Smashwords and Diesel Partner to Expand Ebook Distribution Opportunities for Indie Authors and Publishers

Smashwords today announced a two-part ebook distribution partnership with the Diesel eBook Store, a leading independent ebook retailer.

The agreement expands ebook distribution opportunities for thousands of current and future Smashwords authors and publishers.

Under the first part of the agreement, Diesel has become the latest ebook retailer to join the Smashwords distribution network. In addition to Diesel, we now distribute our books to the Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and Sony, as well as to mobile app platforms such as Aldiko for Android devices, and Stanza for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

All Smashwords Premium Catalog titles will go live at Diesel by August 19. If you're a Smashwords author and your books have been accepted into the Premium Catalog, your books will automatically go to Diesel unless you opt out from your Dashboard's Channel Manager in the next two days (the only reason to opt out is if your book is already distributed to Diesel via a different distributor).

Smashwords authors and publishers will set the retail price and earn 60% of every sale. If you're not in the Premium Catalog, or you're not familiar with the process, please click here for the Smashwords Distribution Information page.

For the second part of the agreement, Diesel has selected Smashwords to power its new Diesel Publishing Portal. Like most smart ebook retailers, Diesel is committed to offering its customers the broadest possible selection of ebook titles. By partnering with Smashwords to power its publishing portal, Diesel makes it faster and easier for indie authors and small publishers to sell their titles on Diesel. Diesel is the second major ebook retailer to choose Smashwords to power their co-branded publishing portal. Sony was the first.

I expect more retailers in the future will select Smashwords as their publishing portal partner. Why? It's very expensive for a retailer to enter into contractual distribution relationships with each individual indie author and small publisher. For most retailers, large and small, they pay essentially the same amount for every book sold, whether they source the book directly from the author or publisher, or from a distributor such as Smashwords. By utilizing Smashwords, a retailer can quickly and efficiently ingest thousands of new books at no cost, whereas the alternative is to spend millions of dollars to staff and duplicate what Smashwords has already created.

In Diesel's case, they will encourage all authors and publishers with fewer than 100 titles to utilize Smashwords as the recommended onramp into the Diesel store.

As a Smashwords author or publisher, it's important you maximize the digital shelf presence for your books. Smashwords is committed to helping you do this, as demonstrated by our agreement with Diesel today.

Smashwords has multiple other signed distribution agreements in our pipeline that we haven't yet announced.

As I mentioned in my July 24 post, How Indie Ebooks will Transform the Future of Book Publishing, ebook retailers are an essential component of every indie author's book marketing strategy. If you're only selling your book at the largest ebook retailers, you're selling yourself short. Each ebook retailer helps you reach new and unique readers that don't shop at other retail outlets.

Click here to read the full press release, issued this morning.

Smashwords Puts Authors and Publishers in Control of Pricing

Our authors and publishers spoke (and some wrote, screamed, begged and politely asked), and we listened.

Effective today, all Smashwords retailers are pricing Smashwords books at the price set by the author or publisher. No more discounting.

It also means we have significantly increased the royalties we pay our authors and publishers.

To summarize how we got here, and what it means to Smashwords authors, publishers and readers, let's take a stroll down memory lane to review how books have traditionally been priced, distributed and sold.

For most of the last several decades, the book industry worked under a wholesale pricing model. A publisher would ship their books to a distributor or wholesaler, who would then sell the books to brick and mortar bookstores. In advance, the publishers and their supply chain partners would work out a discount schedule in which the retailer would purchase the book for some percentage off of the suggested retail price.

For example, a retail bookstore might purchase books from the wholesaler/distributor for 50% off of list price, which means the retailer would pay $15 for each $30 list price book they sell. The retailer could then set the price. Most retailers, taking advantage of their close proximity to the customer and their understanding of consumer behavior, had the ability to discount the book to such a price that they could achieve their objective.

For example, if a retailer's objective was to maximize the per-copy profit, they might sell the book at list price (when I was Brazil in October, I learned some airport bookstores sell print books for more than the list price). If the retailer wanted to maximize their overall profits, they might sell the book at a discount and make up the difference in increased volume. If a retailer wanted to attract buyers into their store, they might even sell the book at below cost.

To the author and the publisher, the discounting didn't make a difference, because the author and publisher were paid a fixed percentage of the suggested list price. Retailers liked this pricing model because it gave them the flexibility and freedom to use price to help serve their customers and serve their bottom line. Everyone was happy.

Then ebooks came on the scene, and the pricing of ebooks followed the same general wholesale model, only rather than shipping physical copies of a dead-tree book to a warehouse or distributor, the publishers or their distributors would ship a single digital copy of the book to the retailer, and the retailer would make digital copies each time they sold one.

Retailers, responding to customers who expected to pay less for ebooks than print books, started aggressively discounting. Many publishers dreaded such discounting for fear it would devalue books, or would cannibalize print book sales. Then Amazon, in an effort to serve their customers, started selling many best-seller ebooks for under $9.99 - for less than what Amazon had to pay the publisher for the book.

An ebook price war broke out, and other ebook retailers tried to match Amazon's price.

Now remember, in the print world, publishers didn't care too much if a retailer discounted the book, since the publisher is paid based on a predetermined discount off of list. Publishers also understood that if the retailers couldn't sell through their inventory of books, those books would be returned to the publisher for a full refund. So the discounting double-benefited the publishers.

You might think the publishers would have been happy that Amazon and other retailers were pricing books at below cost. The low costs drove up demand, helped accelerate the growth of the ebook market, and helped the publishers sell more books.

But no, the big New York publishers were not pleased. They feared that Amazon and other retailers, by pricing their books under $10.00, were devaluing books and setting an inappropriate customer expectation that ebooks should be priced at $9.99 or less. Publishers feared Amazon was exerting too much control over prices, and further feared that some day Amazon would come back to publishers and demand greater discounts, thereby permanently lowering the publisher's list prices and profits.

When Apple came on the scene in April 2010 with a new pricing model known as "agency," one in which the publisher set the price and Apple, acting as a sales agent, would not discount, five of the big six New York publishers jumped for glee. Finally, they thought, Apple would be their savior - their counterbalance - to Amazon's increasing influence in the ebook business. Publishers also appreciated that Apple would pay them 70% of the list price, as opposed to the traditional 50% or less that they earned under the conventional wholesale pricing model.

So the five big New York Publishers - now known as the Agency Five or A5 - put a gun to the heads of all the major ebook retailers, and basically told them, "you need to either switch us to the agency model April 1 or we're going to stop allowing you to sell our books." As you might imagine, the retailers were not pleased. First, no one appreciates threats, especially from suppliers who are supposed to be your partners. And second, if you take away a retailer's ability to control the price, you make it difficult for retailers to do what they do best, which is to use price as a tool to sell more product and make customers happy.

Amid this awkward shift to agency for the A5, the A5 also gave second shrift to the smaller independent ebook retailers, even though a thriving ecosystem of indie ebook retailers would assist the A5's master plan of creating a counterbalance to Amazon. Due to logistical problems, contractual holdups, tax collection requirements and prioritization, the small indie ebook retailers were not allowed to switch immediately to agency, which meant that the indie retailers lost access to most of the best-selling books in April. I'm told more than one indie retailer went out of business after the virtual rug was pulled out from underneath them when they could no longer sell these books.

