have to do anything. When they started distributing to Deisel, I didn't have to do anything. When they started distributing to Kobo, I didn't have to do anything. Now my books are enrolled in the library program, and I didn't have to do anything.

For me, it's the difference between looking at one sales report a month or eight. It's the difference between getting eight separate 1099s or just one. I'm already annoyed with Amazon because I got three separate 1099s from them (one for KDP US, one for KDP international, and one for Createspace). I'm sure the only reason I didn't get a fourth one from ACX is because they still haven't paid me yet (which is a different story entirely). For some people, this is a non-issue. For me, it's one more piece of paperwork I have to deal with. 

And in a weird way, there is the "safety in numbers" mentality for me. Mark will fight. He fought with the various retailers to get them to stop discounting because it was hurting authors royalties on Amazon (even though that benefited Amazon more than Smashwords). He fought with Paypal over erotica. As individual publishers, we don't have that power. Mark is able to leverage the thousands of accounts he offers to these vendors to get things done. And while those things may get done slowly, they would not get done at all if individual publishers were trying to force it. If BN filed bankruptcy tommarrow, they could dismiss what they owe to individual authors in bankruptcy court without batting an eyelash. Depending on what they owe Smashwords, they can't get that dismissed as easily. And no, I'm not implying BN is on the verge of bankruptcy.


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

Valid points, Julie. Thanks for the input. I can appreciate it saving you time AND I can appreciate that Mark has more pull with some of the issues you mentioned.


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## L.E. Parin (Nov 30, 2012)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> I have a finite amount of time and a deep backlist. I can pay Smashwords their cut, and upload my file once and get it everywhere. When Smashwords started distributing to Apple, I didn't have to do anything. When they started distributing to Deisel, I didn't have to do anything. When they started distributing to Kobo, I didn't have to do anything. Now my books are enrolled in the library program, and I didn't have to do anything.
> 
> For me, it's the difference between looking at one sales report a month or eight. It's the difference between getting eight separate 1099s or just one. I'm already annoyed with Amazon because I got three separate 1099s from them (one for KDP US, one for KDP international, and one for Createspace). I'm sure the only reason I didn't get a fourth one from ACX is because they still haven't paid me yet (which is a different story entirely). For some people, this is a non-issue. For me, it's one more piece of paperwork I have to deal with.
> 
> And in a weird way, there is the "safety in numbers" mentality for me. Mark will fight. He fought with the various retailers to get them to stop discounting because it was hurting authors royalties on Amazon (even though that benefited Amazon more than Smashwords). He fought with Paypal over erotica. As individual publishers, we don't have that power. Mark is able to leverage the thousands of accounts he offers to these vendors to get things done. And while those things may get done slowly, they would not get done at all if individual publishers were trying to force it. If BN filed bankruptcy tommarrow, they could dismiss what they own to individual authors in bankruptcy court without batting an eyelash. Depending on what they own Smashwords, they can't get that dismissed as easily. And no, I'm not implying BN is on the verge of bankruptcy.


Wow. I had been on the fence as if I wanted to continue in KDP-S with future books, do smashwords, or go to individual companies directly, but what you wrote here makes soooooo much sense as to why Smashwords would be the best fit for me. After reading everyone else's negative comments, I had thought SW wouldn't be a good idea, but after reading what you wrote, I realized I *barely* have the time write as it is and SW really is the best route once I get more books written (and I really like the idea of MC/SW fighting for us ) . Thank you, thank you for writing your personal experience/thoughts with SW!


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> If you are happy setting up directly with retailers, then you SHOULD set up directly with retailers. I can personally only speak for myself. I'm lazy. (Which probably sounds funny to a lot of people considering all of the projects I have running! ). But honestly, I have a finite amount of time and a deep backlist. I can pay Smashwords their cut, and upload my file once and get it everywhere. When Smashwords started distributing to Apple, I didn't have to do anything. When they started distributing to Deisel, I didn't have to do anything. When they started distributing to Kobo, I didn't have to do anything. Now my books are enrolled in the library program, and I didn't have to do anything.
> 
> For me, it's the difference between looking at one sales report a month or eight. It's the difference between getting eight separate 1099s or just one. I'm already annoyed with Amazon because I got three separate 1099s from them (one for KDP US, one for KDP international, and one for Createspace). I'm sure the only reason I didn't get a fourth one from ACX is because they still haven't paid me yet (which is a different story entirely). For some people, this is a non-issue. For me, it's one more piece of paperwork I have to deal with.
> 
> And in a weird way, there is the "safety in numbers" mentality for me. Mark will fight. He fought with the various retailers to get them to stop discounting because it was hurting authors royalties on Amazon (even though that benefited Amazon more than Smashwords). He fought with Paypal over erotica. As individual publishers, we don't have that power. Mark is able to leverage the thousands of accounts he offers to these vendors to get things done. And while those things may get done slowly, they would not get done at all if individual publishers were trying to force it. If BN filed bankruptcy tommarrow, they could dismiss what they own to individual authors in bankruptcy court without batting an eyelash. Depending on what they own Smashwords, they can't get that dismissed as easily. And no, I'm not implying BN is on the verge of bankruptcy.


This. I meant this thread to be a support for those of us who want to help another distributor. I "get" that some of you don't understand how hard it is to grow a business, yet keep thousands of people happy at the same time.

We go through problems with Amazon all the time, but are more forgiving because for most of us they are still our bread and butter. But how many of us have received the "pat" customer service answers from them that don't address the issue? 
How many have received emails re: copyright, "answer or have your book removed in five days", 
how many have had their buy buttons removed during the Lightning Source fiasco? 
How many were affected when 1 free download isn't counted as one but 10?
How many were affected when your book isn't on a bestseller list because of a glitch?
How many were affected when they price match to free or vice versa when it shouldn't be?
How many were affected when free runs don't start on the correct day, and you've paid for advertising to coincide with the free run? 
How many were affected when they cut back on indie categories, back from five to two?
How many were affected when they offer more benefits to Select, than those who choose not to enroll?
How many were affected by the last ios5 Kindle app change that deleted entire libraries?

Amazon is far from perfect, too.

*But the point of this thread is not to point out deficiencies, but to offer real solutions of what we can do with what we have to work with. *

Smashwords is offering distribution for those of us who see that value. Customer service has improved over the last year. Many new changes have kicked in to help readers and authors a like. Instead of re-hashing, how about solutions and work arounds? I've been involved with a few start ups, and there are growing pains. Comparing an 11 million dollar company that delivers what it has promised, with a multi-billion dollar one, is ludicrous. That Mark even comes on here to address the same broken record issues over and over, is amazing. It shows you his level of commitment. 
You won't catch Jeff doing that.


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## Guest (Mar 1, 2013)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> You won't catch Jeff doing that.


Heck, I'd be surprised if even a low-level customer service person decided to post here. I'd probably fall out of my chair in disbelief  

Have we EVER seen an Amazon representative here, at all?

We see Mark. We see Aaron for D2D. I believe we've even seen someone from Xinxii and Book Baby here in the past. don't remember ever seeing an Amazon rep.


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

> I "get" that some of you don't understand how hard it is to grow a business yet, keep thousands of people happy at the same time.


I appreciate some of what you are saying. I don't get this. How would using Smashwords make me more able to satisfy thousands? I am getting my books up faster on my own...what other things does Smashwords do that would make my customers more pleased? (By the way, I have grown other businesses. I've been self-employed the majority of my life.  Please don't talk down to me about not understanding how to grow a business. That came across as very demeaning. You may not have meant it that way, but, really Because you have success with your books no one starting out from scratch has any knowledge of building a business?) I can see where Smashwords makes authors more pleased if they fight for things like Julie mentioned, but how am I disappointing customers by not using them? I don't mean to be combative, I hope that's not what this sounds like. This is just confusing to me, and that comment was puzzling. Exactly how am I disappointing customers? Why do you assume I have no clue how to build a business?


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## DRMarvello (Dec 3, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Don't remember ever seeing an Amazon rep.


Only by proxy, to my knowledge. The lead of the Kindle X-Ray team contacted me after I wrote a blog post on the subject. He wanted author feedback, and I offered to post a thread here and see what KB authors thought. He liked the idea and thanked me when I later sent him a link to the thread. He didn't exactly "engage with the community," but he was definitely interested in what we had to say.

Disclaimer: my comment is not meant to be construed as a defense of Amazon. Mark, Aaron, and reps from other companies have impressed me with their willingness to open a dialog with the KB community. I also believe it would be incredibly useful for an Amazon rep to contribute here and answer some of our questions. Amazon CS is too hit-and-miss for my taste.



Caddy said:


> How would using Smashwords make me more able to satisfy thousands?


Not to speak for Lisa, but I think you misread her comment. I believe she was talking about how hard it is for *Smashwords* to build a business and keep thousands of [authors] happy.


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## Guest (Mar 1, 2013)

Caddy said:


> I appreciate some of what you are saying. I don't get this. How would using Smashwords make me more able to satisfy thousands?


I think she was referring to the comparisons between D2D and SW, not you specifically.  The point there is a difference between when you just start out and you are working with only a handful of clients and when the growing pains set in and you have thousands of clients.

Or to put it this way, when you are a new author and you respond to every reader email, but you are only getting one or two a week. When you become Stehpanie Meyers and get 2000 fan emails a day, you stop responding personally to each one. That doesn't make you a bad person. But you might feel annoyed if someone said "I don't know why Caddy doesn't answer emails from fans! She doesn't care about her fans anymore."


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

Okay, got it.   Becuase Lisa used the the quote from Julie that starts out "Caddy..." I read it as talking about me. 

Hey, don't you guys know it's all about me all the time?     Get with the program.  sheeeesh. (and to think Harvey passed up the opportunity to change this to caddyboards.com since he's changing the name anyway...)

