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The solutions above are the most popular and comprehensive, but there are other popular services that have their advantages and limitations. Their service is unique in that you can upload content from a blog or website and then edit or rearrange the document into final form. Pubit distributes to BN. The more complex your book, the more complex it is to format for both e-book readers and print.
If you are simply illustrating your text with images to impart information, then regular EPUB will probably be good enough for you. Successful self-publishing requires more than just uploading a book to online retailers. It requires good publishing practices like editing and design, marketing and promotion, understanding and implementing SEO and other book discovery techniques such as being active in social media. The other articles in this series and a good workbook can help. Carla King is an author, a publishing consultant, and founder of the Self-Publishing Boot Camp program providing books, lectures and workshops for prospective self-publishers.
She has self-published non-fiction travel and how-to books since and has worked in multimedia since Her series of dispatches from motorcycle misadventures around the world are available as print books, e-books and as diaries on her website. I want to create pocket sized books. Once again quoting from the Smashwords website, "if you are relatively proficient with Microsoft Word, or you have the patience to learn by following our Style Guide, it's not difficult.
We encourage authors and publishers to do their own formatting, if they're able. If you're not proficient with word processing, or you don't own Microsoft Word If you are not "relatively proficient with Microsoft Word" then Smashwords suggests that you hire someone to create a professionally formatted Word document. From reading users' experiences online this first step to prepare a book to meet the Style Guide can be as simple as making a few minor changes to your existing Word file or involving preparing a large number of iterations.
Unfortunately these "failures" can come without adequate explanations of why, leaving you in the dark. In these cases many authors give up and pay one of the formatters on " Mark's List " to finally get it accepted.
Smashwords now has another option for preparing your book called "Smashwords Direct". This is definitely the way to go if you already have an EPUB version of your book available. This is the method we used to prepare our books for Smashwords. Keep in mind that you still need to meet the Style Guide, which may require changes to the EPUB file from what you might use in other places.
This free guide offers simple step-by-step instructions to create, It's required reading for any author who wants to distribute their book via Smashwords to major ebook the Smashwords Style Guide (how to format, produce and publish an These free guides have been downloaded over , times. Smashwords Style Guide - How to Format Your Ebook (Smashwords Guides 1) The Smashwords Style Guide has helped indie authors produce and publish to Market any Book for Free: 65 Book Marketing Ideas (Smashwords Guides 2) . is the creator of Smashwords, the ebook publishing and distribution platform that.
For example, you must add the Smashwords branding to the first actual page of your book. In addition to your book file, you will also need to have an ebook cover image that meets the detailed specifications provided on the Smashwords website. If you don't already have a cover you may need to create one yourself or pay a contractor to create it for you. Smashwords also has a list of low-cost cover designers on " Mark's List ".
After you complete the Publish form, click Publish.
Smashwords will first check to make sure the Publish form is filled out completely. You will be sent back to the form to complete any missing items. When this is accomplished Smashwords will upload your ebook, ebook cover image and book information. Once Smashwords receives the information it will display the conversion page where you can watch in real time as the Meatgrinder technology generates multiple ebook formats for your book.
This takes anywhere from 1 to 3 minutes. Once the conversion completes, the AutoVetter technology will instantly analyze the book and report back if it identifies any potential formatting errors. Whether you have errors or not, the next page you'll see is the conversion confirmation page to tell you the conversion is complete. With this step completed, Smashwords will provide you a link to your new ebook page where your book is available for immediate sampling and sale.
If errors are found you will receive an email that will summarize the errors and provide instructions on how to fix them. Once your ebook as been successfully converted you can manage it via the Smashwords Dashboard. From the dashboard you can upload a new version of your ebook or cover, change the price, change the title and categorization, track the sales of your book and a variety of other activities. Smashwords works with the largest number of retail booksellers of any ebook distributor.
This is one of the most important benefits provided by Smashwords. Once you are able to submit your book and have it approved by Smashwords, they handle the conversion and interface to all the different retailers for you. This can be a significant time saver. Accumulated sales during the preorder period causes your book to rise in the bestseller lists once it is released.
While convenient, if you use the free ISBN from Smashwords they are listed as the publisher rather than yourself. This results in all of the problems we discuss in our section on ISBN numbers.
Smashwords also has a retail store of its own online Smashwords. Perhaps the handiest benefit of the retail store is it allows the author to provide coupons to their customers. For example you could provide a coupon for individuals that you would like to review your ebook.
So grab a coffee, or a tea, or even a beer if you fancy one, and join us for this interview…. What would you say to those authors?
What sets Smashwords apart from the dozens of other aggregators? The primary advantages are time-savings, simplicity and control. We allow authors to reach multiple global retailers with a single upload, and then we provide centralized control via the Smashwords Dashboard that helps expedite price updates, metatadata changes and sales reporting. Although authors have many choices, some of which charge fees and others of which are free such as Smahwords, I think authors who work with us will enjoy more tools and broader reach. With tools and broader reach come more sales opportunities.
Selling on platforms such as iBooks and Nook through Smashwords can limit merchandising opportunities, is that true? If so, is there a way around it? Can Smashwords help authors snag those merchandising opportunities with iBooks and Nook? Thousands of our authors have achieved special merchandising and promotion opportunities by distributing with Smashwords. But we will coach our authors on how to maximize their chances. The retailers make the final decisions. But they do know that our recommendations are based on actual sales results.
We hear you have recently launched something called Assetless pre-orders. Can you tell us a little about Assetless pre-orders and how they can benefit an author? Up until recently, we required authors to upload a completed manuscript to establish a preorder listing.
The downside of this restriction was that it meant authors were unable to get their preorders up until just a few days or weeks before their release date. No manuscript or cover image is required this can be added later.
This longer preorder runway allows authors to better exploit the full benefits of a preorder. Preorders are probably the single most important new book marketing tool to come along for indies in the last five years.
Any tips on getting those sales up on the actual Smashwords site? Are there any paid promotion sites that focus particularly on Smashwords as a vendor? If not, do you think we can set something up? To take full advantage of what our store has to offer, here are some quick tips:.