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Publish your ebook on Smashwords

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is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date.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 the answer!

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.

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Joanna Penn:

View Comments (27)

  • Hi. I have a question about Smashwords. You say that you need to upload a Word file without formatting or pictures? My eBook, Find the Right Man (http://www.kkbokovay.com), is full of formatting and pictures, which is part of what makes it so cool. If I take all that out, it won't be a good book anymore. Can you advise please?

  • Hi KK, The best thing to do is read the Smashwords style guide which contains details on what to do with pictures and formatting. I had some pictures in my book, but decided they could be got rid of and the text would not be impacted. You can use pictures but they have to be embedded in the text and any formatting has to be specifically done. The great thing with Smashwords is that they use a conversion tool, the Meatgrinder (!!) to change basic text into multiple formats. If you wanted to do this manually it would take forever. So yes, you may lose some of your special formatting, but simplicity allows you multiple platforms. The Style Guide has more. Plus remember, you can have multiple channels. You can still sell your fabulously formatted ebook somewhere else (like Clickbank)and also put it simply here. I sell my book "How to Enjoy Your Job" as a fabulous formatted, colour pictures PDF on Clickbank but in all other formats on Smashwords. How brilliant that we can have multiple ways of selling now!

    Thanks for your comment - Joanna

  • Hey, thanks for taking the time to answer me. I read a recent statistic that for every eBook that you sell, 20 people will want printed books. Perhaps we're just on the cusp of an eBook explosion, but are we there yet? What are you finding? Are your eBooks selling well?

  • Hi KK, that's an interesting statistic! I personally think that ebooks are just starting to happen. My husband has just got an iPhone and buys books on Stanza, I buy ebooks in PDF to read on the computer (for non fiction, how to topics) but many people I know here in Australia are not even aware of the market yet (as Kindle is not here). I think it is coming - hopefully 2009 will be a good year for it! I also have print-on-demand books at Amazon through Lulu.com so I satisfy all markets. I think at the moment, ebooks should be part of your sales channel, but possibly not the only one. In terms of sales, I have sold both ebooks and mp3 audio files reasonably well. I already had my first Smashwords sale! They also will soon have an affiliate program through Stanza so it seems like a good place to be!
    All the best, Joanna

  • Hi Joanna,
    I didn't know that there was such a thing as smashwords till I read your post. will definitely check it out and try it when I finish writing my e-book.

  • Hi Joanna:
    As a direct result of your post I've just singed up for Smashwords (and was sure to credit you as the source of my information!). As the author of a print-book but with e-rights, I intend to go ahead with them ASAP. There's one question I can't seem to get a decent answer to, though. You mention it yourself - withholding tax. I tried to 'opt out' when signing up, but couldn't. But as I understand it, WT is for US nationals. How come non-residents (especially non-taxpayers in their country of domicile) are expected to pay?
    Any thoughts?
    Tim

  • Hi Tim,
    actually with-holding tax is for NON-US residents. They essentially with-hold the tax because we won't pay any income tax in the US. You just have to bite the bullet on it. Lulu.com take it as well. Sorry, but it is a necessary evil!
    I'm glad you joined Smashwords - its a great service! Thanks, Joanna

  • This article and ensuing remind people how helpful it is to be aware of different markets and also the legalities related to different listings. Thanks for sharing such ueful insight.

  • Hi Joanna,

    Many thanks for the great advice in your article; I would appreciate it if you could help me with this query of MS Word (Vista System).

    What exatly do you mean by normal/plain text? I tried to enter "normal" into my text field and the I got a message saying that it does not exist on my system.
    If I click on use it anyway, the font changes but the bold fonts remain bold albeit the fonat changes appearance. Please advise; cheers, raj

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