Sorry for misunderstanding, Lisa.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Caddy said:


> I appreciate some of what you are saying. I don't get this. How would using Smashwords make me more able to satisfy thousands? I am getting my books up faster on my own...what other things does Smashwords do that would make my customers more pleased? (By the way, I have grown other businesses. I've been self-employed the majority of my life.  Please don't talk down to me about not understanding how to grow a business. That came across as very demeaning. You may not have meant it that way, but, really Because you have success with your books no one starting out from scratch has any knowledge of building a business?) I can see where Smashwords makes authors more pleased if they fight for things like Julie mentioned, but how am I disappointing customers by not using them? I don't mean to be combative, I hope that's not what this sounds like. This is just confusing to me, and that comment was puzzling. Exactly how am I disappointing customers? Why do you assume I have no clue how to build a business?


My comment was about the growing pains Smashwords went through. They are better now, (I can personally attest to that). And yes, I was saying comparing Smashwords to Amazon is very unfair to Smashwords. It's like comparing a veggie stand on the side of a road to a Fresh Market grocery store. (Of course, the selection and customer service is better at FreshMarket, and it's air-conditioned, it's opened more hours, and they give you a bag, and they accept credit cards, they even have out of season produce, etc.)

My post is directed at those complaining about problems that have been fixed at Smashwords, and asking that this not degenerate into a slam. I asked for solutions, ideas and not every little thing that went wrong in the past.

What does Smashwords do that might please your customers?

I'm glad you asked.

1) offer every format available for download on your main book page, no extra steps. (Android, pdf, ebub, mobi, etc.)

2) Accept Paypal, which I found out is huge for customers who don't want to use debit or credit cards on line. I tweeted this fact and got several retweets.

3) Stick up for indie authors, (like they did with the erotica crowd)

4) Provide distribution for authors from other countries that can't get into stores because they're not based in the US.

5) Provide distribution to the most popular estores worldwide with one simple download.

6) providing another basket for our eggs.

7) Coupons for discounts (we can use these for effective promotions). At Amazon, you have to lower your price for everybody, not just the promotion.

and that's just off the top of my head.


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## 48209 (Jul 4, 2011)

I've read this entire thread and thought long and hard about commenting. So...

A few things first:

1. I came in completely neutral. I've never sold or bought at SW. I wouldn't recognize the website or customer service. I've read both the positives and the negatives on this thread (and if you let each person boil their thoughts down to one post, it's not that uneven).

2. In the real world people pay me a good chunk of change to fix companies and do executive training.

With that said, 

Mark, you're obviously passionate, driven, ambitious and intelligent -- all things I highly respect. It takes all those things to make a successful start-up.

Unfortunately, reading this thread, it has become apparent you are your own worst enemy. It isn't necessarily what you're doing or how things are being run, it's how you communicate them. 

I don't know you personally (and like I said, I don't read your blog or articles -- it's not you, it's me. I don't read any right now, not just yours) so I don't know your tone of voice or your hierarchy of importance.

What I do know is that you seem to have a clear vision and mission -- It may not be what's important to writers (which is a different topic all together) but it's important to you the company you've created. It seems like you have a map to get to where you want to be, but the way you discuss it AND the way you answer questions, comments and complaints comes across as aggressive, harsh and spiteful.

I have a feeling that's not truly who you are. But, and we all know this dealing with marketing daily, perception is reality.

If I could give you one piece of advice to bring your company to the next level, it would be to get an executive coach to help you shape your message in a way that it's going to be best received by your audience. I'm not suggesting you change your message - just smooth it out.

Any time a company has someone who is "the face of" -- that person has to emotionally drive business and partners to the company. He has to create an image that makes people WANT to work with that company, to be in on whatever they're doing. He has to have a level of charisma that can ride out some of the harder messages he'll have to give.

After reading this thread, I can say that Mark, you are not currently that face. 

Reading between the lines it's obvious that your company is needed AND that even most of those who are speaking against you here want you to succeed. Please do the behind-the-scenes work that needs to be done to turn the marketing corner.

Best,
CQ


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

If I wanted to make very direct suggestions:


Drop the meatgrinder and start from scratch. That will be the hardest to swallow. I know Mark is very proud of it, but it's outdated, baroque, and the results are mediocre. In a new conversion system, focus in on Mobi, Epub, and PDF. Allow direct uploads of each of those formats if the author wishes.
Drop the manual reviews for distribution.
Enable tracking of stages of submission to distribution ie, sent to vendor, in review by vendor, published/rejected by vendor.
Create automated feedback of rejected submissions. Example: Apple rejects a lot of submissions, but you never get any notice. You just look for it on itunes and after six or eight weeks, if it doesn't show up, you assume it's been rejected, but you never know if that's true or why. It could be formatting. It could be blurb. It could be content. D2D sends back a notice--it's from Apple and sometimes cryptic, but it's something.
Drop the Smashwords copyright statements. It adds little and creates more work for the author.
Fix sampling and blurb issues.
Enable instant reporting of sales as much as possible. Where not possible, put it on a schedule.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

genevieveaclark said:


> That in and of itself would be fantastic news. I have to imagine that proper categorization and readable blurbs have something to do with sales, though.
> 
> I'm kind of amazed that Mark Coker is pitching to people in a thread where the premise is that SW is such a mess that they need our help. I just...


That wasn't the premise. Reread the opening post.



genevieveaclark said:


> I've run a business (two, actually!), and I've worked in several service oriented industries. Mark, you have no idea how to run a service business. None. Dismissing customer's complaints in a public forum? Incredible.


Seriously? An author on this thread made blatantly false representations about the conduct of our service team, here and elsewhere on KB, I invited them to send me the evidence, I offered to apologize if their claim was valid, and instead we learn our support staff sent them a polite, professional note on how to overcome their issue. If someone misrepresents the facts, I'm going to call them on it. If we make a mistake, we'll own it, acknowledge it and learn from it.


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## Sarah Ettritch (Jan 5, 2012)

I'd like to see the following improvements at Smashwords (some have already been stated):

1. An improved look to the Smashwords site. If I were Mark, I'd focus on the Smashwords site itself this year, rather than on getting distribution deals. More stores are offering direct publishing platforms, and every time a new one becomes available, some authors will stop using Smashwords for distribution to that store. I'd be nervous about putting most of my time/effort into the distribution side of things, since the store side of things might be all that's left standing at some point. Note that I'm not saying that Smashwords hasn't put time/effort into the store, but that it hasn't improved anything for shoppers. It's been mostly behind the scenes.

2. I'd like the ability to examine the files produced by meatgrinder BEFORE they go on sale.

3. I'd like a way of specifying, "Don't vet this for the premium catalogue." I no longer use Smashwords for distribution, so it's a waste of time to vet my books. Authors who want their books in the premium catalogue shouldn't have to wait in line behind authors who don't.

4. Rather than relying on emails to send out critical information, I'd like to see the information when I sign into my account. I had a serious problem last year (non-payment) where support was useless. They kept telling me to check the email I'd received, but I hadn't received an email. If there's critical information specific to my account that I need to see, put it in my account. Don't rely on email. It's never 100% reliable, especially when sending out to a list.

5. I've noticed that the support response time has improved greatly this year. Kudos for that. I wish it had been that way last year, when I experienced the problem I mentioned. If it had been, I might still be using Smashwords for distribution.

Thanks for being one of the first to offer distribution of indie books to stores that were reluctant to take them. I'd like to see Smashwords around for a long time, but you have lots of new competitors nipping at your heels. As others have said, you've got to keep up, and I hope you do.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> How many have received emails re: copyright, "answer or have your book removed in five days",
> how many have had their buy buttons removed during the Lightning Source fiasco?
> How many were affected when 1 free download isn't counted as one but 10?
> How many were affected when your book isn't on a bestseller list because of a glitch?
> ...


No, No, No, No, No, No, No, No, No.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

> Seriously? An author on this thread made blatantly false representations about the conduct of our service team, here and elsewhere on KB, I invited them to send me the evidence, I offered to apologize if their claim was valid, and instead we learn our support staff sent them a polite, professional note on how to overcome their issue. If someone misrepresents the facts, I'm going to call them on it. If we make a mistake, we'll own it, acknowledge it and learn from it.


I'm sorry if my response was more hyperbolic than you would have liked. However, what authors need from you as CEO of Smashwords is to get as mad about the sampling issue and other problems in your company as you are at me.


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## Debbie Bennett (Mar 25, 2011)

What would improve SW? I'd just like to get my books distributed *at all*. I've been waiting months for Sony - despite emailing SW and asking them to re-push it out, which they responded to very quickly and presumably did so, I'm still waiting for it to appear. And I've one that's been in the queue at Apple for over a month for approval and I'm doubtful will ever arrive at Sony. 

I'm sure a lot of the delays are down to the individual companies, but it's galling when others say they've put something up with D2D and it's been on Apple within days. I don't want to pull from SW, but if I can't get my books out through them and I can through D2D, I may have no choice in the long-term


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> This. I meant this thread to be a support for those of us who want to help another distributor. I "get" that some of you don't understand how hard it is to grow a business, yet keep thousands of people happy at the same time.
> 
> ...
> 
> *But the point of this thread is not to point out deficiencies, but to offer real solutions of what we can do with what we have to work with. *


Lisa,

I understand your intent, and even think it's a nice gesture on your part.

And I can also understand it's a bit exasperating that this thread has drawn a lot of complaints, instead of suggestions.

I'm supportive of Smashwords and Mark in general, but don't feel I should be picking-and-choosing which distributors to support.

But, respectfully, while I'm not saying the tone and tenor of some comments made in this thread is respectful or thoughtful... one must keep in mind that on KB, as in any other forum, when one posts a thread on here, not all posts will be "exactly" what one hopes for. A public discussion means there will be as many off-point posts as on-point ones.

I would suggest that accepting that there are people replying here who have a bone to pick with Smashwords, even though that wasn't your intent for the thread, is a quicker path to serenity than constantly trying to remind people what your intent was.

Because, sad as it is, not everyone has the same intent. And those with "a bone to pick" might actually have some points helpful to Mark and company, even when those points are not made in the most... helpful? ... tone.

