At Smashwords, we're always thinking of new methods to improve the discoverability of our books for the benefit of our authors, publishers and customers.With this in mind, today we launched Smashwords Satellites, a collection of 33 standalone web sites, organized around different themes, featuring slices of Smashwords content. Think of them as digital shelves.
Each of the satellites features experimental, customizable interfaces for book discovery which look quite a bit different than the regular Smashwords.com web site.
You can search for your ebook your way, by exposing the information you want or hiding the information you don't want. Many offer instant on-screen sampling of up to 10,000 words on a single web page.
Interested in free erotica ebooks? Then head over to Free-Erotica-Ebooks.com.
Interested in only fiction ebooks? Visit Fiction-Ebooks.com.
Interested only in short fiction? Try Short-Fiction-Ebooks.com
How about ebooks you can download to your Sony Reader? Try Sony-Ebook-Downloads.com. For your Amazon Kindle? Try Kindle-Ebook-Downloads.com
And there are about 30 others you'll find at Smashwords Labs, where we list some of our other ongoing experiments and development initiatives.
Over time, if readers enjoy the experimental interfaces, we'll migrate some of the features into the main Smashwords web site. We'll iterate the interfaces based on your feedback.
Some new Satellite features have already found their way to Smashwords, such as the new Smashwords 100 page. We're also excited about the new Smashwords Cover Browser (seen here at Cheap-Reads.com), so we'll soon find a home for that on the main site as well.
Great concept! I hope it catches on and helps to link authors with readers. I keep plugging away at the book editors in local media, but they treat ebooks as invisible. There's a real need for some sort of recognition that ebooks are not 'vanity press' but another facet of publishing.
ReplyDelete