OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna Penn
Ebooks are taking off in 2009 – with ebook readers, phones with ebook apps and the economy in a spin, you need to jump on the wave!
If you have the digital rights to your book, or if you have something you would like to self-publish, you can publish it as an ebook in a few hours and have it for sale today!
I have been selling my book, “How to Enjoy Your Job” as an ebook in PDF format for the last few months and have sold a few copies. I wanted to get it onto the Amazon Kindle, but they only accept US residents for upload. I also wanted it in other ebook formats but it seemed too complicated.
Smashwords is an ebook site where you can buy and sell ebooks in various formats. As an author, you can load your products onto the site for free (Smashwords takes 15% of sales), and it will convert your document into the various formats for you. Brilliant! This takes a lot of time and effort from us creative types who don't want to spend days reformatting.
You can have an author profile, and it will index your book for SEO and allow customers to sample your text. It has integration with Kindle and Stanza (for the iphone). You can load YouTube videos, and create coupons to allow special offers for your customers. The books can also be tagged on social networking sites so it is a great service.
This is my Smashwords page “How to Enjoy Your Job”
Here is what I learnt from my Smashwords experience this morning which may help you:
- Read the Smashwords Style Guide first – definitely! Do not assume that your file is ok to load as is!
- I tried a few variations of formatting but the best one was plain Microsoft Word. Select All and make it Normal text. Then go back through and Bold or Underline or change font size. Delete all pictures and hyperlinks. Make it as basic as possibile and this seemed the best format for conversion. The style guide does not include instructions for Microsoft Vista. Reformatting my original (very well formatted) ebook into plain format took about 1.5 hours including loading and reloading. Take breaks so you don't get too frustrated!
- You load on the same page as you fill in all the header data, so if you make a mistake or the format is unable to be loaded, you lose this information. Keep a copy of your blurb text and tags separately so you can just paste it back in. (Recommendation for improvement Smashwords!)
- Check the HTML and Java versions and make changes, then reload as necessary. It took me a few tries!
- As a non-US resident I can sell on Smashwords, I just have to email a copy of the with-holding tax form and have 40% with-held. I get this with Lulu.com as well but what can you do! Legality is important! This is much better than the Kindle direct load which does not allow non-US residents.
- Once you are all set up, use the Smashwords Marketing Guide to see how to broadcast about your book.
To start the Smashwords publishing process, register for an account, and just follow the instructions. You load a profile with your websites and info, and then Publish your ebook. It is still in Beta (improvements are still being made) but you can start selling today!
ADDITIONAL NOTE:
After posting this, I had a great email from Mark Coker, who runs Smashwords. His team are looking into making the loading easier. This is also great customer service! Here is an interview with Mark at Joe Wikert's blog.
Smashwords is also now a catalogue on Stanza on the iPhone.
*************************************
Like this article? Subscribe to my RSS feed by email or in a RSS reader.
Huw says
On the withholding tax — it’s worth reading Lulu.com’s explanation of this:
http://www.lulu.com/uk/help/royalty_faq#royalty_with-holding
I’ve already asked smashwords to provide something similar on their site, and to clarify what they do. Eg lulu says that w/t only applies to items delivered in the USA; does smashwords withhold tax on a sale made in my home market (which is the UK)? I couldn’t tell when I searched their site.
Anyway, depending on where you live, you might have a reduced liability for this tax, though there are a couple of forms to fill in and some documents need to be notarised. Probably not worth it for smaller amounts, but with strong sales it sticks in the craw to be taxed at 30% by the USA and then again on the already-taxed income by your own country.
Since there’s no reason for an ebook seller to be located in any particular tax jurisdiction, I’m hoping that an international competitor will spring up that won’t be obliged to withhold this tax 🙂
chezjim says
I’m curious. Since your original post, have you actually received any income? I’ve had several books up on Smashwords since 12/09 . None have made it to Sony at all so far (my original reason for using them), but figures on the Barnes and Noble site seem to indicate I’ve made some sales there. But still no revenue reported.
How’s this worked for you?
Joanna Penn says
Hi Jim,
Great question! I have seen very little sales on Smashwords, but there are a few reasons for that I think
a) I sell direct from this site as PDF which is the majority of my sales so far
b) I think Smashwords is better for fiction (or seems that way from the outside)
c) I sell direct from Amazon DTP on the Kindle and make a fair few sales that way, so I get people from that market as opposed to through Smashwords.
d) I don’t promote my Smashwords profile at all actually, although I actively promote the company itself because I think it is wonderful for indie authors.
So I haven’t made too many sales (although I do have some revenue actually reported so that works) but I am also not focusing on it as a primary sales channel.
The Smashwords Marketing Guide
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/305
is very good for helping promote your actual Smashwords site so maybe have a look at that.
Mark Coker, the founder is also a lovely approachable person, so you could email him with any issues.
Thanks so much, Joanna
chezjim says
Thanks for the response, Joanna.
I have a lot of outlets myself. And in fact I wasn’t really expecting many sales through Smashwords itself. But I would think its main attraction is that it provides access to other, larger channels (including the heavily touted but so far as I know still not active Sony link), so, given that some of my books exist in ebook only in Smashwords versions, I’d expect a bit more action (as I do get on CreateSpace, Lulu and Kindle). It may just be that this has happened on Barnes and Noble but having no idea when sales figures will actually come through I can’t say.