Worse yet, responding to some folks who are argumentative tends only to encourage them to raise the volume of their comments, not reconsider posting them.

*sigh* Such is life, eh?

Rest assured, though, your good-hearted intent has been noted, even if some choose to post in a different direction. 

===

P.S. On a sidenote, I've been contemplating the whole source of this schism between Amazon wanting authors to "go exclusive" via KDP Select for a period of time, vs. the "distribute everywhere" approach.

Frankly, my take is this: Amazon's not trying to be "evil." What they are doing is taking a note from the "videogame console wars" playbook.

Whenever Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo launch new consoles, how do they try to attract gamers who are only going to buy one next-gen console to their brand?

They form partnerships on platform-exclusive titles.

For example, you can't play Halo titles anywhere except on Xbox consoles.

You can't play Super Mario titles on anything other than Nintendo consoles.

And until recently, you couldn't play Final Fantasy titles on anything other than Sony consoles. (Now you can, because SquareEnix has backed off exclusivity gradually over the last 5-7 years... but Sony still has other "exclusives.")

The same debate over content-exclusivity vs. distribute-everywhere approach has been raging for 20 years in the videogame world.

In the same way, because of KDP Select, that debate has now extended into the world of novel-publishing. And Amazon is approaching the battle of eReader devices with the same mentality as Sony or Microsoft or Nintendo bring to the battle of videogame consoles.

Amazon, for their own reasons, feels that asking for three-month chunks of exclusivity benefits them because certain new releases are, at least for periods of time, "Only Available On Kindle and Kindle Fire!"

They're looking for competitive advantages. And many lesser-known indies (including myself) tend to sell better while we're lesser-known, through Amazon than we do through Nook, Kobo, and Smashwords combined. I know my percentages are around "80+ percent of all sales" come to me via Amazon. And KDP Select can increase those numbers.

There are a couple ways to respond to this, if you're not Amazon.

One way is to complain, which a lot of folks do. "We don't wanna play the content-exclusivity game! That's not how book publishing works!"

The challenge to that is, the argument is being made by platforms/publishers like Nook, who accounts for maybe only 2 percent of my sales... or Kobo who's around the same percentage... or Smashwords, who makes up maybe 10 percent of sales. Roughly.

I think it's challenging for any indie, who is making such a lopsided percentage of their income from one retailer, to take seriously the complaint approach. It's like saying, "So, I need to bite the hand that feeds me 80 percent of my income, pull my books out of KDP Select, and see that 80 percent shrink from, say, $100/mo to $80/mo (just example figures) out of an idea of "fairness" ... when there's no guarantee that the other distributors are going to increase their sales enough to make it worth me taking a 20-percent sales volume hit?"

(NOTE: None of my books under my own name have ever been in KDP Select. Some of my pseudonym books have.)

For many, that's just not a tenable proposition.

But there is an alternate way for others to respond. Namely: Nook and Kobo and Smashwords can work on improving their sales results for indies, rather than their rhetoric.

There are tons of well-written, well-argued reasons to not do platform exclusivity.

But if the actual sales results don't measure up to the arguments, most folks will continue to utilize KDP Select, I suspect. Because all such decisions are about the bottom line.

On a recent month, here are my pseudonymous sales results:

$76.94 from Amazon, with no books in KDP Select
$2.94 from Nook
$3.12 from Kobo
 from Smashwords, because it's hard to know with the delays in reporting... but it looks like it was around $18.

So, for that month, I made around $101. About 77% of that was from Amazon. Nook and Kobo were negligible, and nowhere near enough to see that money any time soon.

Smashwords had a pretty good month, but my best-paid quarter is still only around $50, which works out to about $17/mo.

Now... a year ago, when I had some of my books-under-a-pseudonym in KDP Select, what were my numbers?

For the same month a year ago, they were:

$249.58 from Amazon, including first-ever income for the UK, Germany, France and Italy.
$11.76 from Nook
$0.00 from Kobo (I wasn't in Writing Life yet)
$10.99 from Smashwords (best estimate based on their spreadsheet and the delayed reporting)

So... with several of my pseudonym books in KDP Select (none of my Craig Hansen books), my results a year ago were a month where I had $272.33 in total sales.

Only in that month, 91 percent of my sales through that name came from Amazon. Nook sales were better and enough to generate a payment. Kobo was still part of my Smashwords sales numbers, and Smashwords has grown a bit, too, since last year.

However... My figures reveal this.

I'm losing loads of sales by not keeping those titles in KDP Select that I had in KDP Select.

Most businesses hope to hold steady or marginally improve from year-to-year.

But by having all my pseudonym titles "available everywhere," I have seen a significant sales decline on Amazon, but only a margin improvement everywhere else.

Look at it like this.

01-2012 $272.33
01-2013 $101.00

That's a sales DIP, and a significant one.

Now, sure, one can say my Nook sales are down, too:

01-2012 $11.76
01-2013 $2.94

So being out of KDP Select could be said to have lowered the profile of my pseudonym enough that it hurt my name-recognition even on other platforms.

But on Smashwords, my sales went up, even though I went direct to Kobo since then.

01-2012 $10.99
01-2013 $18.00

So, even with a roughly 60-percent sales increase on Smashwords, am I making more money?

No, because with those handful of titles now OUT of KDP Select, my Amazon results are down too significantly for that to matter.

01-2012 $249.58
01-2013 $76.94

That's a decline, in real-world terms, of what? I'm not great at math, but it's a huge drop. All by taking a few books out of KDP Select so they could be available everywhere.

Is going from $11 to $18 on Smashwords worth dropping from $250 to $77 on Amazon?

I think that's a hard argument to make.

Now, this is just an example of one month, personal results from a pseudonym I have, and one can't judge everything by that alone.

But one also cannot ignore such real-world results. In that month, I only had about half of my pseudonym's titles in KDP Select last year; none this year. By taking those titles to a more "distribute everywhere" approach, the loss in sales has not been made up for by increased sales elsewhere. It just hasn't.

None of this is "huge money."

But $250 covers most of my utility bills for the month. $77 covers one bill.

These are the sorts of questions a writer needs to ask themselves. Results vary for everyone. Once you're at an Amanda Hocking-level of success, or a John Locke-level, these inequities get smaller. Once your profile is huge, your books start selling themselves.

But when you're small and relatively unknown? My pseudonym results between January last year vs. January this year attest that KDP Select helped a lot.

And even with the big hit in sales I took, Amazon still went from accounting for 91 percent of my sales to only 77 percent this year.

And all this is despite the fact that, in 2013, I have about five new titles under that pseudonym that weren't available last year. With more titles available, theoretically, my sales should have gone up, not down.

If going "wide" meant your income from other sources more than made up for the Amazon losses, it'd be a no-brainer for everyone to never touch KDP Select. And once one's name is well-known enough, one can do that.

But when you're new? KDP Select and exclusivity CAN make a huge difference to your bottom line.

It did to mine.

So my bottom line for "how to help Smashwords" (or Nook, or Kobo, for that matter) is for them to help themselves by generating sales far more prolifically for indies. Somehow, Amazon does that and the others just... don't. Not by a large margin. If including other outlets meant earning MORE money, not less, overall... no one would sign up for KDP Select.

But so long as people can earn 3X as much per month while having fewer titles out, as has been my pseudonym's experience, that's gonna remain a hard sell.

Food for thought.


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> My comment was about the growing pains Smashwords went through. They are better now, (I can personally attest to that). And yes, I was saying comparing Smashwords to Amazon is very unfair to Smashwords. It's like comparing a veggie stand on the side of a road to a Fresh Market grocery store. (Of course, the selection and customer service is better at FreshMarket, and it's air-conditioned, it's opened more hours, and they give you a bag, and they accept credit cards, they even have out of season produce, etc.)
> 
> My post is directed at those complaining about problems that have been fixed at Smashwords, and asking that this not degenerate into a slam. I asked for solutions, ideas and not every little thing that went wrong in the past.
> 
> ...


With the exception of 5, these are all things indies should and could be doing on their own websites.


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## Guest (Mar 1, 2013)

Lady Vine said:


> With the exception of 5, these are all things indies should and could be doing on their own websites.


Actually, selling directly from ones own website is not always practical. For some folks, this could put them at odds with their local zoning commission or Housing Authority (some areas have vey strict policies about businesses in residential areas, and if you are filling orders directly you could cause headaches for yourself). In some case, the person would be required to register their business with their county/state and collect sales tax. If you write under a pen name, you may have to file formally for a DBA or Trade Name to avoid revealing your identity. You can become liable from fraudulent purchases.

It MAY be a good idea for some indies to sell directly depending on a person's specific situation, but to say that all indies SHOULD is another matter. There are plenty of legitimate reasons why an indie should not.


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Actually, selling directly from ones own website is not always practical. For some folks, this could put them at odds with their local zoning commission or Housing Authority (some areas have vey strict policies about businesses in residential areas, and if you are filling orders directly you could cause headaches for yourself). In some case, the person would be required to register their business with their county/state and collect sales tax. If you write under a pen name, you may have to file formally for a DBA or Trade Name to avoid revealing your identity. You can become liable from fraudulent purchases.
> 
> It MAY be a good idea for some indies to sell directly depending on a person's specific situation, but to say that all indies SHOULD is another matter. There are plenty of legitimate reasons why an indie should not.


I'm not really sure why registering as a business would be a deterrent for someone who is trading as a business... but sure, whatever. I'll amend to say that those who can should. That seems pretty clear to me. But I don't like being at anyone's mercy, and I've been self-employed for years, so this just seems like a no brainer to me. *shrugs*


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

Lady Vine said:


> With the exception of 5, these are all things indies should and could be doing on their own websites.


I'd say "could" be doing, not necessarily "should." It may be a good choice for you, but I for one have absolutely no desire to sell directly. Sure, I could buy one of those automatic shopping carts so it will push the orders out automatically, but I'd still be responsible for customer service, and quite frankly there aren't enough hours in the day as it is for me to work full-time, be a wife and mommy, and then write on the side, so for me to add customer service work to play catch-up when a customer has problems, etc?