The move to agency also created conflict within the supply chain, and it created challenges for Smashwords authors too. Prior to the advent of agency, three our original retailers - Barnes & Noble, Sony and Kobo - were under the traditional wholesale retailer model. Previously, most Smashwords authors and publishers didn't care that their books were discounted, because the discounting only helped sell more ebooks, which benefited authors, publishers and readers.

But then around July, Amazon increased their royalty rates for direct publishers to match the Apple 70%. For the authors who chose to work directly with Amazon, they had to agree that their books would not be sold elsewhere for less, and if Amazon discovered the book priced elsewhere for less, they had the right to discount the author's book to price-match the competition.

This is when the proverbial fertilizer hit the fan for some Smashwords authors who publish direct with Amazon via DTP and then use Smashwords for all the non-Amazon retailers. I recall receiving one especially frantic email from a Smashwords author on disability retirement who was faced with the prospect of seeing his Amazon sales slashed due to discounting at our retailers. This author, like some other panicked authors who had been selling at Amazon for a long time, decided to remove their books from Smashwords retailers. This, to me, was an especially disconcerting trend, because these authors were hurting themselves by removing their books from important retailers like B&N, Sony and Kobo. Some of these authors even removed their books from our Apple channel, or unpublished their books at Smashwords altogether, even though Smashwords and Apple have never discounted. When someone yells "FIRE," it's tough to think straight. Matters weren't helped when some authors, clearly talented on the imagination front but lacking hard details, jumped to erroneous conclusions in online message boards, which further fueled more panicked responses.

When an author pulls a book from retail, it destroys their sales rank, they lose all their reviews, and they deny themselves the opportunity to reach new readers. In other words, no author in their right mind should ever remove a book from retail.

On the other hand, it's difficult to maintain your right mind when your friends are panicking too, and you're suffering real measurable harm when an auto-pricing robot cuts the price of your book at the largest retailer - a retailer said to control 70% or more of the ebook market. Remember, Amazon had every right to do these price corrections - and the authors agreed to this when they signed the Amazon contract - though it did create a situation where some authors felt forced to take actions to preserve their sales at Amazon. Some of these authors eventually waded back in, or tried to compensate for the expected discounting by raising prices at Smashwords, or raising prices across the board.

The obvious solution to me, given the impossibility of managing two incompatible pricing models, was to give our authors and publishers complete control over the price of their books. We've always done this for sales at Smashwords.com, our small retail operation, but I knew it would be a bigger challenge to move our retailers to the agency model, or something agency-like. Needless to say, none of our retailers were too keen to do this when I first started requesting this in June. I can't blame them for their hesitation, because the agency model creates all kinds of complexity and expense for the retailer to administer. I imagine many were still smarting from the insult of being forced to do it in the first place by the A5.

Today, however, I'm pleased to report that Kobo, Barnes & Noble and Sony have transitioned all Smashwords books to the new model. I'm also pleased to report that unlike the tactics used by the Agency 5, we did not put a gun to the head of our retailers. No shots fired, no threats made. In the end, I think each retail partner decided on their own that what is best for Smashwords authors and publishers is also what's best for them and their customers in the long term.

Possibly I have a different view of our retailers than the view from the large publishers. I see our retailers as true partners. Our mission at Smashwords is to help our authors and publishers connect with readers. One of ways we accomplish this is by supporting our retail partners because they more than anyone know how to connect readers with books.

Every once in a while I'll see people suggest authors should only sell their ebooks direct on their own websites, as if all intermediaries between the author and the reader are to be excised. Those folks are smoking opium. Smart authors put their books at retailers who can put their books in front of customers.

So effective immediately, all our retailers are on the same page. Like with our other agency retailers Apple and Diesel, we now pay our authors and publishers 60% of the author/publisher-determined list price for books sold at Kobo, Barnes & Noble and Sony. Simple.

Well, mostly simple. Here are some additional fine print details of interest to Smashwords authors and publishers:

This change means that for sales at B&N and Sony, we have significantly increased our royalty rates. Previously, we paid 42.5% of your suggested list price. The new 60% represents a 42% increase (42.5*1.42=60). At Kobo, we've increased our rate from 46.75% list to 60% list for most sales, a 28% increase. At Kobo, the new royalty rate applies for books priced between $.99 and $12.99, and only for dollar-denominated sales. We can no longer ship books to B&N that carry the price "Reader Sets the Price," so if you're one of the very few authors with this price setting, and you want distribution to B&N, then please change your price asap to $.99 or higher. All three have the freedom to price match if the same book is sold elsewhere for less. Make sure your prices at Smashwords are the same as elsewhere. Click to your Smashwords Dashboard's Channel Manager for summarized details.

With this change comes new responsibility for authors and publishers to price their books at a level customers want to pay. Here, I think indie authors and small publishers do a much better job than the big publishers. Already, the average book at Smashwords is priced under $5.00. At $5.00, a Smashwords author earns $3.00 profit for every book sold at retail. Large publishers can't compete against that (a traditional mass market paperback sold for $8.00 earns the author about 40 cents), which is one of the reasons I firmly believe the future of publishing lies in the hands of indie authors and small publishers, and in the years ahead we'll see more and more big-name authors go indie. They can earn more money per sale while serving their readers with a lower cost product. It's a win-win for the author and reader.

If you'd like to learn more about the agency model, Mike Shatzkin did a good post on it a few days ago at his Idealogical blog in which he concluded agency pricing represents the most significant event in 2010 for the publishing industry. Click here to access it.

If you'd like to learn about the transition to agency from the perspective of an indie ebook retailer, Kelley Allen over at Diesel has been posting a fascinating blow by blow as the events unfolded from April through today. She thinks the agency model will eventually be good for indie retailers and customers in the long term, though the path to here was fraught with much pain. Some links from the Diesel blog:

April: Most of the posts on this page deal with agency. Start at the bottom first for a chronological blow by blow: http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?m=201004

May:
Jilted (this caused quite a stir): http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?p=124

Day 43, Landing Harper Collins: http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?p=137

Day 45 days, they got Penguin: http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?p=130

June:
Mobi announces that they are no long selling Agency
http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?p=161
http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?p=179

July:
Diesel inteviewed by Kat Meyer of O'Reilly about Agency
http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?p=201

September:
Day 153: Hachette back up http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?p=368

October:
S&S back up http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?p=520

Nov:
Kelley Allen's recap of her latest thoughts on agency
http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?p=704

My sincere thanks to Smashwords authors, publishers and especially our retail partners for their support in helping us navigate these exciting times.

If you're not yet using Smashwords as your ebook publishing and distribution platform, please join the over 10,000 indie authors and publishers who now collectively publish and distribute over 25,000 books at Smashwords. To learn more, visit How to Publish and Distribute Ebooks with Smashwords. Or, view the Introduction to Smashwords post on the Smashwords Blog.

John Buffalo Mailer publishes Music, Food, and Death at Smashwords

John Buffalo Mailer, the author, journalist, actor and playwright son of Norman Mailer, has published a great ebook at Smashwords titled, Music, Food, and Death.

The ebook explores post-Katrina New Orleans through the eyes of strippers.

As part of the Read an Ebook Week promotion, you can download it now through Saturday March 13 for free, exclusively at Smashwords or at Diesel-Ebooks. In the weeks ahead, the ebook will also be available at Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and Amazon.

