11 of the featured titles are distributed to Apple by Smashwords. Most of the other five authors distribute other titles to Apple via Smashwords, so congrats to everyone!
The promoted books include some new titles that weren't included in the February 4 debut.
Featured books and authors, distributed to Apple by Smashwords, include:
Romance
Always You by Kirsty Moseley
Hopeless by Colleen Hoover
When Summer Ends by Isabelle Rae
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Elfin by Quinn Loftis
Ember by Jessica Sorensen
The Unsuspecting Mage by Brian S. Pratt
Mysteries & Thrillers
Dead in Red by LL Bartlett
The Witch's Ladder by Dana Donovan
A Dream of Death by Harrison Drake
First in a Series for Free
The Soulkeepers by GP Ching
Bridesmaid Lotto by Rachel Astor
Unenchanted by Chanda Hahn
Ethereal by Addison Moore
More to Explore
The Seventh Mountain by Gene Curtis
Sagebrush by William Wayne "Bill" Dicksion
Please do your part to support these authors by clicking on their title and purchasing their books. Several of them are free so you have nothing to lose.
The success of these and hundreds of other Smashwords authors at Apple opens doors for all indie authors. Indie authors are gaining increased respect in all book industry circles, from customers to retailers to agents to publishers.
Email promotions like this are among the most powerful merchandising tools for retailers. The email is landing in thousands or millions (I don't know how many!) of inboxes right before the weekend when book sales are the greatest.
All these authors will benefit not only from increased sales and downloads, but their names - their brands - have now be further exposed to thousands or millions of readers. This means these authors will become that much more familiar to iBookstore customers the next time they're browsing for their next read. It's a level of marketing support money can't buy.
Unlike one other retailer that shall go unnamed which reserves preferential promotional opportunities and royalties for authors who go exclusive, Apple plays no such games. Apple's Breakout Books feature, which is now rolled out in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the U.K. and U.S., is more democratic and open to all indies. Readers, though their purchases, reviews and ratings, are helping to surface these promo-worthy books to Apple. Indies who wow their readers have a shot at this.
My thanks to these authors for writing books worthy of such promotion, and my thanks to Apple and their iBookstore customers for showing the indie author community such amazing support.
And many thanks to Smashwords and you, Mark Coker, for the splendid way you have made available to authors like me. Best always, William Wayne "Bill" Dicksion.
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ReplyDeleteTwo suggestions for the Smashwords of the future:
ReplyDelete1. Not all ebooks are simply formatted fiction like these. Smashwords should improve an author/publisher's ability to create a feature-rich ePub that's passed along to Apple. That means ePub 3.0 rather than the current 2.0. (The latter is roughly the equivalent of HTML 2.0.) Apple accepted the InDesign-generated ePub 3.0 for my latest book. Smashwords rejected the ID-generated ePub 2.0, claiming Apple wouldn't accept it. That sort of thing is frustrating.
Why? Controlling an ebook's appearance on the two main platforms is one reason why I go directly to Amazon and Apple, using Smashwords only for B&N etc.
2. Reward Smashwords publishers who find great authors and format ebooks attractively by giving them visibility. I'm in Smashwords as a publisher and supply my own ISBN. But from what I have seen, when Smashwords sends my ebooks to retailers, it gets listed as the publisher.
Sorry, but if it's my ISBN, I should be listed as its publisher. I want to get credit when my ebooks look good as well as blame when they look bad.
--Michael W. Perry, author of Hospital Gowns and Other Embarrassments
Congratulations!!
ReplyDeleteHugs,
jan
Simply wonderful news! Thank you so much, Mark for your continued efforts and successes. Just downloaded a couple new books from the list. So far, they're great!!
ReplyDelete