No thank you.

So maybe you "should" be doing that, but I shouldn't. It's not a good use of my time.


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

Amanda Brice said:


> I'd say "could" be doing, not necessarily "should." It may be a good choice for you, but I for one have absolutely no desire to sell directly. Sure, I could buy one of those automatic shopping carts so it will push the orders out automatically, but I'd still be responsible for customer service, and quite frankly there aren't enough hours in the day as it is for me to work full-time, be a wife and mommy, and then write on the side, so for me to add customer service work to play catch-up when a customer has problems, etc?
> 
> No thank you.
> 
> So maybe you "should" be doing that, but I shouldn't. It's not a good use of my time.


Fair enough.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> "Frankly, my take is this: Amazon's not trying to be "evil." What they are doing is taking a note from the "videogame console wars" playbook


."

Of course they are not evil. Amazon offers two KDP programs. Each has benefits for authors, and each has drawbacks. Some authors want a program that has the benefits of both programs, and none of the drawbacks. Ok. But there is no reason to expect Amazon to give it to them.


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## Katja (Jun 4, 2011)

As a reader from outside US, the reason I wish authors would have their books in Smashwords, is that Amazon charges me extra imaginary fees when I buy books. I've talked about it before as well. In some cases the extra cost that goes to Amazon's pocket is more than the actual cost of the book. Sometimes the kindle edition costs more than the paperback because of this. And this really pisses me off. Smashwords doesn't do this.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

genevieveaclark said:


> Or that maybe it's just that you're wrong?


Even when given hard evidence of being wrong about his assumptions, he still claims to be right.

You do the math.

For those saying they can't do direct sales of their titles. Look at Ganxy. They take 10% for payment processing and accept CCs and PayPal.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Actually, selling directly from ones own website is not always practical. For some folks, this could put them at odds with their local zoning commission or Housing Authority (some areas have vey strict policies about businesses in residential areas, and if you are filling orders directly you could cause headaches for yourself). In some case, the person would be required to register their business with their county/state and collect sales tax. If you write under a pen name, you may have to file formally for a DBA or Trade Name to avoid revealing your identity. You can become liable from fraudulent purchases.
> 
> It MAY be a good idea for some indies to sell directly depending on a person's specific situation, but to say that all indies SHOULD is another matter. There are plenty of legitimate reasons why an indie should not.


Not only that, but we did have an indie that tried that experiment (she posted here, can't recall who it was at the moment) and it became quite the headache. Books didn't always download onto the ereaders right (because there are off brand ones out there) and guess who gets stuck being customer service? YOU, the author.

My mom will be the first to tell you she is not user-computer literate, and the other day she called because she hasn't been able how to figure out how to get into her email account to verify her password. My brother (God bless him) is an MIS Manager for a large government branch and decided to switch her over to Google Chrome, so naturally, he opened her a gmail account. But she wanted to get into her AOL account, and for the life of her couldn't figure out how. Now he had set it up so the AOL account was supposed to be dumping into her gmail one, but it wasn't.

I explained how to type in http://www.aol.com but for some reason she couldn't get it right.

Okay, so I came over showed her how to do it, and then wrote it in her address book in case she forgets, but I've shown her how to do this multiple times but because she hardly ever does it, she can't remember. And yes, she has a Kindle, and sometimes I have to help her with that too.

Anyway, these are the kind of people you may be stuck trying to walk through why the book won't download for them onto their ereader. You go through one or two of those, and you will see how a Smashwords, Amazon, or Kobo distributor is worth every penny.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

genevieveaclark said:


> Really? The title of the thread is "What can we do to help Smashwords (Hi Mark Coker) become the place for books?" Implicit in that is that Smashwords is _not_ the place for books. Further: "I know you're having growing pains..."
> 
> Yeah, the premise is that SW needs help from its customers.
> 
> ...


Genevieveaclark - Readers are the customer. 
We are not "buying" from Smashwords, the customer is. We are the manufacturer. It's only smart for the manufacturer of the widgets to ensure the distributor has someone to distribute to, and that the end user "buys" from those businesses.

We "support" Amazon every time we put a link to them. You support Amazon just by posting here and having a link in your Siggy. So why would you begrudge giving support to a distributor to other bookstores?

What if Amazon decides to "break indie books out and puts them in a "separate" book store? If they think it will make them more money, they will. It won't be bad for the indies who've managed to get 47North contracts, but could be devastating for the rest of us. Why not help build up Smashwords recognition with readers or at least place the links to their (clarified for Mathew: "their" as in start sending out more KOBO, Sony Deisel or whatever books you've distributed through Smashwords) books in the Nook, Kobo, Sony & Diesel stores?


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

LisaGraceBooks said:
 

> ... or at least place the links to their books in the Nook, Kobo, Sony & Deisel stores?


Do you actually mean putting a hotlink to Smashwords in your books?

Because linking to a site outside of the site the buyer bought from (and your personal site, of course) is sketchy to say the least, and potential for getting you kicked out of stores.

iBooks won't approve you if you even say the word Kindle. No link, just the word itself. They'd go nuts if you linked to Amazon. Why would they be pleased if you linked to SW, which is a retailer?

I link directly back to the store the person bought from. Kobo links to my Kobo books. B&N to my B&N books, etc. Can't do that with Smashwords because they use one-ebook-fits-all distribution.

And linking from within the book back to SW is thus linking outside of where the books are sold if they came off Kobo, or B&N, or iBooks, or Sony, or Diesel.

Bad form, if nothing else. Potential for problems in the worst case scenario. I can't think of a good reason to do this.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

The only links I put in my books are those to my own site... which has links to all stores.

Ironically, I find that the links to B&N and Kobo are most clicked.

Bit.ly rules!


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Mathew Reuther said:


> Do you actually mean putting a hotlink to Smashwords in your books?
> 
> Because linking to a site outside of the site the buyer bought from (and your personal site, of course) is sketchy to say the least, and potential for getting you kicked out of stores.
> 
> ...


No, Mathew, why would you think that Kindleboards siggy line does link directly back to Amazon. When you send out tweets, you can promote Smashwords. You can promote them indirectly on Facebook by promoting links to books at the bookstore that you used Smashwords for the distribution.

I'm talking about helping to drive customer links to our books that are distributed to the bookstores through Smashwords.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Mathew Reuther said:


> Do you actually mean putting a hotlink to Smashwords in your books?


Of course not.  put links in your marketing to the Sony, Diesel, Kobo or where ever you use Smashwords to distribute to. I thought I'd made that clear. I even mentioned siggy links so how you would twist that into inside book links is beyond me. I've uploaded several titles direct at B&N, Amazon, and Smashwords and am fully aware of the rules.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> No, Mathew, why would you think that


The wording you used was ambiguous, which is why I wanted to clarify.



> Kindleboards siggy line does link directly back to Amazon. When you send out tweets, you can promote Smashwords. You can promote them indirectly on Facebook by promoting links to books at the bookstore that you used Smashwords for the distribution.


When a forum asks me to use an aff link I do it because I am providing them with nothing outside of that. Here they ask me to link to Amazon. That's not me favoring Amazon. That's KINDLE Boards favoring Amazon.

I link to all my distributors with no saying "go here" whatsoever. I don't want B&N to get more sales than Apple. I don't want Kobo to overtake Amazon.

I want my books to sell, period. So I give people the info they need to decide where they shop. I avoid favoring anyone.

The only exception to this is my chosen independent B&M "home" store in Seattle. Them I link to over other indie stores that distribute ebooks because I grew up in their stacks.



> I'm talking about helping to drive customer links to our books that are distributed to the bookstores through Smashwords.


And there's nothing wrong with suggesting that you have books available at x, y, or z location. Even individually. Tweeting "hey, you can buy my books on Kobo" is fine, obviously.

I was just confused by the twist of driving back to Smashwords, that's all.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Mathew Reuther said:


> The wording you used was ambiguous, which is why I wanted to clarify.
> 
> When a forum asks me to use an aff link I do it because I am providing them with nothing outside of that. Here they ask me to link to Amazon. That's not me favoring Amazon. That's KINDLE Boards favoring Amazon.
> 
> ...


Oh, come on. You and I both know a book can't be uploaded with competing links in it. You knew. I credit you for being that smart.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> Oh, come on. You and I both know a book can't be uploaded with competing links in it. You knew. I credit you for being that smart.


Maybe it's the hunger. Maybe it's the toddler and infant screaming at me, but the words you used were confusing me low-blood-sugared/deafened brain.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Mathew Reuther said:


> Maybe it's the hunger. Maybe it's the toddler and infant screaming at me, but the words you used were confusing me low-blood-sugared/deafened brain.


Well, that would do it.  I've been there.


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

Having a baby/toddler is like slowly sinking into sleep-deprived insanity.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> Genevieveaclark - Readers are the customer.
> We are not "buying" from Smashwords, the customer is. We are the manufacturer. It's only smart for the manufacturer of the widgets to ensure the distributor has someone to distribute to, and that the end user "buys" from those businesses.
> 
> We "support" Amazon every time we put a link to them. You support Amazon just by posting here and having a link in your Siggy. So why would you begrudge giving support to a distributor to other bookstores?
> ...


Why not build up Smashwords? Because only Smashwords can do that--the same way Amazon did, with little things like superlative customer service and great discoverability of books. We can't do that for them.

When I had books there, I provided links to them. I don't any more so I provide links to where I do have books.


