Smashwords

[J H GAINES]

has anyone published on smashwords I am thinking of giving it a go but was hoping to get some feedback before I go ahead.

Any opinions will be appreciated

JHG

[Brittany Weddle]

I published my first book with Smashwords and the feedback's been incredible. I would deffently suggest that you give it a shot.

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Smashwords Author Page

Amazon Author Page

My Blog

[J H GAINES]

Thanks Brittany, 

I currently have three books published on Amazon, do you know if I am allowed to publish on both, i have tried to fathom Amazons term and conditions but most of it looks like 'gobbledy gook' to me.

[Brittany Weddle]

You sure are. My book is published wiht both amazon KDP and Smashwords (as well as in print), but make sure that when you decide to publish with Smashwors, that you download their style guide. That will tell you everything you need to know in order to publish with them. You can find it for free here. The guild might seem a bit long and overwhelming, but stick with it.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. And you can always find the answers you are looking for at the Smashwords Faq section

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Smashwords Author Page

Amazon Author Page

My Blog

[Irina Shapiro]

Hi.  I uploaded my books to Amazon and Barnes and Noble, but had a very hard time with Smashwords.  It just kept rejecting my document.  After a while I just gave up, since I signed on with Amazon's KDP and you have to give them exclusive rights anyway.  I think that I probably benefited a lot more from Amazon's lending library than I would have sold on Smashwords.  Definately worth a try though.  I also tried Lulu, but it didn't work well for me.

Irina Shapiro

www.irinashapiro.com

 

[J H GAINES]

That's great news!

 I am going to give it a go, fingers crossed with the formatting.

Thank you again

[Allison Aileen Masters]

Hi J.H.,

I would upload on smashwords because they distribute to a few different places, but just keep in mind that the process to upload can take awhile especially for the premium channel.

The second book that I uploaded took a few weeks....so patience is key. Hope that helps.

Allison

[Richard Lee Byers]

I published on Amazon and Smashwords. And I have nothing bad to say about Smashwords. You might as well put your stuff there. But for me at least, Amazon has turned out to be where the sales action is.

[J H GAINES]

Thanks for all the input guys, it is very helpful, I am going to give it a go, as one of my characters says in Child of Aquarius

'you cant hit a home run until you swing the bat' 

I have just downloaded the formatting guide for smashwords and it looks a challenge to say the least.

I first thought about publishing on Amazon in February but gave up when i could not format my book, but in May I spent about a week getting it right  where after many uploads I finally got the book looking presentable.

The Amazon system was pretty easy to use once I got the hang of it mainly because of the previewer function where I could try different formats until I got the one that worked.

On smashwords I see they use something called the  'meatgrinder' is this similar to Amazon?

[Brittany Weddle]

The meatgrinder what they call when they download your book to all the different formats (i.e.  mobi, PDF, HTML, just to name a few.) That allows different people to download yoour book to whatever e-reading device they have (i.e. kindle, nook, sony, kobo and a bunch of others) A word of caution though: when you opt in for the supreme catalog, which allows your book to be "shipped" to all the different retailers like Barns and Noble, the iBook store, and Baker and Taylor, make sure to opt out of amazon if your book is already available there otherwise your book will appear twice in the kindle format. I know this all seems overwhelming but hang in there and as always, if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask.

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Smashwords Author Page

Amazon Author Page

My Blog

 

[Richard Lee Byers]

Smashwords's "meatgrinder" is a program that takes what you upload and converts it to half a dozen different formats for all different sorts of e-readers.

You say you have the formatting guide. Follow it meticulously, step by step, without trying to take any shortcuts, and you should be fine. I was. My first time preparing a document for Smashwords took about an hour.

If you get something wrong, they'll send you a message indicating what the problem was (or probably was.) Then you just try again.

[Sadie S. Forsythe]

I also have a book on Smashwords. The formating in very detailed, but you can hire someone to do it for under $50. I don't think it's too bad a price for something that can take hours. I haven't had a lot of sales on Smashwords compared to Amazon or B&N, but the ability to produce coupons allowing people to download the book in any format is really useful. So is the fact that they aggregate to kobo, etc. 

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Smashwords

[Deana Van Nice]

I was looking into Smashwords myself and this article has been so helpful!