Apple iBookstore Expands Smashwords Ebook Distribution to 26 New Countries

Apple this week dramatically expanded the international reach of Smashwords ebooks by distributing our catalog to 26 new iBookstores across Europe and Scandinavia.

Prior to this week, over 50,000 Smashwords ebook titles were available in Apple iBookstores in the US, Canada, U.K., Germany, France and Australia.

All Smashwords authors, publishers and agents enjoy immediate access to this expanded distribution.

Below is the list of new iBookstore countries now reachable through Smashwords.

Austria
Belgium
Bulgaria
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland

Go Global With Smashwords

Within the next few years, the global market for ebooks will likely eclipse the US market. Already at Smashwords, I can report that prior to this news, almost half of our iBookstore sales were coming from outside the U.S.

Although the US represents the world’s single largest ebook market today and is still growing rapidly, the US market is also the most mature. Growth rates in the US, where the ebook market has more than doubled each year for the last several years, are likely to slow thanks to the law of large numbers (you can't keep doubling forever!). I expect the US will end 2011 with ebooks accounting for 15-25% of trade book sales.

Contrast this with markets outside the US, where ebooks will account for probably between 1% and 5% of the market this year. These markets are only now beginning to enter, or will soon enter, exponential growth phases that will take them to 15-25% the next few years assuming their growth trajectories follow similar patterns seen in the US and other English speaking countries.

Indie authors will reap a two-fold benefit. They now have access to more markets, and these markets will grow faster than the U.S. in the years ahead.

The necessary ingredients for this growth include availability of affordable ebook content in concert with low-cost e-reading devices (dedicated e-readers, multi-function tablets like the iPad, smart phones, personal computers) powered by local-language ebook stores.

This is exciting news for indie ebook authors, not only for authors here in the US but also for indie authors in these new territories. Because Smashwords is an Apple-authorized global aggregator for the iBookstore, authors, publishers and literary agents around the world can use Smashwords to quickly and easily distribute local-language ebooks into their country's iBookstore, as well as to Apple iBookstores outside their country.

My thanks to our friends at Apple for introducing Smashwords books to these new markets.

If you’re not yet distributing with Smashwords, visit our How to Publish and Distribute Ebooks with Smashwords page. In addition to distributing to the 31 Apple iBookstores, we also distribute your book to the online ebook stores operated by Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, the Diesel eBookstore and to major mobile app platforms such as Stanza and Aldiko.

How Indie Ebooks will Transform the Future of Book Publishing

On July 9 in New York I gave a presentation to a group of students participating in NYU's Summer Publishing Institute.

The topic was how indie ebooks will transform the future of publishing.

The presentation is embedded at the bottom of this page for your Powerpointing pleasure.

I started the presentation by quoting lyrics from Rosetta Stoned, possibly one of the best Tool songs ever written. The song is about an ordinary guy who's abducted by space aliens. The aliens tell him:

"You are the Chosen One,
the One who will deliver the message.
A message of hope for those who choose to hear it
and a warning for those who do not."

The lyric basically summed up my presentation to these hundred or so students, all recent grads from around the country who hope to land careers in publishing.

I told them I believe the opportunities for authors and publishers to reach readers are greater today than they've ever been in history. The challenge these future captains of the publishing industry face, I said, is to help publishers take advantage of the change, rather than become victimized by it.

As I explained, some publishers are taking a bunker mentality to this change. They're handing their business decisions over to risk-averse bean counters, and adopting policies and practices detrimental to their authors (fewer acquisitions, fewer risks on unknown or unproven authors, less marketing support) and readers (DRM, artificial ebook scarcity, high prices). Some of these practices that are causing them to act less like publishers, which then causes authors to ask the simple question, "why do I need a publisher?"

I talked about how publishers for the last century or so controlled the means of book production and book distribution. They determined what readers read. In the new world order, now starting to unfold with ebooks, their oligapolistic grip is waning.

The future belongs to the indie author, who can now gain access to the same digital shelves as their traditionally published brethren. With ebooks (and with a little help from Smashwords), access to the digital shelves of major ebook retailers is now becoming fully democratized.

Publishers have a bright future too, if they play their cards right. To survive and thrive in this new world order, they need to serve their authors better than their authors can serve themselves.

How Indie Ebooks Will Transform The Future of Publishing

View more presentations from Smashwords, Inc..

Speaking of Bunkers...
Next month, I'm sitting on a panel for the GigaOm Bunker conference in San Francisco, speaking to a related topic, "Disintermediation in Publishing." Should be interesting. I know there's a knee-jerk tendency among some authors to believe that with this huge trend of democratization-of-everything, and the shift in power to indie authors, that authors are best served by cutting out all the traditional middlemen (agents, editors, publishers, distributors, bookstores, etc). Not so, IMHO.

If the middleman adds value to your publishing exploits, they're a catalyst and a partner, not a parasite. Retailers, for example, earn every penny of their margin by connecting book buyers to your books. I'm amazed this epiphany isn't universal. Seems like every week I see some clueless person on a message board comment, "don't sell through retailers, just sell the book on your own web site and keep all the margin for yourself". That short-sighted strategy is about as smart as opening a taco stand on a deserted island. Distributors, which connect your books to bookstores, add value as well (I'm biased, since Smashwords is an ebook distributor).

Publetariat: New Community for Indie Authors

Author April Hamilton, a long time friend of Smashwords and advocate for indie authors, has launched Publetariat, a new online community for self-published authors. Check it out and get involved.

April thinks it's time the word "indie" carry the same street cred for authors as it does for indie musicians and filmmakers. It's a goal I share as well.

While other online communities such as AbsoluteWrite serve authors who aspire to go the mainstream publishing route, Publetariat will serve authors who aspire to remain indie.

From the Publetariat site:

Why Publetariat?

The indie author tide is rising. Every day there are new stories of authors taking their careers into their own hands and choosing, not resorting to, self-publication and forming their own imprints.

Even the struggling titans of the mainstream publishing industry can't ignore it anymore. There's an increasing level of genuine interest in, and respect for, self-publishing and small, independent imprints on websites and in publications that would've sneered at the very idea a decade ago. For far too long, indie authors and small imprints have fought an uphill battle against an industry and a community of writers determined to marginalize us and our efforts. Now, as indie authorship stands poised to become the 'next big thing' in publishing, our time has come at last.

Several indie authors and indie author advocates, myself included, are supporting the project:

Bill Aicher - author

Alan Baxter - Blade Red Press

Mark Coker - Smashwords

Nick Daws - freelance writer/consultant

April L. Hamilton - author

Jude Johnson - Scorched Hawk Press

Kallysten - Alinar Publishing

Hugh McGuire - Bookoven, Librivox, earideas & datalibre.ca

Joanna Penn - The Creative Penn

Dana Lynn Smith - The Book Marketing Maven

Joshua Tallent - Kindleformatting.com

Zoe Winters - author

Visit Publetariat today at http://www.publetariat.com/index.php

If you're attending the Tools of Change Conference next week in New York, I invite you to attend the panel I'm moderating Tuesday titled "The Rise of ebooks." April is one of our distinguished panelists.