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## R.L. Kiser (Feb 2, 2013)

In the beginning there was KDP. And KDP did give forth instructions and publishith my book. And therin did I discover Smashwords. And Smashwords did giveth me ISBN and distribution (and 85%). Yea verily sing the praises do I of Smashwords.
IMHO Mark Coker is all about Indie Authors. Ergo, he should have on staff someone who is all about geeking websites. Amazon is sort of like Microsoft in that they can put a dozen programmers on a project.
I would greatly prefer Smashwords to look like a book store.The site looks like something from 1995, not the 21st century. But I still do most of my book links to SW. 85% vs 35% .... uh ... no brainer.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> Not only that, but we did have an indie that tried that experiment (she posted here, can't recall who it was at the moment) and it became quite the headache. Books didn't always download onto the ereaders right (because there are off brand ones out there) and guess who gets stuck being customer service? YOU, the author.
> 
> (&#8230
> Anyway, these are the kind of people you may be stuck trying to walk through why the book won't download for them onto their ereader. You go through one or two of those, and you will see how a Smashwords, Amazon, or Kobo distributor is worth every penny.


Sounds a lot like the "don't ever self-publish because you don't know what you're getting yourself into" mantra.

In my experience (of only 18 months, granted) none of this has ever materialized.

1) I'm not selling an ebook-annex-ecosphere. I'm selling either an _epub_ or a _mobi_. That's what you get for what you pay: a file - nothing more, nothing less.

2) People who are not all that computer-savvy are not likely to buy from another outlet than where they got their reader.


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## MeiLinMiranda (Feb 17, 2011)

I've sold books direct since 2010. I've been swamped with customer service requests, if by swamped you mean one.

And that was a problem with the file I needed to know about.


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## KBoards Admin (Nov 27, 2007)

Locking this thread while we discuss in the admin board...

Update: unlocking the thread. Please keep comments constructive, in the spirit of the original post in this thread.


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## BillSmithBooksDotCom (Nov 4, 2012)

Amanda Brice said:


> I for one have absolutely no desire to sell directly. Sure, I could buy one of those automatic shopping carts so it will push the orders out automatically, but I'd still be responsible for customer service, and quite frankly there aren't enough hours in the day as it is for me to work full-time, be a wife and mommy, and then write on the side, so for me to add customer service work to play catch-up when a customer has problems, etc?


There are two very good "no hassle" options for selling direct now: Gumroad.com and Ganxy.com.

Just sign up, prepare your files and upload them in a single zip file -- many authors just use Calibre to prepare Epub, Mobi and PDF , covering the vast majority of the market. A few will also offer RTF (word processor) and plain text, too.

(Be sure to mention which formats the reader gets in the zip download so they know what to expect.)

Both service take a very small commission -- 25 cents plus 5% -- much cheaper than most shopping cart services and you are getting a great return.

With both services, there is nothing to do beyond the initial setup and just adding the links on your site, Facebook page, etc. (And spreading them out wherever else you do marketing online.)

These services do the hosting, transaction processing and fulfillment.

After the initial upload, all you need to do is cash the royalty checks (outside of any promotion you _choose_ to do.


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## BillSmithBooksDotCom (Nov 4, 2012)

Mathew Reuther said:


> They sent a workaround instead of fixing the issue on your end.
> 
> Mark, is it Smashwords' policy to push back to the author, or to fix the problems?
> 
> ...


When I worked in publishing, not following the style guide was an easy way to reject a submission. My publisher's belief was that if you can't follow simple basic instructions, either you are not paying attention to detail (bad) or think you are above following rules (worse). Either type was more hassle than it was worth.


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## RM Prioleau (Mar 18, 2011)

BillSmithBooksDotCom said:


> When I worked in publishing, not following the style guide was an easy way to reject a submission. My publisher's belief was that if you can't follow simple basic instructions, either you are not paying attention to detail (bad) or think you are above following rules (worse). Either type was more hassle than it was worth.


I understand the need for a style guide. For a company who distributes to various markets, each channel has different guidelines for the formats of their books. I honestly don't mind that there's a certain style to adhere to so everything works everywhere, but the way that it's being implemented is more hassle than it really needs to be. If there was some sort of external program that we could download or use on the site that emulates Meatgrinder, this would be so much more helpful than submitting a manuscript and waiting with crossed fingers and baited breath for almost a month (sometimes longer) for it so say 'accept' or 'deny'.


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## DRMarvello (Dec 3, 2011)

BillSmithBooksDotCom said:


> Both service take a very small commission -- 25 cents plus 5% -- much cheaper than most shopping cart services and you are getting a great return.


Those are excellent rates. It would be hard to do better even if you had your own merchant account. With your own account, you'd pay 25 cents per transaction and an average of 3%. Even assuming these services get better processing rates than that from the Visa, MC, etc., they are probably earning 3% at most from your transactions.

On top of that, most merchant account companies have additional fees (e.g. $8 statement fee) and a minimum charge of around $40 a month, regardless of how little you may sell.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

BillSmithBooksDotCom said:


> When I worked in publishing, not following the style guide was an easy way to reject a submission. My publisher's belief was that if you can't follow simple basic instructions, either you are not paying attention to detail (bad) or think you are above following rules (worse). Either type was more hassle than it was worth.


Apples and oranges. Style guides for submissions for consideration for publication tend to be very simple: "Use this font and size, double-space your text, number your pages, and your cover page should contain the following information and look like this: XYZ." I agree that anyone who doesn't abide by such simple instructions is clearly not paying attention or simply believes the rules don't apply to them.

Smashwords' Style Guide is quite a bit more complex, and failure to "adhere" to it may not be because of negligence or arrogance, but due to complexities beyond the submitter's ken (because of hidden code within a Word doc or some other technical issue). While I agree that the SW guide is there to serve a practical purpose, to claim that failing to pass their vetting out of some arcane mishap means one is being negligent or arrogant isn't helpful. What would be helpful is for folks to have specific details for why their files are being rejected, and to receive those notifications in a timely fashion.

As for trying to generate a single ePub for several channels, whose requirements vary, why not allow files to pass/fail depending on whether or not they pass/fail the requirements of that channel? Or, better yet, allow individual files be submitted for each of the vendors? At least that way, we'd be able to place vendor-specific links to our pages on their sites.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

BillSmithBooksDotCom said:


> There are two very good "no hassle" options for selling direct now: Gumroad.com and Ganxy.com.


The rates on these sites are, indeed, good, but after checking them both out, I couldn't find a storefront for Gumroad and don't have a sense for their sales volume or traffic. Admittedly, I only spent a minute or two on each, but I'd love to see their storefronts be up front, loud and proud. Anyone know what their sales volume is?


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> "On top of that, most merchant account companies have additional fees (e.g. $8 statement fee) and a minimum charge of around $40 a month, regardless of how little you may sell."


I'm not familiar with all that, but I do observe that Square is making major inroads in credit card accounts with a 2.5% flat fee. That's the little square gizmo that plugs into an iPhone or Android. It reads the card, charges the buyers account, credits the seller's account, and deducts 2.5% from the seller's proceeds.

I don't know if they have any options other than swiping the card in the square. But I do know a number of small sellers who are delighted with the service. They swear 2.5% is the one and only charge they pay. No set up, no maintenance, no monthly...

PayPal and Intuit have both come out with similar systems. Times may be changing a bit.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

The thread has gotten off topic-again. You can always start a new one. The question is, *What can we do to help Smashwords?*

No more broken record (repeating over and over, come on!) bad past experiences,(I think everyone who has had one has expounded on it several times already in this thread.) Please start your own thread. Please recognize a lot has changed.

No more misinformation. The meat grinder lets you know rather quickly (hours max, not a month!) whether a book has failed or passed. I had two pass on the first try, one failed, but I corrected the problem, and everything was set to go in a matter of hours.

My recent experience has been great, so I can see a lot has changed and mark has come on here to say they are working on the rest. As an author I can promote my links at KOBO, B&N, Sony, Diesel, and iTunes that Smashwords has distributed to.

Promote their "read an ebook" promotion.


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## BillSmithBooksDotCom (Nov 4, 2012)

I agree with Lisa Grace's comments -- for the issues that some people have with Smashwords, Smashwords does a LOT of things that are of tremendous benefit to readers and authors and that is why I am totally on-board with Mark and his staff.

READER BENEFITS

* Worldwide sales: Anyone on the PLANET with a credit card can buy. I think this is something that many authors don't pause to consider -- there are millions of potential readers in Asia, Africa, Latin America, parts of Europe that are completely locked out of the Amazon, B&N & Apple eco-systems. Smashwords welcomes these readers.

(Also millions of readers who use Linux who are understandably insulted when they are told that their money is simply not good enough because they are running the wrong OS.)

The book industry as a whole has overlooked the potential of this...but it could become huge and in a hurry for those who pick up the ball and run with it.

* They take PayPal plus all major credit cards, again making it easier for readers to buy. (It would be cool if they also accepted Amazon payments just so they have _everything_ covered...boy, wouldn't there be irony in that move.)

* Instant downloads and software agnostic. Here's the deal: I run Linux (as do many millions of other people around the world).

B&N will not take my money--I cannot buy from B&N (no downloads, no linux support, not even for cloud reader).

Amazon will only let me use the cloud reader...which is not really a particularly good reading experience. And only if I am running Firefox 7 or higher.

We are talking words on a page, something that the Internet has been doing since the 1970s. Something that is _incredibly_ simple. Why do you care what OS and browser I am using for a freaking cloud reader? And don't tell me it's to prevent piracy since I can, if I really want to, take a print screen snapshot of every page and "pirate" a book that way. Ri-donk-ulous.

Kobo at least has DRM free downloads...and has the courage to label DRM vs. DRM-free instead of hiding it under "simultaneous device usage: unlimited."

If I can't download the book and know that I own it and can store it on my hard drive, I am not paying money for it, period. There are plenty of great ebook authors and vendors who GET it, I don't need to support the DRM and eco-system lock-in giants.

There is no legitimate reason I should not be able to go to any ebook site using any browser and buy and download DRM-free books.

Smashwords lets me buy and instantly download in any format I want. That's awesome and it's something that none of the major ebook vendors do.*

* That said there are great sites like Baen, Black Library, Book View Cafe, Closed Circle, Diane Duane's site, RobotTradingCompany, DriveThruFiction/Comics/RPG and WeightlessBooks (just for starters) that are decent enough to let me just buy and download, DRM-free. Good for them!

