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I've got three books available with Smashwords now and have been very impressed with them overall.
The one area that isn't so great is speed in getting books out to the other sites. I'm not sure whether the sites (Amazon, B&N, etc.) are the bottleneck or whether Smashwords is, but it took ages (like, 2 months) and I eventually posted to Amazon myself to speed things up.
However, Smashwords does a great job with making books available in a variety of formats, which I appreciate. I didn't have any trouble meeting their style requirements either.
Posted by: Heather Wardell | June 28, 2010 at 11:36 AM
Heather thank you so much for sharing your experience with Smashwords!
Posted by: Dana Lynn Smith | June 28, 2010 at 11:54 AM
Thanks again for the links, Dana Lynn. The Smashwords team has done a "smashing" job of helping authors deal with the confusing world of digital publishing.
I agree with Heather that it can take a while for your book to get into premium distribution, but I doubt Smashwords is the bottleneck. Also, Smashwords is not yet distributing to Amazon (they need to upgrade their "Meatgrinder" formatting process to meet Amazon specifications), so going directly through the Amazon Digital Text Platform will definitely get you there faster.
Posted by: James Byrd | June 29, 2010 at 11:47 AM
Wow, I've had to update this article twice as the prices continue to fall on e-readers. I think it will definitely boost sales of the devices.
Posted by: Dana Lynn Smith | July 07, 2010 at 03:34 PM
Good point, James. I have opted out of Smashwords' Amazon distribution and made my two books available there myself in days.
Posted by: Heather Wardell | July 07, 2010 at 09:09 PM
If you are a children's books author and want to publish your book in an interactive way with voice over, different languages, recording of Mom and Dads voice and many more features, please get in contact with us: info@mobilechildrensbooks.com
More info here: www.mobilechildrensbooks.com
Posted by: Kirstin Hofkens | July 14, 2010 at 02:35 PM
If you don't live in the States or have a USA bank account you can't publish on amazon Kindle. And they don't tell you that until AFTER you've jumped through all the hoops to set it up.
Try getting a USA bank account if you're not there. Fat chance.
Smash may be slow, but it's the only way to go.
Scribd is the same as Amazon. You can pub on Scribd, but you can't sell it there. Nice guys. Still, if someone wants to buy your novel, you can provide the Smash link. So, maybe they are nice guys, after all.
Posted by: j guevara | July 14, 2010 at 05:22 PM
The hurdle of getting a work published in ebook format has been made quite simple by Smashwords - however the problem of marketing the ebook is still not resolved.
That is the holy grail of all epublishers!
Posted by: desgreene | September 15, 2010 at 11:39 AM
You no longer need a US bank account to publish to the Kindle through Amazon's DTP platform. They removed that requirement earlier this year.
I agree that Smashwords is a great place for eBooks.
Posted by: Sarah Ettritch | November 01, 2010 at 10:20 AM
Thanks for the update Sarah - that information will be helpful to authors outside the U.S.
I am a fan of Smashwords for making your ebook available for multiple ebook readers, but as of today it looks like they still aren't able to distribute to Kindle. My advice is to publish for Kindle first, then use Smashwords to make your book available for the other major ebook readers like iPad, Nook, Sony and Kobo.
By the way, I am working on my first Kindle book right now - hope to publish this week!
Posted by: Dana Lynn Smith | November 01, 2010 at 11:20 AM
Thanks for sharing the smashwords software. A Customer of mine was interested in publishing an ebook for Kindle but got stuck in the format. I will inform him about your website.
Posted by: kindle 3g wireless reading device lover | January 05, 2011 at 01:58 PM
Thanks for sharing!
Posted by: Dana Lynn Smith | January 05, 2011 at 04:49 PM