What is Smashwords?
They distribute ebooks. They give 100% of the control to the author or publisher. The pricing can be anything which gives freedom to the writer.
How is Smashwords performing?
They are a profitable business and have been for over three years now. That's important because that means they're making money which means they're selling books. They don't make their money from authors, only readers. That's why it's free to publish. They only make money if the book sells. Virtually no risk to the author at all.
Why do readers buy on Smashwords?
Smashwords lets readers preview most works for free. They can keep track of their favorite authors and works. They can create digital libraries of their books. They can also publish reviews. Another cool perk for authors is you can choose the sample length. They can sample half the book if you want them to!
Here's the important question- Money! How do they compensate authors?
Authors get at least 85% of the net sales. Smashwords also gets your book to all of the huge retailers, like Barnes and Noble, Kobo, iBookstore and others. You earn about 16 times more publishing here than another site.
Publishing rights?
Nope. You retain all of the rights to your work. They are simply the distributer.
Does it cost me anything to publish on Smashwords?
Not a penny.
SO. Smashwords seems pretty cool. It looks like it would be a great place to publish along with amazon createspace. It seems a little small so the marketing would be hard to just publish on smashwords. They don't offer any extra help so it's all on the author. BUT it's all on the author so you get freedom. I liked the website and they are clearly doing very well.
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