* No DRM. DRM is a Tool of the Devil (tm). And for suckers. That is a FACT, not an opinion. 

* Distribution in every major (and many minor) formats -- Epub, Mobi, PDF, plus plain text, Palm, RTF, HTML cloud reader. This is great for readers who may have unusual or outdated equipment and can't or won't run Calibre or use online file conversion services.

(Still wish I could download an HTML or HTML zip...even though Epub is close enough.)

* Site accessibility -- for all of the guff Smashwords gets about its website, it is still accessible even with outdated browsers. (Speaking from experimenting with Dillo and other older browsers).

Amazon is _creaky_ with outdated browsers. B&N's website is impossible to navigate and crashes my browser half the time. Kobo's site is sloooow.

Google Play is...oh, hey guys, wait, come back, I was only kidding...I _know_ nobody uses Google Play.

For all its faults, Smashwords is better than all but Amazon.

In an era where website developers just expect people to upgrade because the developers tell them to, I think putting the customer's preferences first is a good thing. There are lots of people who simply _can't_ update to the latest browser because of older hardware and limited economic means. And there is NO technical reason to demand modern equipment and software for books.

AUTHOR BENEFITS

* Higher commissions. Smashwords is "self-service" for author submissions. It also gives you some of the highest rates in the industry -- compared to say, _other vendors_ taking 65% when you want to sell in Brazil or India without going exclusive.

* Worldwide distribution. Anyone in the WORLD who speaks English can buy, which opens us to markets that many other ebook vendors either won't enter or where the vendors take a HUGE cut.

* Coupon codes, so you can run sales, track referrals, all without screwing up your basic pricing and potentially getting price matched to death on other sites.

* Great affiliate commissions. Starting at 11%, up to the author's entire share if they want to.

This is something that authors and affiliates could both use much better than they have been to build their sales...which has the nice side benefit of building Smashwords' profile.

* Distribution to B&N, Kobo, Sony, Apple.

This is a two-edged sword -- it seems that Smashwords gets blamed for the added requirements...bearing in mind that their Premium requirements have to meet the finicky nits of ALL of those sites combined.

You _can_ certainly go to all of those sites individually if you want to...if your books are 100% EPub compliant...if you have Apple hardware...if your cover is the right size...if you this, if you that.

Or you can prepare one Word document, with simple requirements, and submit to Smashwords.

Ultimately, it is your choice. But they can save you a lot of hassle if you follow their rules.

* Easy file preparation. Honestly, assuming you are working from a .txt or word processing file when writing your manuscript -- which many authors do -- preparing for Smashwords is not all that hard.

Seriously, Header 1 for chapter titles. Normal for body text. Don't do tables. Don't screw around with lots of fonts. Put in a TOC. _It's...not...that...hard_.

No, it's not _exactly_ what Amazon (or B&N or Kobo) want...but it's not hard.

FINALLY

The above said, I agree, I would love to see improvements in search functions. I would love more "customers who bought this also bought this"/related kinds of features. I would love to see sales ranks. Better tagging functions. Search by author instead of having to scroll through an alphabetical list.

A simple reader/browser app for all OSs so you don't have to screw around with side-loading would be nice. Personally, I don't get it. I mean, it's no harder than putting MP3 on an MP3 player or putting files on a USB drive. I don't get the complaints. But an app would make it easier for some people who apparently look really hard for the "any" key when told to hit it. 

I can't wait to see a nice redesign...although, as I said, B&N's site is a slow train-wreck with useless search and gobbldycrap coding. Amazon site's is obnoxious (you might want this, are you sure you don't want that, other people clicked on this...here, have some Prime!). Smashwords is dated but it is still pretty usable, and honestly, I prefer usable.

Honestly, I use Google to search for books on Smashwords: www.Smashwords.com and just type in the search query.

I don't have an issue with the Meatgrinder and I accept the compromises that come with it because of all the formats they convert the basic doc into.

I would love to see more communities (like KindleBoards and MobileRead) that had more links to and discussion of Smashwords' books, and I would love to see more of the "book bargain/freebie" sites link to Smashwords offers, especially since Amazon seems determined to penalize its affiliates if they're too successful at steering the "wrong kind" of traffic to their site.

Draft2Digital looks like it could be a great service...except it has no retail storefront. Of the vendors it highlights distribution to (Amazon, Apple, B&N and Kobo), Kobo is the ONLY one that will sell to me...that's if I can find the book. For all of the criticism of Smashwords' search fuctions and I think we can all easily agree that it is clearly not as good as Amazon, but in my experience, it is really no worse than Kobo and B&N's search functions.

As has been stated by myself and others, if you really don't want to deal with Smashwords, though, you can direct submit to all of the major vendors and sell direct yourself through Ganxy.com and Gumroad.com...they are all great options.

(To follow up, Gumroad does not have a direct storefront. Wish they did. Rather, you upload your files, get the link--and you can use their gum.to link shortener service--and it is intended that you market your link via your means of communicating with your friends and fans, Twitter, Facebook, etc. So it is great for a quick link, like on a message board, or if you have a big social network following.

It is great for readers because it is so simple -- email address and CC (major credit cards only), download the file. But nobody is going to stumble upon your books after getting there through someone else's book.

Ganxy has "showcase" pages where you can offer direct downloads and/or link to your books on Amazon, B&N, etc. -- they use affiliate links to generate income, although you can use your own affiliate links if you want to. Ganxy is cool because they take PayPal and Amazon payments in addition to Credit Cards.

Does Square offer web payments? I always thought of it is as an "in person/swipe the card" service -- their new promotions make the service look GREAT for cons and shows where you might sell a book in person.)

But Smashwords, IMHO, does a lot very well and I think authors who understand and leverage the benefits of Smashwords stand a lot to gain by using and promoting the service.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> "If I can't download the book and know that I own it and can store it on my hard drive, I am not paying money for it, period. There are plenty of great ebook authors and vendors who GET it, I don't need to support the DRM and eco-system lock-in giants."


GET what?



> "There is no legitimate reason I should not be able to go to any ebook site using any browser and buy and download DRM-free books. "


Sure there is. The owner doesn't choose to sell it to you, the owner doesn't choose to sell it on all eRetailer sites, or the owner doesn't choose to sell a DRM free version. He doesn't owe us a book.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

BillSmithBooksDotCom said:


> I agree with Lisa Grace's comments -- for the issues that some people have with Smashwords, Smashwords does a LOT of things that are of tremendous benefit to readers and authors and that is why I am totally on-board with Mark and his staff.
> 
> The above said, I agree, I would love to see improvements in search functions. I would love more "customers who bought this also bought this"/related kinds of features. I would love to see sales ranks. Better tagging functions. Search by author instead of having to scroll through an alphabetical list.
> 
> ...


Thank you. Mark has stated he's hired engineers to work on the look and search of the site. However, people should not compare a small site like Smashwords to a multi-billion dollar one that happens to be the leader in the industry. *No bookstore or distributor* matches Amazon's search functions, because it takes tons of money to hire the staff to implement those changes.


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## BillSmithBooksDotCom (Nov 4, 2012)

Terrence OBrien said:


> GET what?


Who get that readers just want to buy their book, download and read it. Without requiring specific OSes, browsers, proprietary apps, DRM, geographic restrictions (although that is a publisher thing because they normally license by territory not language)...all arbitrary requirements with no technical basis that get in the way of a customer with money supporting an author who could use the money. 

Buying books should be as simple as buying a physical object on Amazon or Ebay or buying MP3 files on...of all places...Amazon.



Terrence OBrien said:


> Sure there is. The owner doesn't choose to sell it to you, the owner doesn't choose to sell it on all eRetailer sites, or the owner doesn't choose to sell a DRM free version. He doesn't owe us a book.


That is all true. The author is not required to sell to anyone. But the point of much of this discussion--and indeed, most of this entire site--has been about, "Hey, how can I sell more books?"

Here is how: Just let me buy and download and be on my merry way.

I gladly spend my money with authors and vendors who respect the fact that I want to give them money in return for a no hassle experience.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

Sara Fawkes posting about Beautiful Disaster reminded me of this. Add to my previous list of suggestions: drop the ban on serials. The ban cut Smash out of the hottest craze of the summer, but authors have also had problems with sequels or stand alones with similar titles/themes being rejected when they were mistaken as serials.


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## BillSmithBooksDotCom (Nov 4, 2012)

Katie Elle said:


> Sara Fawkes posting about Beautiful Disaster reminded me of this. Add to my previous list of suggestions: drop the ban on serials. The ban cut Smash out of the hottest craze of the summer, but authors have also had problems with sequels or stand alones with similar titles/themes being rejected when they were mistaken as serials.


Agreed 1000%.

Serials have always been a big part of literature/media...from 1,001 Arabian Nights to soap operas and comic books. I think labeling them clearly is a good idea for readers.

Training readers to look at word counts and including estimate reading times would also be cool (based on say 15,000 words an hour , which Feedbooks uses). Using terms like short story, "long short story" (for novelette, because very few people are familiar with it), "short novel" (for novellas) and novel in descriptions also helps.


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## Peter Salisbury (Mar 3, 2010)

What can we do? We can support Smashwords by keeping our books there.

I live in the UK so Smashwords has obvious distribution benefits. If I lived in the US I probably wouldn't bother to upload individually - I don't have enough hours in the day as it is.

Earlier in the thread Mark acknowledged an author's suggestion of a 'sandbox' as being something he may take a look at implementing - an author being able to check his/her upload before it goes straight out for sale on the Home Page. That would imply being able to hold something 'in draft' until you are happy with it. I would very much like to check over what I've uploaded before it gets on the Home Page.

It would be great if it worked like this:
1. upload my book files
2. see an Autovetter report
3. download my book in various formats so I can see what it looks like
4. upload again if I wish to make a change
5. save a draft copy or go direct to 7
6. come back when I've thought about it
7. when I approve of what I've uploaded and how it's converted, click on a button for Submit for Sale on Smashwords
8. click a button for Submit to Premium

I agree with the previous 2 posters, serials well-labelled as such would be a good idea.