John Buffalo Mailer is the youngest of nine children of this literary family. His father, the two-time Pulitzer-prize-winning literary giant, requires little introduction. His mother, Norris Church Mailer, is an accomplished novelist, painter, and model. Random House is publishing her memoirs next month, titled, "A Ticket To The Circus."

As you might imagine with such literary heritage, John Buffalo was raised with a profound respect for the written word. "Writing was religion in our family," he told me the other day.

It was my privilege to meet Buffalo a few weeks ago in New York, thanks to an introduction by Kelley Allen over at Diesel eBooks.

Buffalo faced an interesting conundrum. Playboy Magazine had paid him to write this cool story about post-Katrina New Orleans, but due to a restructuring at the magazine Playboy was unable to publish it. The rights had reverted back to him, and he was looking for a venue to bring the story to life.

Long story made short, Buffalo published Music, Food, and Death yesterday at Smashwords.

Today, I published the first part of my exclusive two-part interview with John Buffalo over at the Huffington Post. The first part focuses on Music, Food, and Death and the second part, which will appear Monday, explores how his father helped shape him as a writer.

Download book now at Smashwords or at Diesel eBooks. It's free through tomorrow, and then it goes to $1.99.

(April Fools) Smashwords Acquires Amazon

Smashwords today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Amazon.

As you might imagine, this is exciting news for us. We launched Smashwords three years ago, and now this happens. We are blessed.

In the last 18 months, Smashwords has developed successful ebook distribution relationships with the Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and the Diesel eBookstore. Noticeably absent from the list is Amazon, the world's largest ebook retailer. Problem solved.

The combined company is named Smashazon.

I can hear the naysayers already. Sure, $69 billion is a lot of pay for distribution, but we think it's money well-spent, especially when it's someone else's money. We purchased Amazon with one of those no-money-down deals sponsored by the US Treasury Department. Full details are below in our our official press release.

Other naysayers probably think this is some cruel April Fool's prank. Can we help it that April 1 landed on April 1? Read on and decide for yourself.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Smashwords Acquires Amazon in World’s Largest Leveraged Buyout

(Los Mirages, Calif. and Seattle WA) – April 1, 20111 – Smashwords, a leading ebook distributor, today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Amazon for $149.99 a share or $69 billion, a 20% discount off of yesterday’s closing list price.

The merger will create the world’s largest ebook publishing and distribution platform serving billions of authors, publishers and consumers worldwide.

The combined company, to be renamed Smashazon, will undergo a strategic product line rationalization.

Although Amazon has achieved minor success in the ebook market, the Smashwords management team believes it can lead Amazon to greater success by eliminating its distracting non-book operations.

“Amazon’s doing bang-up business in edible undergarments,” said Mark Coker, founder and CEO of the company formerly known as Smashwords. “Although we appreciate their focus on customer satisfaction, these products don’t fit with our palate or long term vision. We’d rather please the customer with words. The words of great stories light up our imaginations to create sights, sounds, smells and experiences more vivid than reality.“

The Smashwords management team is optimistic the former Amazon can leverage some of their non-book experience to sell more ebooks.

“Ebooks could taste and smell better,” said Jeffrey Bezos, former Amazon CEO who will assume the new position of Chief Satisfaction Officer at Smashazon. “We will fully service the needs of our customers.”

Following the acquisition, Smashazon will operate as a private company. The combined companies’ physical operations will be consolidated into the current Smashwords Smashoplex campus in Los Mirages, California.

Financing for the leveraged buyout was arranged by Smashwords Bank, N.A., a newly formed FDIC-insured banking institution that has secured a $69 billion credit line facility. The massive credit line, which makes this the largest-ever leveraged buyout in world history, was enabled by a new US Federal Reserve zero –interest– rate economic stimulus program called “Regulated Overnight Treasury Facilitation Loan Maturity Acquisition Obligations,“ better known as ROTFLMAO.

At a press conference to announce the acquisition, Coker said he expects the new Smashazon will pay off the US taxpayer-funded loan within five years, based on his projection that ebooks will grow from 10 percent of the overall book market today to over 450 percent of the market within three to five years.

“Amazon generated over $3 billion dollars in cash flow in 2010, and Smashwords generated nearly that much,” added Coker with an air of understated modesty that led some market observers to infer Smashwords’ cash flow might actually exceed Amazon’s.

“This acquisition proves that Smashwords is bigger than Amazon, otherwise the acquisition wouldn’t have been possible,” said one publishing industry consultant in attendance who requested anonymity.

When a reporter challenged Coker about the mathematical impossibility of any market growing to 450% of its future size, Coker responded, “We were wrong to underestimate the growth of ebooks to date, so the laws of probability therefore indicate an underestimation of the probable potential of ebooks in the future, no matter how improbable. The market will grow faster than any of us expect, which means my projections understate the true potential of the ebook market.”

Smashwords, which was founded a mere three years ago, now publishes and distributes over 41,000 ebooks from 16,000 authors and publishers around the world. The company’s catalog, which added 5,400 books in the last 30 days, is on track to surpass over 75,000 ebooks by the end of 2011.

Smashwords distributes ebooks to most of the major ebook stores, including the Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and the Diesel eBook store. Noticeably absent from this list is Amazon, a problem now remedied by the acquisition.

“We’re thrilled our ebooks can now flow to our new Smashazon KindleWords store,” said Coker.

One Smashwords insider, who asked not to be identified, commented, “We reached profitability last year, but billions in profits? I want a raise! Our office is only 1,200 square feet, so where are all those thousands of Amazonian employees going to fit? And we’re based in Los Gatos, not Los Mirages. This smells of an April Fools prank to me.”

About Smashazon
Created by the fictional merger of Smashwords and Amazon on April 1, 20111, Smashazon, Inc. will again become known as Smashwords starting April 2, 2011. Founded in 2008, privately held Smashwords operates the world’s leading ebook publishing and distribution platform serving authors, publishers, readers and retailers. Smashwords makes it free, fast and easy for the world’s authors and publishers to publish and distribute multi-format ebooks. Smashwords puts authors and publishers in full control over the pricing, sampling and marketing of their works. Authors and publishers receive 85 percent of the net proceeds from sales of their works. Smashwords has distribution relationships with leading online retailers such as Apple, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and the Diesel eBook Store, and also distributes to the leading mobile e-reading apps including Aldiko and Stanza. Smashwords is based in Los Gatos, California, and can be reached on the web at http://www.smashwords.com/. Visit the official Smashwords blog at http://blog.smashwords.com/.

###

Our previous April Fool's prank was in 2009 when we announced an ebook deal with JK Rowling (we can wish, can't we!?!)

Ruth Ann Nordin Shares Her Secrets to Success

Ruth Ann Nordin has built a successful business self-publishing romance novels. In our interview, she tells how she grew her readership and sales, and offers encouragement to other authors who may from time to time consider giving up. "Keep writing and publishing," she says, "Most of all, have fun writing..."

[David Weir] You've been very successful at Smashwords. Please tell us how you've done it.