Nancy says
I’ve helped to get two books up on Smashwords; I’d love an answer to the following question. How is it possible that I upload a doc that is NOT double-spaced, but it uploads as double and then MY copy on my desktop shows up as double-spaced? This has happened both times, and once I remove all the extra spaces, it’s fine. Any ideas?
Joanna Penn says
That does sound odd Nancy. I suspect it is something to do with MS Word formatting or whatever word processor you use. Sometimes they are a law unto themselves!
Sally Huss says
Hi Joanna,
I’ve read Smashwords Guide until I’m blue in the face! Haven’t figured out how to get rid of floating images. I do children’s books and need the images. I have followed what Smashwords suggests: click on image/format picture/layout/ok/save — but it still moves if I left click and drag the image around. I’ve tried to ask Smashwords, but am referred to the same info. Do you have an answer?
On more question — do you know of authors who are actually earning significant incomes from Smashwords?
Many thanks.
Joanna Penn says
Hi Sally, I must confess to not being very clever in the formatting area! Mark Coker at Smashwords has a list of people who can help you so you can just email him for that. Or contact my friend Simon who is a children’s author who also formats ebooks http://www.bookdesign.me.uk/
On the money side, Ruth Ann Nordin does very well – she talks about it in this interview – I’d say $20,000+ is a pretty good taking 🙂
http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2011/04/15/book-marketing-for-introverts-with-ruth-ann-nordin/
chezjim says
Interesting to read my own comments and those of others going back a few years.
I do make significant – not life-changing – income on Smashwords, comparable to what I make on Barnes and Noble and Kindle. It only comes in every few months and their stats are ungodly complicated, which makes it hard to track as exactly as I do other channels. Lulu for instance gives you, plain and simple, a list of all-time sales for each book. Extracting this from Smashwords’ spreadsheets is less than straightforward, as is reconciling the total money due at left with the different amounts shown in the grids at right. But in general it’s doing as well as the others overall.
Ironically Sony, my original target in joining, remains pretty minimal in terms of sales. For a big company they seem to have completely missed the boat on the importance of content vs technology.
There are books I still can’t put up on Smashwords. Anything with lots of footnotes is hopeless – you really don’t want to “nuke” this kind of document and start from scratch. It would help if their Meatgrinder had a way of simply converting footnotes to the format they use. As for “floating images”, I’ve never tried that (another thing Smashwords needs is a test bed, so you can try things out without their going on sale). But any complexity of formatting is generally iffy at this point.
Joanna Penn says
Thanks Jim, most of us non-US people need Smashwords to get on B&N as well as the rest of them – so it makes sense in general to be on it – but with the advent of Kindle Select it will be interesting to see if Smashwords loses indie market share with the exclusivity deal.
Huw Thomas says
Joanna, since my previous comment above (about withholding tax) I’ve signed several books up with Bookbaby which *doesn’t* withhold tax from non-US authors, and which distributes to B&N (non-agency) as well as iBookstore & Amazon (both agency), and Sony (non-agency) for their respective devices. The agency thing is important because B&N and Sony will discount — typically by 20% — meaning that Amazon will then price-match, taking a certain amount of pricing control away from you.
They have up-front fees instead of taking a cut as smashwords does, so on balance smashwords will be a better deal for lower-sellers, while bookbaby will be better for big-sellers.
Another non-wittholding-tax distributor I looked at is inscribedigital.com, but I haven’t signed with them. They could be worth checking out though.
As to why some of these companies withhold while others don’t … I tracked down both the appropriate US tax legislation and the IRS guidance leaflet, and it turns out that only certain kinds of revenue are subject to withholding. My understanding (backed up by what I observe) is that if a publishing intermediary pays you a royalty, or gives you some kind of retail presence in the USA, then they have to withhold. I suspect that if Smashwords didn’t have their web-store, but instead acted purely as a distributor, they could pay all non-US authors in full.
Joanna Penn says
Thanks Huw, I think BookBaby do offer a good service and they do formatting etc as well, so definitely a competitor to Smashwords in that way. I did fill in a withholding tax form for the US and got all my tax back , so that can definitely be done. W8-BEN I think it’s called. But it is a minefield, that’s for sure!
Huw Thomas says
Great news on getting your ITIN and tax refund, Joanan! I’d be interested to know how you handled the passport certification, since that’s the thing that seems trickiest (or at least, most expensive, given the price that international notaries seem to charge. I have heard of someone in the UK who used the Post Office’s document certification service successfully, but I don’t suppose one can rely on that).
Joanna Penn says
I didn’t have to do that Huw. I have a company so got an EIN and then just phoned the IRS for the tax number and then put that on the W8-BEN – I think it’s much harder to do it as an individual than for a company.
Huw Thomas says
Thanks Joanna, that’s very interesting since (perhaps) if you’re doing enough business to make this a major issue, then you might well be doing enough business to justify setting up a company — thus bypassing the jungle that is an individual ITIN application.
Rick Crawford says
Very helpful. I’m going to do it. I’m wondering if I get an e-book copy. Of course I do, but not for free. Also, can I put it on my site as an ebook. In other words, do I own the e-book copy?
Joanna Penn says
Hi Rick, yes, you own the ebook copy – you remain the publisher. Thanks.