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## Guest (Mar 3, 2013)

Saul Tanpepper said:


> Apples and oranges. Style guides for submissions for consideration for publication tend to be very simple: "Use this font and size, double-space your text, number your pages, and your cover page should contain the following information and look like this: XYZ." I agree that anyone who doesn't abide by such simple instructions is clearly not paying attention or simply believes the rules don't apply to them.
> 
> Smashwords' Style Guide is quite a bit more complex, and failure to "adhere" to it may not be because of negligence or arrogance, but due to complexities beyond the submitter's ken (because of hidden code within a Word doc or some other technical issue). While I agree that the SW guide is there to serve a practical purpose, to claim that failing to pass their vetting out of some arcane mishap means one is being negligent or arrogant isn't helpful. What would be helpful is for folks to have specific details for why their files are being rejected, and to receive those notifications in a timely fashion.
> 
> As for trying to generate a single ePub for several channels, whose requirements vary, why not allow files to pass/fail depending on whether or not they pass/fail the requirements of that channel? Or, better yet, allow individual files be submitted for each of the vendors? At least that way, we'd be able to place vendor-specific links to our pages on their sites.


There's a very simple solution to any failure to pass Smashword's Meatgrinder... use Openoffice. Don't do any formatting at all beyond font, font size, first line indent, page breaks, and spacing.

Never had a problem passing it other than having to shrink title/chapter font size and changing link colors to automatic.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> "Who get that readers just want to buy their book, download and read it. Without requiring specific OSes, browsers, proprietary apps, DRM, geographic restrictions (although that is a publisher thing because they normally license by territory not language)...all arbitrary requirements with no technical basis that get in the way of a customer with money supporting an author who could use the money. "


DRM on Amazon is something the author/publisher chooses. So if money is a function of DRM, it's completely under the author's control. So is the decision on eRetailer placement. I figure the author is closest to his own situation, so he's in the best position to make those nontechnical decisions. I sure can't tell him what's best for him. I don't know his situation.

We do see complaints about the characteristics of the product being offered, but they seem limited to enthusiasts. I don't see much evidence that consumers care enough to make their feelings known through their buying behavior.

However, if they do care, we should see non DRM books forcing DRM out of the market. To date, it doesn't seem to matter.


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## RM Prioleau (Mar 18, 2011)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> No more misinformation. The meat grinder lets you know rather quickly (hours max, not a month!) whether a book has failed or passed. I had two pass on the first try, one failed, but I corrected the problem, and everything was set to go in a matter of hours.


I'm sorry for saying Meatgrinder. I was referring to submitting your book to the premium distribution catalog thing. It's always said 'pending review' for a long time for me, and I wasn't sure if it was software or actual people looking at each and every ebook to make sure things passed to be considered for premium distribution.

I would be all for using whatever software they use to check the book beforehand to make sure it passes for Premium Distribution before submitting to make it easier for both the SW people and myself.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

BillSmithBooksDotCom said:


> When I worked in publishing, not following the style guide was an easy way to reject a submission. My publisher's belief was that if you can't follow simple basic instructions, either you are not paying attention to detail (bad) or think you are above following rules (worse). Either type was more hassle than it was worth.


Or, as former Marvel Comics editor-in-chief, the highly-literate Jim Shooter, once put it, if he sees an author doesn't understand the basics, including storytelling basics, he muses to himself, "Methinks the author knoweth not what he doeth," and then promptly reaches for the next submission.


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## Annette_g (Nov 27, 2012)

Things I like about Smashwords as a

Reader:
I can download the book in the format I want and the books are available worldwide. No geographical restrictions, which just seem silly for ebooks. Most people will be be buying them on the internet - the _worldwide_ web.

I can pay by paypal.

I can search by genre, length and price as well as author and book title.

As a writer:
Smashwords can get me into places I can't get on my own such as B&N, Apple, Diesel, Sony, Kobo etc. (I'm in the UK.)

They take one file and convert it into mulitple formats. (To date I've never had any trouble with the Meat Grinder except once when I forgot my copyright notice.)

They pay me via paypal, no need to pay bank charges trying to change a dollar cheque.

Yes, they do have some problems, but overall I've been happy with them both as a reader and a writer. Although if I hadn't used them for distributing my books, I'm not sure I would have discovered them as a general reader, maybe they need a separate storefront for sales rather than writing?


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> However, people should not compare a small site like Smashwords to a multi-billion dollar one that happens to be the leader in the industry. *No bookstore or distributor* matches Amazon's search functions, because it takes tons of money to hire the staff to implement those changes.


Which is all fine and well and good to say, Lisa, except for a single problem.

Customers DO make those sorts of comparisons. All the time. Every day. Fair or not.

Customers don't care if Amazon has sunk millions into its site compared to Smashwords investing much less because they're a smaller company.

Not anymore than customers care that Stephen King is a brand name, and I'm not.

All customers/potential readers care about is the bottom line:

1) Can I find the books I want with relative ease?

2) Can I discover other books similar to ones I've enjoyed with relative ease?

3) Am I paying the best price available for the book?

As a book buyer, bottom lines like that are unavoidable.

The average book buyer doesn't know how much Amazon or BN.com or Nook.com or Apple or Smashwords or any other eTailer has spent on their site, nor do they care, nor should they.

They just want to find what they're looking for, and buy it, as painlessly and quickly as possible.

So, there is validity to saying a better-looking, better-searching Smashwords storefront would help Smashwords's results.

There's also validity to saying that, because the site doesn't navigate or search as smoothly (or have their own dedicated eReader, for that matter, because people who have iPads largely buy stuff off iTunes, Kindle-owners off Amazon, Google/Android users off GooglePlay, etc.), that Smashwords is a bit behind the eight-ball.

Is it fair? No.

Should it be? Ideally.

Will it ever be? Probably not.

Life choices... consumer choices... are almost never dictated by fairness.

I could live to 100, write three times more novels than Stephen King ever will, and there's still a very good chance that when we're both dead and long gone, he'll have outsold me by a HUGE ratio.

Why? Because he's Stephen King, and I'm not.

It's the same with Amazon and Smashwords. I'm pretty sure even Mark himself isn't concerned with trying to "catch up" to Amazon. He's not even trying to be the same sort of company with Smashwords.

But just because Smashwords isn't Amazon doesn't mean they can't do better.

(Just like, simply because I'm not Stephen King doesn't mean I can't write my tail off and have a nice writing career myself.)

One can never get people to stop comparing, though. It's human nature, can't be controlled, and is ultimately out of our hands.


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## RM Prioleau (Mar 18, 2011)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> Which is all fine and well and good to say, Lisa, except for a single problem.
> 
> Customers DO make those sorts of comparisons. All the time. Every day. Fair or not.
> 
> ...


There are tons of books that are on Smashwords that can't be found on Amazon. Many people prefer to keep their books exclusive to SW for one reason or another.


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## AnitaDobs (Sep 18, 2012)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> Oh, come on. You and I both know a book can't be uploaded with competing links in it. You knew. I credit you for being that smart.


No offence intended to you Lisa, but you can.

Matthew actually made a good point, which was admittedly not quite what you were talking about in the first place. Why can you only link back to Smashwords from your uploaded books to them? Especially when those books end up being bought on Apple, Kobo or whichever.

At first I accepted the Smashwords 'only links back to Smashwords' thing. When I mistakenly uploaded a doc I used for Amazon with Amazon links I got the response 'our retailers (or whichever word they used) do not appreciate links to other retailers, you can only link to Smashwords...', and then you know what the funny thing is?

Kobo doesn't give a damn (I went direct.) My first fifteen titles with them had _only_ Amazon links, went through no problem. Now I've changed them because Kobo is picking up, but Kobo didn't care. Apple? They don't care either! I have several titles up there that have B&N links in too. I uploaded them through D2D.

So Smashwords 'only link back to Smashwords' isn't really the truth. D2D lets you link to whom ever you want. If anyone had got their file rejected for linking to another site I've not heard about it yet, but I'd like to if anyone has had that. But I haven't.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

RM Prioleau said:


> There are tons of books that are on Smashwords that can't be found on Amazon. Many people prefer to keep their books exclusive to SW for one reason or another.


Which is neither here nor there to the point I was making.

Most "Smashwords" exclusives are often from overseas authors for whom SW is the only way to get their books into the US and get paid, on some of the markets SW distributes to.

Not always the case, granted, but that accounts for at least some of them.

And if authors want to do that, that's each one's own judgment call to make. I have no issue with it. I doubt they'll make as much, but hey... anyone can choose to market their work however they want.  That's part of being an indie.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

AnitaDobs said:


> No offence intended to you Lisa, but you can....
> 
> ...Kobo doesn't give a d*mn (I went direct.) My first fifteen titles with them had _only_ Amazon links, went through no problem. Now I've changed them because Kobo is picking up, but Kobo didn't care. Apple? They don't care either! I have several titles up there that have B&N links in too. I uploaded them through D2D.
> 
> So Smashwords 'only link back to Smashwords' isn't really the truth. D2D lets you link to whom ever you want. If anyone had got their file rejected for linking to another site I've not heard about it yet, but I'd like to if anyone has had that. But I haven't.


Anita,

To be fair and accurate, link-backs are not always caught on first approval at sites like BN.com, Kobo, Apple, and other eTailers. Even Amazon misses 'em sometimes.

However, I've worked with enough clients (I do book and eBook formatting contract work) to know that it IS a risk.

If one puts links to other eTailers in their eBooks, yes, normally it might not get caught during the first-approval process.

But if Amazon notices BN.com links, or Kobo notices Apple links, etc., choose whatever combination you want... If they notice, it can and has resulted in books getting pulled from those sites until the "errors" are fixed.

Some writers may like to live with that risk and hope they don't get caught.

But the best route to go is to respect each eTailer's TOS and identity and NOT do that.