[Ruth Ann Nordin] I heard about Smashwords in 2009 from Joanna Penn's podcast at The Creative Penn, and thought it would be fun to make ebooks. At the time, it was an experiment to see how the process worked and to share what I learned with others on my blog. As Smashwords opened up distribution channels, I opted in for all but Amazon because I was already publishing directly on Amazon (and I started that back in 2009 as well). Early on, I made all of my books free on Smashwords so people interested in my books could use any format they preferred to read them. I don't remember when I switched to $0.99 on most of my books, but I kept a couple of them free. I think it's the free books and offering them in as many avenues as possible that ultimately set me on the road to selling books for $0.99.

It wasn't until 2011 that I started asking $2.99 for my new books. I've experimented with pricing and found that for old books, free or $0.99 worked best, and new ones worked best at $2.99. Pricing up might have made me the same money, but I was more interested in exposure so that's why I like keep a couple books at free and my old ones (from 2009 to 2010) at $0.99. The trade off on losing money with free books to reach out to new readers who might then buy my other books has been one of my best tools. I also used to keep a first draft blog, and that was the best way my target audience found me. I posted my Facebook information on the blog, and they friended me over there. Between the comments on the blog and on Facebook, I was able to open a dialogue with my readers who gave me a better idea of what I was doing right and focused on doing more of that in future books. I'm not sure what worked best, but it's safe to say all of this worked together.

[DW] We understand you actually sell more books through Smashwords than through Amazon?

[RAN] Yes, and I recently made a blog post that tracked my sales from 2009 to November 2011. Here is what I got:

Amazon numbers
2009: 709 books sold; total earned about $160.
2010: 40,452 books sold; total earned about $15,500 (all of my books were $0.99)
2011 (up to the end of November):
•Books sold at all Amazon stores: 96,333
•Breakdown of sales earned through Amazon: US was a little over $44,000, UK was about $14,000, and DE was like $10 a month totaling $58,000.
•The $2.99 price on new titles made a big difference, as did word of mouth because at this point, I was doing no real marketing outside of blog posts and Facebook mingling
•Books given away for free on Amazon using their price matching strategy: 240,781 (this is separate from paid sales)

Smashwords numbers
2009: I made $0 from Smashwords. I also sold no books in other venues. But to be fair, all of my books were free back then on Smashwords, and I don’t remember when Smashwords started distributing to other sites.

2010 breakdown:
•Apple: 4,223 books sold and given away for free
•B&N: 66,291 books sold and given away for free
•Diesel: 230 books sold and given away for free
•Kobo: 55,025 books sold and given away for free
•Sony: 51,599 books sold and given away for free
•Total income from Smashwords in 2010: $2,860.

2011 breakdown:
•Apple: 36,919 books sold and given away for free
•B&N: 555,994 books sold and given away for free
•Diesel: 2,169 books sold and given away for free
•Kobo: 92,119 books sold and given away for free
•Sony: 36,930 books sold and given away for free
•Total income from Smashwords in 2011: $75,100

[DW] What does it mean for you to be an independent author, as opposed to the old-fashioned kind?

[RAN] Being an independent author means that I have the freedom to control everything about my books. I get to control content, the title, the cover, the price, when it's published, and if I want to post it for free on my blog or not.

[DW] How long have you been writing and did you ever try conventional publishing?

[RAN] Unlike most authors, I hated reading and writing early in life. It wasn't until I read my first Sweet Valley High book (a teen romance) back in the sixth grade (late 1980s) that I realized reading could be fun. I still remember the first sentence of that book, the title, the cover, the characters’ names and the plot. After I read every Sweet Valley High book I could get my hands on, I had trouble finding other books I wanted to read. When I was a freshman in high school, I was browsing the bookstores and libraries and wondering why nothing appealed to me. Finally, it dawned on me. "If I can't find the book I want to read, I need to write it." From there, I started writing.

I was never interested in conventional publishing. The query process didn't appeal to me. I just wanted to write books and have fun. Seeing my books in print was fun, so I went through vanity publishers (meaning, I paid them to put my books into paperbacks) starting back in 2002. I continued on with vanity publishers and spent $10,000 from 2002 to early 2008. My husband put his foot down at that point and said making $30 twice a year wasn't worth spending all the money I was. In despair, I confined myself to never seeing another one of my books in print again and started looking for a conventional publisher because I still wanted to write and see my manuscripts in book form.

It was while hanging out in forums on Authonomy and Amazon that I learned about creating paperbacks for free. Well, free was in my price range, so I asked several authors for more information, and it was April Hamilton who pointed me to CreateSpace. From my time on the forums, I came across The Creative Penn where I learned about ebooks. I did send out queries and synopses to a couple of agents and publishers, and two publishers requested I modify the manuscripts to better suit their idea of what a romance book should be like (aka to make them marketable to their audiences). I never resubmitted the two manuscripts because their vision of romance wasn't my vision.

Thanks to CreateSpace for the paperbacks and The Creative Penn, which led me to Amazon KDP and Smashwords (ebooks), I could publish my books for free (making my husband happy) and keep my books the way I felt they were meant to be (making me happy).

[DW] Do you remember your first reader reviews or letters for your ebooks and what did they mean to you?

[RAN] I do, and I still keep in touch with the first reader who told me she enjoyed my books. Feedback I received from readers wasn't all positive, and I think that's the reality check that startled me the most. It seemed to me that if people liked my books, they would email me or comment on my blog, but if they didn't like my books, they would leave 1 or 2-star reviews on Amazon. To be honest, I almost gave up (and this was in March 2010) because of the 1 and 2-star reviews. While most of the feedback was positive and I was also getting 4 and 5-star reviews, it's the 1 and 2-star ones I remember most, and those reviews came on An Inconvenient Marriage (which is ironic since that seems to the be the book that has done the best overall). I remember praying to God and asking Him what He wanted me to do because I was ready to unpublish all of my books and walk away from the whole thing. A half hour later, I got an email from a reader who told me "to continue my good work”.

That email is posted on my wall where I can read it whenever I contemplate giving up because the urge still comes about twice a year. I share this story because it's one of the experiences of being an author that no one in my writing groups ever told me, and I was in organizations with Harlequin, Avon and small press authors who had more experience than I did. I wish someone had given me a heads up that the emotional roller coaster authors go through is normal.

[DW] What do you think of the trend toward exclusivity such as with Amazon's KDP Select program?

[RAN] It worries me because of the implications exclusivity involves. No matter where exclusivity is part of the deal, it means limiting yourself from potential readers. Readers prefer to read ebooks on their e-readers, whether it's the Kindle, Nook, iPad, etc. I think the best thing an author can do is make their books available to them in the format (and for the device) they want. My other bad feeling about being exclusive through one retailer is that authors can get boxed in to ultimately relying on one place to sell books. It takes time to build up reviews and sales ranking. In the past, whenever I have pulled my book for even a week, I might have kept my reviews, but my sales ranking fell and I wasn't able to get it back to where it used to be, no matter what marketing strategy I tried. Also, from examining how exclusive programs work, I've noticed that books in these programs get a boost, but the problem is, the boost doesn't always last.

Books not in exclusive programs can take a hit, so there’s a downside to not being in them. For example, my sales at Amazon have been about 40% worse since I don’t have any books in the program. I won't enter Select or any exclusive program offered by any retailer because I think in the long run, it's going to hurt my potential to reach new readers. I think for authors who don't want to enter an exclusive program, the best strategy is to write more books they're passionate about and publish them. Sales might dip, but having more books available (and making them the best books you can so don't rush it) is crucial as you try to find new readers and to keep the ones you already have happy. I also think it's a good idea to keep books on Amazon even if sales are dropping. I don't want to alienate my Kindle readers, and Amazon is a useful avenue to get books to the public.

