Smashwords today announced a distribution agreement with Baker & Taylor, one of the world's largest distributors of physical and digital books.The agreement will expand distribution for nearly 100,000 Smashwords books to new devices and markets.
There are two components of the agreement. The first is distribution into the Blio online store and e-reading app. The second part of the agreement gains Smashwords authors and publishers distribution into the library market through Baker & Taylor's Axis360 service.
If you're not familiar with Blio, it's an online store (Blio.com) and also a popular e-reading application that has been pre-loaded on over millions of computers and devices. It powers the e-reading experience for laptops, desktops and tablets produced by Dell Computer, HP, Toshiba and T-Mobile, among others. Blio is also available in the Android store.
The agreement will also bring Smashwords ebooks to public libraries that subscribe to Baker & Taylor’s new Axis360 digital media platform. Axis360, which was launched last year, has been deployed by several top public library systems in the U.S. Dozens more libraries are converting to the platform.
Like all new Smashwords distribution channels, all Premium Catalog-approved Smashwords titles will gain automatic distribution to Blio and Axis360. As standard practice, we give authors and publishers at least 48 hours to opt out new distribution outlets if they wish, though I don't recommend opting out. This agreement will give authors and publishers important, incremental exposure for their books.
Smashwords authors and publishers will earn 60% of the list price for books sold through Blio, and 45% of the list price for books sold to libraries. The libraries are authorized to check out one purchased copy at a time. The books are DRM'd so they time out after the checkout period has expired.
Read the full press release in the Smashwords Press Room.
Please join me in welcoming Baker & Taylor to the Smashwords distribution network!
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38 comments:
"Access360" or "Axis360"? Not that it matters, but...
It's good to see a competitor in the library market that welcomes indie authors. Congratulations to all of us on our new access. Thanks To Mark & Smashwords for their good work.
Excellent news! Good to see that SW is not resting on its well-deserved laurels, but keeps on looking for new opportunities.
@webistrator thanks for the typo catch! corrected
Thank you, Mark and the Smashwords team. I'm proud to publish my books through Smashwords. You are always looking for ways to increase exposure for our books, and it definitely doesn't go unnoticed!
That's great news! Thanks Mark and Smashwords team.
Thank you Mark and the hardworking staff of Smashwords. You all rock!
Excellent news for we indie writers! More distribution channels are always welcome. Congratulations to the Smashwords team for arranging this.
Great news. Can't imagine why anyone would want to opt out. Thank you for making the opt in automatic.
I look forward to the increased exposure to my works.
Woo hoo! Congratulations :)
This is fantastic news! Thanks to Mark, the Smashwords team, and Baker-Taylor!
Great news! So glad that I discovered Smashwords! Good work Mark and staff!
sounds great, Mark. A couple questions. First, are both of these agency pricing arrangements? Second, how does Axis360 work from a end-user standpoint? Is it something visible that Amazon might price-match? My reason for asking is the nightmare that it has been getting price changes made on Kobo in a timely manner and sometimes on other outlets.
OMG this is incredible news!! Thank you so much for making this happen, Mark. I'm eagerly awaiting word on your meeting with the EFF about the whole Paypal censorship "SNAFU" but this was a phenomenally good surprise bit of news to encounter when I stopped by the blog today.
Your efforts go above and beyond. Everytime. Thank you, thank you, thank you! It's easy to stand by Smashwords when you keep standing by us!
-sry
@webbiegrrl
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/webbiegrrl
Webbiegrrl Writer on Facebook
Mark, you're the man! I love new channels. Bring 'em on! Yippee!
Pretty soon Mark, your Empire will be strong enough where you can say, "Now witness the selling power of this fully armed and operational indie market." Mark clicks the button on the throne's armrest. "Writers, you may publish when ready."
That's wonderful news, Mark!
This is great news I look forward to having a new outlet for my writing. I have a question; since they do print books will there be a way to have any of our work put in print as well. Just curious, as form what I can tell the printed area for self-publishers is extremely expensive as far as I can tell, hence no printed versions of either my wife’s work or my work.
On the PayPal crapola well I do not write Erotic stories so it doesn’t effect me. I do however, not right exactly family friendly work either.
I did not have time to send this out to my editor so please forgive any mistakes.
Quentin Graves
That's fantastic news! It is such an exciting time in the eBook market and Smashwords is always looking out for the best interested of writers and readers alike. I'm so proud to be a part of it!
Mark and Smashwords team,
I continuously get the feeling that you are working for all of us 100,000 indie publishers. I want to say it is a nice feeling.
A wonderful, win-win feeling.
Jian QIu Huang
"The YEllow Banana"
This news is Great!
http://badassbloggerguide.blogspot.com
This is wonderful news. Hooray for Smashwords and for the democratization of book publishing.
This is truly excellent news. Recently, when I mentioned on a listserve for librarians that I'd collected my anthology contributions into one book, the nearly-unanimous response was, "Great, but I didn't see it on Overdrive." It's wonderful to know I can go back to them now with an alternate vendor. Thank you, Smashwords.
Excellent news! Thank you so much Mark & Smashwords for your diligent efforts! I cannot begin to thank you for this amazing service you provide for independent authors!
Sincerely,
Luis Aponte, author of
Death of a Gas Guzzler
Thank you, Mark and the Smashwords team, for all of your efforts. Your hard work in making this happen is so greatly appreciated. This agreement with Baker and Taylor is very exciting and will open up a whole new market to us. Congratulations!
It sounds good to me. If it helps us move our stories, in my case if it helps me sell one book an improvement has been made.
I'm pleased about this development. Baker and Taylor has distributed my paper books for decades. The library market is going to continue to grow. Both additions are something to celebrate! Yeah! Another reason to love Smashwords!
...and an apology for mixing issues here. My email from the Smashwords blog contained three issues and a link back to here. So I blithely posted the foregoing response thinking it was all part of this blog post.
Clearly not. That's a separate line item. Sorry, Mark et al.
W.
This sounds like great news and I commend the Mark and the people at Smashwords for finding yet another way to get our books out there, but as a publisher we've had nothing but problems with Baker & Taylor and rarely use them anymore. The biggest problem was and is late payments - I usually have to harass my rep and the people in B&T's accounting department for months before a check is sent. I hope they treat Smashwords better than us!
@webistrator, no problem, sorry for the confusion. I removed the comment since it's not relevant to this post. Save the comment for later because it's only a matter of time before I do a post here so authors can share their views on the PayPal issue.
A wonderful addition for all of us at Smashwords, thank you.
Jewel Adams
Just one more reason Mark Coker is one of my heroes. :)
To Mark and your team, I thankyou for the effort you make on behalf of indie authors.
Many thanks Mark for continuing to open markets for Smashwords authors
As an employee of one of the library systems using Axis360 - this is fabulous news. Patrons want to borrow ebooks, and as the "Big 6" lock out more and more libraries patrons will discover all the great books now being published by Indie authors. Readers want books, writers are offering them.
That is wonderful news, Mark!
Awesome news! Hopefully this won't mean updates to the style guide, LOL! ;)
This is another milestone in the history of smashwords. SW seems not to be relenting on their previous achievements, but always seeks to add more value. It's really encouraging, kudos to SW.
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