And personally, I like the indirect link the best... Insert a link to my author webpage/blog, and on that site, I have links to every site that sells my eBooks. So customers can just go to the eBook site of their choice, whether they prefer Amazon, Smashwords, BN.com, Apple, or whoever.

Plus, I get some traffic to my author site, that way, even if it's pass-through.

But that's my personal preference. YMMV.


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## Guest (Mar 4, 2013)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> And personally, I like the indirect link the best... Insert a link to my author webpage/blog, and on that site,


This has always been my policy as well. I can control what appears on my site. I can control the links. If I get them to my site, then I increase the chances of them buying something of mine or at least interacting with me in some way (deciding to follow on Twitter, fan on facebook, join the mailing list, etc). Retail pages, particularly Amazon, are very distracting. They are designed to get the customer to buy something, but they don't care what. If I can get people on my page, I have a chance to keep them for myself. I'm greedy like that.


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## nightfire (Mar 22, 2012)

Some reasons I can't use Smashwords:

I create photo books.  Amazon allows me 50 mg files.  Smashwords allows 5 mg.  HUGE difference.  So either I publish books with 5 photos or I don't publish.  I emailed your customer service department to find out if there was a way to submit larger book files or if there were plans to allow larger in the future and didn't get an answer.

I have a site that promotes books and also has a specific spot for Smashwords url.  I asked in another thread and was ignored if you were willing to  be on a podcast to let authors know about your site and advantages to being there.  I have emailed both your customer service and your PR department without answers.  I was going to go to a NYC book event last fall to talk to you, but your PR department didn't answer me.

The adult filter doesn't work.  With it on, I was on your homepage looking at erotica.  With it off the front page is almost all erotica.  Which is fine, I run a site that promotes erotica.  But your adult filter needs to work.  I used to work for CafePress, I know there are challenges with adult filters, but yours should work.

As an affiliate and affiliate manager, don't even get me started on your affiliate program. I emailed your affiliate support and got no response.  Two Outsourced affiliate managers, myself and my BookGoodies partner, went through your affiliate program and found so many problems we gave up.  You have major affiliate sites with supposed coupons and what looks like direct links to books that dump people off on your homepage instead with a cookie dropped that I can't imagine you aren't getting customer complaints.  We affiliate link to the books posted on our site, but have had zero conversions.  Your affiliate program needs help.  Lots of it.  While this part may not be something authors care about, it *is* something you should care about if you want more exposure on the sites that Amazon is penalizing.  And the 48 hour cookie isn't going to cut it.  It's only 24 hours longer than Amazon's cookie.

Anyway, I already said more about the affiliate program than I planned.  I'm just highlighting problems that prevent *me* from working with Smashwords on several levels that others haven't pointed out yet.  Well, I don't think they pointed out yet, I was only able to get through 3 pages before I had to jump in.  Since we have your attention again.

Smashwords has a very unique opportunity here, and I think they are going to blow it.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

RM Prioleau said:


> I'm sorry for saying Meatgrinder. I was referring to submitting your book to the premium distribution catalog thing. It's always said 'pending review' for a long time for me, and I wasn't sure if it was software or actual people looking at each and every ebook to make sure things passed to be considered for premium distribution.
> 
> I would be all for using whatever software they use to check the book beforehand to make sure it passes for Premium Distribution before submitting to make it easier for both the SW people and myself.


They submit the books daily, and weekly - (amended to add this). The hold up is on the receiving end, which is beyond Mark's control. *The places he ships to weekly may be because the receiver only wants weekly batches*.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> They submit the books daily. The hold up is on the receiving end, which is beyond Mark's control.


No, there's two delays or really two and a half. The first one is for Smashwords to vette for Premium distribution, which usually in my experience takes a week. Then there's a second delay once that happens between when it gets from there to the retailer and finally, if it's Apple, how long the Central Scrutinizer takes to read it and figure out if its moral enough for their customers.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> They submit the books daily.


Not accurate.

From the Channel Manager part of the Smashwords dashboard, it's clearly stated:

Kobo: ships daily
Apple: ships multiple times daily

But everywhere else? Ships "every Thursday or Friday." Which is once a week.

http://www.smashwords.com/dashboard/channelManager

You're right that there are/can be holdups on the receiving end... but let's not exaggerate Smashwords' efficiency in either direction when it's so clearly spelled out in the dashboard's Channel Manager.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> Not accurate.
> 
> From the Channel Manager part of the Smashwords dashboard, it's clearly stated:
> 
> ...


You're right. I was too lazy to look it up. It's still very quick for a distributor. How long do Bowkers' and Lightning Source take? I don't think they''re that quick.

And Smashwords has improved. Those who have uploaded books lately know that. *Also, the places that are shipped to weekly may be at their insistence. They may choose to receive books only in weekly batches, again, this would not be Smashwords' fault.*


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## Guest (Mar 4, 2013)

Lady Vine said:


> I'm not really sure why registering as a business would be a deterrent for someone who is trading as a business... but sure, whatever.


The point is that directly selling out of your home, depending on where you live in the U.S., can be a royal pain in the backside. For example, after a very longwinded conversation with my town clerk to get her to understand that I did NOT have a printing press in my basement  ) the process was painless for me. So long as I wasn't actually having customers IN my house and everything was transacting online, I didn't need any special waivers.

But if I lived _one city over_, I would have needed to go before the zoning board and request a variance to run a business in a residential neighborhood, which would have meant alerting my neighbors that I intended to operate business and inviting them to comment.  This despite the fact that all the business is conducted online.

And if I lived in the nearby condos, even though the CITY would have been OK with my business, the Tenant Association would have had to approve it as per the leasing agreement.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> The point is that directly selling out of your home, depending on where you live in the U.S., can be a royal pain in the backside. For example, after a very longwinded conversation with my town clerk to get her to understand that I did NOT have a printing press in my basement  ) the process was painless for me. So long as I wasn't actually having customers IN my house and everything was transacting online, I didn't need any special waivers.
> 
> But if I lived _one city over_, I would have needed to go before the zoning board and request a variance to run a business in a residential neighborhood, which would have meant alerting my neighbors that I intended to operate business and inviting them to comment.  This despite the fact that all the business is conducted online.
> 
> And if I lived in the nearby condos, even though the CITY would have been OK with my business, the Tenant Association would have had to approve it as per the leasing agreement.


This is true. The neighborhood we lived in a few years ago is heavily deed restricted. You were not allowed to run a business out of your home. Why? Because they didn't want UPS trucks or Fed-Ex trucks making/receiving daily drop offs/pick-ups, as the extra traffic would wear down the roads, which the community was responsible for maintaining. Getting roads paved is expensive.


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## Guest (Mar 4, 2013)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> This is true. The neighborhood we lived in a few years ago is heavily deed restricted. You were not allowed to run a business out of your home. Why? Because they didn't want UPS trucks or Fed-Ex trucks making/receiving daily drop offs/pick-ups, as the extra traffic would wear down the roads, which the community was responsible for maintaining. Getting roads paved is expensive.


Yeah, for all the talk about the publishing industry not being up with the times, local municipalities are still in the stone ages when it comes to internet businesses and how they function. A lot of them will treat an internet business in the same way they treat a brick and mortar business. Heck, even on the state level with some states trying to force Amazon to collect sales tax by claiming that affiliates in those states qualified as a "nexus" in the state and treated affiliate homes like they were physical storefronts.


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

Mathew Reuther said:


> Maybe it's the hunger. Maybe it's the toddler and infant screaming at me, but the words you used were confusing me low-blood-sugared/deafened brain.


*nods* Been there.


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## WG McCabe (Oct 13, 2012)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> You're right. I was too lazy to look it up. It's still very quick for a distributor. How long do Bowkers' and Lightning Source take? I don't think they''re that quick.
> 
> And Smashwords has improved. Those who have uploaded books lately know that. *Also, the places that are shipped to weekly may be at their insistence. They may choose to receive books only in weekly batches, again, this would not be Smashwords' fault.*


I've had two shorts in "need to be shipped" to Kobo for two to three weeks. Is that part of their improvement?


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

I don't care what SW does. I'm content for them to do whatever they choose. However the notion that SW will be a competitor to Amazon doesn't seem reasonable.

Earlier in the thread, Coker said, "_Remember that SW is first and foremost a distributor, and we're a distributor that happens to operate a small retailer.._"

That doesn't sound like SW plans to push the retail side of the operation. They are pushing the distribution side.

Amazon is a retailer. It will take a retailer to compete against Amazon. Candidates are B&N, Kobo, Apple, Google, Sony, Walmart, Microsoft, Target. etc.


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## 鬼 (Sep 30, 2012)

This sounds exactly like what I've been going through and I've since given up. It's just not worth it.



T.L. Haddix said:


> A quick note here. I've been lurking, not wanting to jump in. I don't think anyone gives two rat's behinds what I have to say, but I can't sit on my hands and keep quiet about this any longer.
> 
> I'm not a Smashwords fan for several reasons, but primarily, it's because in the last six months we've had to jump through so many hoops with so many clients to get anything to go through, it's ridiculous. Not that we mind jumping through hoops for our clients, but that we have to in the first place. We follow SW guidelines to the T - guess what? Books don't pass inspection. They may get in the main catalog, but they won't get into premium distribution, even though they're exactly as they're supposed to be as is spelled out in the guide. In some cases, all we would do to get the file to pass inspection is rename the file (with the client's knowledge) by changing the date in the filename. That's it - it's the exact same file. Different name. And it passes. So that tells you right there it was not a problem with the file. It was a problem with whatever happened to it at Smashwords. We wouldn't even open the file. Just rename it.
> 
> ...


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Careful, Tabby, or someone will remind you the only purpose of this thread is to HELP Smashwords, not register the problems that are holding them back.

Because pointing out problems couldn't possibly be helpful, right?  It's all on us and there's no possible way Smashwords could help themselves...

/ironic tone

Fortunately, I know Mark a bit better than that. The man's overwhelmed at times, sure... who isn't? But HE knows the difference between helpful critiques and out-n-out griping.


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