[DW] What's the hardest part about self-publishing and what's the best part?

[RAN] Back in 2008 and 2009, the hardest part was the stigma associated with it. I was pretty much told by traditionally published authors that my books didn't count in their organizations because I self-published. This is not the case today. Self-published books are now acceptable in most places. Today the hardest part about self-publishing is the spirit of competition among some self-published authors. There are authors who are nice to your face and leave 1 and 2-star reviews behind your back, and you find out it's them when readers call out their true identity on forums. Sandbagging is a big problem, especially on Amazon. I’ve seen authors who’ve been harshly criticized in reviews by their fellow self-published authors, and when I say criticized, I mean they resort to mudslinging. Most authors I come across are great. They are very supportive and will bend over backwards to help each other, but I think you have to be careful until you get to know someone to find out who you can trust.

The best part is having full control of your book. I love having the final say in my content, my cover, my title, my publishing date, my price, and even my record keeping. I have hired cover artists on a couple of books, but I do most of them myself because I enjoy working with GIMP or BookCoverPro. This is why traditional publishing was never a good fit for me. I love doing it my way too much.

[DW] You've published some 23 romance novels to date. How did you come to this genre and what continues to draw you to it?

[RAN] I stumbled upon romance by accident when my parents took me to a used bookstore when I was in the sixth grade and I picked up that Sweet Valley High book I mentioned above. I enjoy reading a variety of genres and I've written a variety of genres, but romance is my primary focus because I enjoy exploring the relationship between a husband and wife as they overcome obstacles presented to them. I also enjoy that “falling in love” feeling and love a happy ending, both of which are the focus of romance novels.

[DW] Who reads your books and what do they tell you about their experience reading them?

[RAN] My primary audience is Christian women around the world. My secondary audience is Asian women of various faiths. I've noticed that no matter what their religion is, their faith is important to most of them, and they appreciate the fact that sex happens after marriage in my books. In fact, I get more requests to keep sex after marriage in all of my future books than any other feedback, and since it's something I intend to do, fulfilling their wish isn't a problem. I would say my audience wants to see old-fashioned values in their romances.

[DW] How does your writing and editing process work?

[RAN] I have at least four books I'm working on because if the plot stalls on one book, I have other books I can focus on. That way, I can keep advancing toward the end goal, which is a published book. My goal is to publish six to eight books a year, so I keep a calendar where I write what I hope to accomplish three to six months in advance and another calendar to track down what actually happens. To keep my readers updated on my progress, I also have word count widgets and updates of where I'm at with all of my works in progress on my blog. This also helps me stay motivated because it holds me accountable for how I spend my time. I have an average goal to write 2,000 words a day. I break this word count up into one 1,000-word segment and two 500-word segments.

500 words equals 30 minutes. So I can do my word count goals in two hours, as long as I remove all distractions. That means no Internet, no TV, no answering the phone, etc., for 30 minutes to an hour at a time. After that, I'll take a break or do some housework (I'm a stay-at-home mom). There are some days when I can't make my word counts. If I miss a couple of days in the month, I don't stress it. I just start over the next day. I have scheduled in a vacation for the summer and take a day off if I'm too sick to write. So I do allow for real life. This helps prevent burn-out. If I'm feeling overwhelmed (usually because I have too much to do that day), I take the day off from writing.

As for editing, once I finish the first draft, I go through it to polish it up to second draft status. Then I send it off to my editor with specific things I'm looking for. After I get it back, I polish it up again to make the third draft. Then it goes out to two or three proofreaders. My proofreaders are people who’ve read and enjoy my books, have been nice in telling me what they like and don’t like in my books, and are punctual in getting the book back to me. After I fix their suggestions, I go through a final listen through on my Kindle (hearing the book helps me catch things we all missed earlier in the editing process). After that, I send it off to be published.

[DW] Do your characters come to you before you start writing, or do some pop up during the writing itself?

[RAN] This usually works in two ways for me. I either have the characters in mind and wait for the right plot to pop up, or I have the plot waiting for the right characters to come along. I am the type of writer who writes by the seat of her pants. I start with something like, "I want to write a mail-order bride story" and "I want a heroine who isn't beautiful". Then I start writing. Usually, I have the first couple of scenes in mind, but the characters end up taking over and as long as I follow their lead, I don't have a problem with the story. The story stalls when I am doing something that isn't right for the characters. At that point, I work on another book and brainstorm what needs fixing to get the other book back on track.

[DW] Many authors get discouraged when their books do not become successful quickly. What advice do you have for an indie author trying to connect with her audience?

[RAN] First, I think it's important to define success. I don't think success is limited to sales. To me, success is writing the story I want to read, and as long as I accomplish that, I'm successful. That's how it's always been for me. I know it's easy for me to say that since I'm where I am today, but it's how I felt back in 2002 when I published with a vanity publisher. I was just happy to have a physical copy of my book so I didn't have to carry a notebook around to read my story. I think if you're happy with where you're at and with what you're doing, it's easy to keep going.

That being said, I can understand and appreciate the desire to make a living or get a nice supplemental income from your books. Different things will work for different authors. Free has probably been the most useful way I've connected with my audience. But free took time. Free didn't lead to sales in a couple of months. It took over a year for me to see things start to take off. I realize there are some overnight successes out there, but that's rare. I think self-publishing has allowed a good percentage of authors a good chance of either making a living or having a nice supplemental income, especially since we're able to distribute to a variety of channels on Smashwords that are also expanding globally.

Ultimately, it's really a matter of patience and perseverance. Keep writing and publishing. I strongly advise authors to put their books through every channel they can. My first months (Spring - Summer 2009) on Amazon earned me a few bucks, and that is all I made until Dec. 2009. When I started out in ebooks, I didn’t have the sales that I hear most newbies get, so this is where authors should be encouraged. I think it’s easier to reach readers now. However, instead of expecting numbers to take off in a profound way the first year of publishing, I think it’s better to think long-term. Don’t stress the numbers. Keep writing books you are passionate about. If you are passionate about your books, you won’t have trouble writing them. Also, have a strategy where you're reaching deadlines so you can stay focused on getting more books out there. The more books you have, the better your chances are of finding readers.

[DW] Any other pearls of wisdom especially for new authors hoping to take a shot at self-publishing a book?

[RAN] Study books in your genre and see what types of covers and titles are selling well. Also, which ones caught your attention? The ones that caught your attention should give you an idea of what to name your book and what kind of cover to use. Read the descriptions and pick out key words and phrases that intrigue you. Go to reader forums on sites like Amazon and Barnes and Noble where readers of your genre are discussing books they like, don't like, and why. You don't have to do what the readers are saying, but they might discuss what types of covers, titles, plot points, and character traits they like or don't like that might give you some ideas when you're working on your books.

Most importantly, you should write the book you're most passionate about because you'll want to make it the best you can. I strongly advise you not to spam. Just put links to places to buy your books on your website and/or blog. Participate with people you come across and be the kind of person you'd like to be friends with. If people like what you have to say, they'll click on your name and see your website/blog that you linked to. Look for ways to help others but also know that you have the right to say no if someone is trying to take advantage of you or if you don't have enough time to do something.

Don't read reviews. Reviews are for readers. You're better off taking the advice (praise and criticism) from your fans because they are the ones you're writing for. Don't compare yourself to other authors. Everyone's experience will be different. Sales rise and fall. Publishing new books help to get out of the dips, but not all books sell the same. Some books sell better than others, and there's no way to tell which will sell well. All you can do is write the best book you can, put an attractive cover and title on it, write the best description you can, and put it out there. Most of all, have fun writing because in the end, that's really at the heart of what we're doing: writing books that mean something to us.

[DW] Thanks, Ruth Ann!


Smashwords distributes Ruth Ann Nordin to the following retailers:

Apple iBookstore
Barnes & Noble
Blio.com
Diesel eBook Store
Kobo
Sony
Smashwords.com


David Weir is a veteran journalist who has published three books and hundreds of articles in various publications, including The Economist, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. He currently covers technology for 7x7.com.

Randolph Lalonde Takes Sci-Fi Space Opera to a New Level

Science Fiction author Randolph Lalonde has been with Smashwords since July, 2009. Smashwords distributes him to Apple, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and Diesel.


His first year at Smashwords, as is the case with most authors, started out slowly, and he earned a few hundred dollars. But then, in 2010 he had a breakout year, and he's been selling very well ever since.

Lalonde’s newest book, The Expendable Few, is the latest in his popular Spinward Fringe series of science fiction space opera novels. He released it February 28 at Smashwords, where it is exclusively available for the first 30 days (it will appear soon at Smashwords retailers). As of this writing, it's the number one bestseller in the Smashwords store. A synopsis of the book appears at the end of our interview below.



[David Weir] Did you first explore the world of traditional publishing before turning to self-publishing, and if so, what was your experience?

[Randolph Lalonde] I tried to secure agency representation and publishing deals until I self-published in 2004. The submissions always came in spurts, every few years I'd send several dozen query letters out, and submit to open slush piles in several English-speaking countries. I even teamed up with an artist in an effort to break into the comic book market. Less than a quarter of my queries and submissions received a reply, and while a couple small publishers were interested in seeing more work from me in the future, they weren't interested in what I was offering at the time.

I didn't talk to anyone about the rejections or my efforts in getting published because I'd often get pretty negative responses from people I knew. It was a pipe dream, I may as well have been trying to be the next Brad Pitt, or Angelina Jolie for that matter, judging from people's responses. There were a few exceptions, but most people were pretty cynical about my dream as a writer, so I stopped talking about submissions for a long time. In 2004 I stopped submitting, and went the self publishing route for the first time.

[DW] Did people start taking you seriously after you self published in 2004?

[RL] People started to take me more seriously, but I was going about it the wrong way, even back then. I invested money in getting copies printed and flogging the book at signing and book launch events. While I broke even, it wasn't the way to go about things, and there were a lot of people who saw their cynicism proven right. I'm glad I didn't listen to them back then, because I learned a lot from that experience. Flogging a print book is generally the worst option a fiction author can take these days. I've seen several authors try that route in the last couple years, and they still see results that are similar or worse than the experience I had in 2004.

I didn't gain any respect from people I actually knew until around 2009, when I had been writing full time for several months. By then I had stopped paying attention to anyone who wasn't in my corner, and remembered everyone who was supportive all along. They are the ones who I make sure share in my dream these days, and I don't really pay attention to anyone else.

[DW] How did you find Smashwords and how was your early experience? How quickly did you books take off?

[RL] I was offering my books through Mobipocket, Kindle and several other small retailers, and saw that Mobipocket in particular was winding down fast. While looking for another distribution channel I found Smashwords. They offered a simple, DRM free platform that appealed to me because I was watching a lot of my early readers get frustrated because they weren't able to take their locked Mobipocket books with them to other platforms. Some of these customers had libraries worth hundreds of dollars, and the DRM didn't allow for portability or conversion. On July 31, 2009, I joined Smashwords, and it has been an important part of my distribution network ever since.

[DW] When did you realize that your first book was resonating with readers and how did that feel?

[RL] In early 2008 I published an optimistic space opera novella called Freeground on Mobipocket.com and was surprised to see a couple emails and reviews within the first month. I self published it because several co-workers had read it on a lark, and said it was really entertaining. It was initially written as a warm up for the Spinward Fringe series, a grittier Sci-Fi series I really wanted to pen. I was overjoyed when Mobipocket customers, not knowing me at all, mirrored my co-worker's enjoyment. By the time the third and final book in the First Light Chronicles series came out I wasn't just writing for myself anymore, and the fact that the Spinward Fringe series would have an audience drove me to work harder. (The First Light Trilogy is available for free as Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins).

[DW] What's been the hardest part of self-publishing, and what has been the best part?

[RL] The hardest part of self publishing is knowing how much of the situation you have to control and monitor. Once the book is done you are left with the business end of things, and that includes formatting, distribution, publicity, intellectual property protection, checking reviews for spoilers, answering emails, and other things. A control freak like myself can spend most of the day trying to firmly grip all those aspects. It took me a long time to figure out the priority list, and when it's time to just leave the business end alone while I get back to the pleasure of story telling.

I'm using 52 Novels formatting company 
for all my books now, both as a time-saving measure and to ensure that
 my books come out with a professional polish -- formatting wise at 
least.

The best part of self-publishing is the freedom I have as a storyteller, and the freedom I have in how that work is presented. Almost half the my latest book, The Expendable Few, was revealed for free on the reader forums, just because it had been a long time since anyone had seen any of my work, and I wanted some early reader feedback. Everyone got a juicy preview, and I got a lot of valuable feedback. I can't say I'd have that kind of freedom if I were with a mainstream publishing house.

[DW] When did you start writing and did you always want to be a writer?

[RL] I started writing short stories around the age of eleven, and completed my first full sized novel by the time I was seventeen. Since then I moved from one career to the next, using call centers as fall-back jobs when something more interesting wasn't available. I've worked as a Black Jack and Poker dealer in a traveling casino, played weekend gigs with a few bands as a drummer, managed a computer store, been a consumer technology trainer, and I've owned a design and print business. I think I've been in a lot of situations and met a lot of people that inform my writing. Through all of it I kept writing when I had time until I gave up in 2006. I didn't start writing again until 2008, after deciding to take a crack at science fiction with a story and setting that had been percolating for over twenty years.

[DW] Was Sci-Fi your first love as a writer? How did you come to it?

[RL] I've always enjoyed science fiction as a fan. My parents took me to see "Star Wars" when I was three years old in 1977, and I think the love affair began there. I wrote horror, suspense, military fiction, and a lot of fantasy before sitting down and trying science fiction for the first time on January 1, 2008.

The closest I came to writing science fiction before then was designing a role-playing system and universe when I was a teenager. We played that for years before I returned to other gaming systems as a storyteller. I believe that dipping into many genres as a writer and as a game master for over twenty years helped me find my story telling style, and helped make me the writer I am now.

[DW] What is the Space Opera genre, for those who are unfamiliar with it?

[RL] The Space Opera genre normally refers to futuristic adventures set in space, featuring ships, high technology, and dramatic situations between characters. Larger than life villains also tend to be a staple, but less so these days. There are more novels featuring more realistic heroes and anti-heroes who struggle with day to day challenges coming out now, instead of epic 'save the galaxy' stories. The grand examples of Space Opera that people would recognize are "Star Wars," "Star Trek," "Battlestar Galactica" and "Firefly."

[DW] What is your writing process -- how often, how long, and do you set goals for a certain number of words per session or per day?

[RL] Word counting never worked for me, I always seemed to start high and taper off over time. What works these days is looking at chapters of a novel like a puzzle, and trying to find the most interesting way to put the pieces together. I try to write every day, and focus on one novel at a time unless the muse descends like a bag of hammers and I have to spend a short stint on another project. I usually get my first writing session in before 9 a.m. and then take care of some of the daily business. If I'm in the middle of a project and I've already figured out the next few chapters, I'll have another writing session or two later that day or evening. My writing sessions are typically two to four hours long.

[DW] How your characters and stories come to you? For example, are they pretty much set before you begin writing, or do they develop during the writing process?

[RL] I normally have a couple main characters developed before I start. These are the initial point of view characters. I often have certain scenes in mind for them before I begin, so I have a feeling for how they behave, and what their tendencies are. Other characters develop during the writing, and I usually know them pretty well by the time I've finished writing a chapter in which they've stolen the scene. Some of these have become reader favorites, even central to the series itself.

[DW] Where are you headed over the next five years as a writer? Will you continue the highly successful Spinward Fringe series and if so, how many more books in it are to come?

[RL] I approach the Spinward Fringe series as I would a television series in a few important respects. That series has seasons, wherein story arcs begin and end. The current arc started in Broadcast 0, and is ending in Broadcast 7. After that I'll be starting a new 'season' with Broadcast 8, which will feature a couple stand-alone books that aren't as tightly connected to future novels as Broadcasts 0-7 were. Having a story arc that threaded through eight books was just too long, so I want to tell stories that are a little more compact, but just as entertaining. As long as there are stories left to tell in the Spinward Fringe universe, I'll keep adding to it.

[DW] Do you envision attempting books in other genres in the future?

[RL] Other than the Spinward Fringe series, I'll be finishing work on a Fantasy Adventure novella and continuing work on a Horror Adventure novel this year. I also have a few ideas for one-shot books that range from comedy to straight up horror, so if I stop having new ideas tomorrow, there's enough material scrawled in notebooks to last me at least the next five years. I'm sure I'll have more ideas though, that muse is always up there somewhere, ready to dive-bomb my brain.

[DW] If you had one tip for an aspiring author who's having trouble taking the plunge, what would it be?

[RL] Write, keep writing, and finish everything you can. Sometimes it'll feel like you're just punching a clock and putting in a couple hundred words because you should, other times you won't be able to get to your word processor fast enough. What's important is that you do it, and you complete as many projects as you can. When you find a story you love, with characters you can't forget for long, and people you trust have told you it's entertaining, then you should find someone with the right education to copy edit your work. Once you're confident you've done the best job you can on the polish your baby deserves, release it out into the world. If you love the novel you've written there's definitely a few like-minded people out there who have been waiting to love it too.

[DW] And, what is the best thing about being a writer, for you?

[RL] I enjoy exploring worlds with characters I'd like to know, or love to despise. Writing is a way of doing that without looking absolutely crazy. Without my writing habit I'm sure I'd be that guy you see who talks to himself in public and carries on with imaginary people.

[DW] Thanks, Randy!

***

Here's a synopsis of Randolph Lalonde’s latest book, The Expendable Few:



Commander Clark Patterson and several other officers in the Freeground 
Military are ejected from regular service when a desire to look beyond
 Freeground Nation’s borders is proven by an oppressive government.
 They are assigned dangerous missions by a special Intelligence
 Oversight Group.

 If Commander Patterson and his people complete these missions, they’ll
 gain their freedom from Oversight and have the opportunity to start
over in a tumultuous galaxy. Patterson’s fascination with another crew
 who left Freeground years before and managed to survive serves as a
destination, but will they survive to reach it?

Where to find Randolph Lalonde and his books:

Website: http://www.randolphlalonde.com
Twitter: @randolphlalonde
Facebook: Randolph Lalonde Facebook profile
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/randolphlalonde
Blog: http://randolphlalonde.blogspot.com/


Smashwords distributes Randolph Lalonde ebooks to the following retailers:

Randolph Lalonde at Smashwords

Randolph Lalonde at Apple

Randolph Lalonde at Barnes & Noble

Randolph Lalonde at Sony

Randolph Lalonde at Kobo

Randolph Lalonde at Diesel

David Weir is a veteran journalist who has published three books and hundreds of articles in various publications, including The Economist, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. He currently covers technology for 7x7.com.

Scribd Features 18 Smashwords Authors in Exclusive Merchandising Promotion

Scribd today launched an exclusive front-page merchandising promotion titled “Popular Indie Authors” featuring 18 Smashwords authors.



Congrats to featured authors Kristen Ashley, Brian S. Pratt, Quinn Loftis, F.S. Michaels, Jean Sasson, E.P.  Lenderking, Daniel Alick, John Locke, Amy Miles, Morgan Rice, JD Nixon, Rebecca Ethington, Shayne Parkinson, Julie Kenner, John Rember, Jaden Skye, Chris Dolley and Rachel Astor. 

The featured authors represent a diverse cross-section of genres and categories, including fantasy, biography, mystery, thriller, historical fiction, contemporary romance, paranormal romance, YA romance, and dystopian SciFi.

This curated row of books will rotate among other curated and automatically generated suggested-reading rows for Scribd subscribers.  The promotion runs at least two weeks. View the titles here - http://www.scribd.com/collections/4460621/Popular-Indie or log into your Scribd subscription to view the promotion.

In the last two months, as promised in our original Scribd announcement in December, all Smashwords authors with books opted into our Scribd distribution channel as of early January received a free one-year subscription to Scribd valued at $100.  The activation links were sent out via email, and the last batch went out last week.  If you haven’t activated your account, please do so now before the offer expires (and if you never received the email, check your spam filters). Scribd has kindly extended the original deadline for activation until June 1.

The Smashwords catalog went live at Scribd on February 28, 2014, the last day of the month.  The first full month’s sales (March) exceeded my expectations.  It was the largest first-month sales for any new Smashwords retail partner in the last five years.  I know our friends at Scribd were equally pleased by the popularity of Smashwords titles.

April results were even more impressive, showing a month-over-month sequential gain of 60%.  Although the sales volume at Scribd hasn't reached the level of iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and the Smashwords store, they're off to a strong start by any measure.

Their April results alone represent nearly triple the recent combined sales of Sony and Diesel, two Smashwords retailers that exited the ebook business in March, and already represent 1/3 our Kobo sales. I’m excited to see where Scribd can take this over the next few years.

Scribd is on track to become a major contributor to the bottom lines of indie authors, and like big fishes in small pond, Smashwords authors are there first, reaching new readers, and building platform advantage that will reap dividends for years to come.  If you don't have all your Smashwords titles opted in to Scribd, you're missing out.  Visit your Smashwords Dashboard's Channel Manager screen to make sure all your Premium Catalog titles are opted in.

I think history will show that the new breed of subscription ebook services like Scribd will grow the number of readers who are enjoying and consuming ebooks.  They'll expand the reading audience and help authors reach readers that aren't shopping at conventional retail channels where books are purchased one at a time. The two models for ebook consumption are complementary. With subscription ebook services, readers surf books effortlessly, as if visiting a massive online library, and once they hit a percentage threshold of pages read for an individual title, it triggers a full sale.

As I mentioned in the original announcement of our distribution relationship with Scribd, Scribd has repositioned their entire business around the ebook subscription model.  The site is visited by 80 million readers each month. Scribd is working to funnel all these readers into their paid subscription service.  They want to sell books for our authors!

Thank you Scribd for this great promotion, and congratulations to these fine Smashwords authors!


Can't Get Enough of Ebook Subscriptions?

If you want to learn more about the business model of the subscription ebook services, and how these services might shape the future of reading, here are three opportunities to learn more:

1.  The Smashwords Blog.  Check out my two part blog series starting with my post, Examining the Business Model of Ebook Subscription Services.

2.  Attend a panel.  At BEA in New York on May 29 (happy birthday to me), I'm participating on a panel that will explore all aspects of the ebook subscription model titled, A Substantial Difference: How Subscription Affects the Form and Value of Content.  The panel is moderated by the awesome Peter Brantley.  The panel will be part of BISG's Making Information Pay conference hosted at BEA.

3.  The Great Debate.  And for those of you who can't get enough of the subscription model (or you hate it or you love it or just want to learn more), on June 11 at Noon Eastern I'm participating in a webinar debate about subscription ebook services produced by Digital Book World.  The debate is modeled after the Intelligence Squared U.S. debate series on NPR.  This will be interesting.  The proposition is, “The success of ebook subscription services will be good for publishers, authors and readers.”  Arguing in favor of this proposition will be the team of Andrew Weinstein of Scribd and yours truly (woo hoo!).  Our formidable opponents, who will argue against the proposition, are Gareth Cuddy, an ebook distributor, and Jonathan Blum a super-smart journalist for TheStreet.com who will probably cut us to pieces with his wit, charm and oratory skill. The debate is moderated by Jeremy Greenfield, editorial director for Digital Book World.  The debate is won or lost based on the number of listeners we convert to our side of the argument.  They will poll viewers before the debate and ask them if they agree or disagree.  At the end of the debate, they poll viewers again to see which side changed the most minds.  This means that if 98% of viewers agree with the proposition at the beginning, and 97% percent agree at the end, we lose.  It'll be all in good fun!!  Register for this free event at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/302153160 and learn more at Digital Book World.

New Library Direct Enables Libraries to Acquire Large Opening Collections of Smashwords Ebooks

Smashwords today announced Library Direct, a new service that allows libraries and library networks to acquire and establish large opening collections of ebooks, direct from Smashwords.

Library Direct is available to libraries that host and manage their own ebook checkout systems, typically using Adobe Content Server, and that are capable of acquiring a large opening collection.

We have already received purchase commitments from three library systems, each of which will acquire some variation of our top 10,000 best-selling titles.  The purchase commitments approach $100,000 in total.

The first delivery is on schedule to occur next week to Douglas County Libraries in Colorado, which will purchase an opening collection drawn from the top 10,000 best-selling titles at Smashwords.  Douglas County, under the leadership of director Jamie LaRue, has been an outspoken proponent of what is becoming known as the "Douglas County Model."  The Douglas County Model aims to replicate for ebooks the process by which libraries have traditionally acquired print books.  The library acquires the book once, owns the book, and manages the checkout systems where they limit the checkout to one copy at a time for each title they own.  Douglas County monitors the number of "holds" on each book (the number of people waiting to check it out), and if the hold count exceeds a certain number of patrons, the library purchases additional copies.

The other two library systems expected to acquire similar-sized collections include Califa and The Internet Archive.

Califa is a California-based network of 220 libraries in California, with participating members in other states.  Califa is creating its own library aggregation service to provide ebooks to participating Califa members.  Our relationship with Califa was first reported by Library Journal.

The third, and perhaps largest expected purchase will come from The Internet Archive, which operates Open Library, a free online library which in the last 28 days have been visited nearly 2 million times.

Previously, most libraries relied upon published reviews to guide their acquisition decisions.  Under the Smashwords model, the curation is crowdsourced based on aggregated retail sales data drawn from across the Smashwords distribution network with includes the Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, the Diesel eBookstore and others.

Qualifying libraries can select from the top 10,000, 20,000 or any other large number of titles, and can custom-filter the titles by category and price range.

Like all new Smashwords distribution channels, authors and publishers have the option to opt out of Library Direct, if they choose, from the Smashwords Channel Manager.  Later today we'll notify all 45,000 Smashwords authors and publishers of this new channel.

Library Direct complements our existing distribution relationships with leading library aggregators such as Baker & Taylor, 3M Cloud Library, and others in the works.  The true sales potential of Smashwords Direct will be indirect, because the analytic tools we're creating to support Smashwords Direct, such as the sales-curated recommendation lists, will also be provided to our library aggregator partners in the months ahead. This will allow them to offer up myriad recommendation lists their sales teams can then present to the library clients.  Do they want a recommendation list of the top 200 bestselling indie romance ebooks?  No problem.  How about the top 100 fantasy or sci-fi titles?  Our library aggregator partners will be able to do that as well, and they'll be able to accommodate smaller order sizes than Library Direct, for which we'll require much larger minimum orders.

The launch of Library Direct is enabled by our other announcement today, the launch of our new Pricing Manager tool, accessible from the Smashwords Dashboard.  Pricing Manager allows authors and publishers to establish custom library pricing for their titles.  Based on our survey, we expect Smashwords authors and publishers will provide their books to libraries at lower-than-retail prices.  Click here to read our Pricing Manager announcement, and learn why it's a foundational element of the Smashwords library distribution strategy, and why we think it's exciting news for authors, publishers, libraries and library patrons alike.

Smashwords Quadruples Meatgrinder Ebook Conversion Capacity

On Friday we quadrupled the ebook conversion capacity of the Smashwords Meatgrinder.

Lately, the queue time has been running 30 hours from upload to conversion completion. That's unacceptable. Two years ago, it was 5-10 minutes.

Today, we're back to near-instant conversions. Upload a book formatted to the Smashwords Style Guide and watch Meatgrinder convert your book in real-time to multiple ebook formats. No other ebook publishing platform offers such rapid publishing and updating.

We now have the architecture in place to scale our capacity further as volume warrants.

The long queues were caused by an influx of new books, as well as an increase in regrinds from authors and publishers upgrading their books with improved formatting and navigation.

In addition to the increased throughput, we've made multiple improvements over the last few weeks to Meatgrinder's NCX generation for EPUB. EPUB is the format used by our retail distribution partners Apple, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and the Diesel eBook Store.

NCX stands for Navigation Control file for XML. Think of the NCX as a meta-Table-of-Contents, since the file and the navigation actually reside outside the book, but point back into it (What you know as an EPUB file is really a zipped combination of multiple files of which the .NCX is only one). A well-formed NCX adds useful navigation for your reader. See Step 20 in the Smashwords Style Guide for more on how to construct an NCX and linked Table of Contents at Smashwords.