Smashwords: Smashing Down the Barriers to Self Publishing
It’s a brave new world out there.
Once upon a time authors used to write books, send them to publishers (or agents), wait to get accepted, wait to get printed, wait to get an advance (if one were forthcoming), work hard to market the book and wait for royalties – if they ever happened.
And then start the process all over again with their next novel.
Now the middle man has been somewhat circumvented. It is now possible for writers to become their own publishers. I’m talking about Smashwords. You may have heard of it. Smashwords is one of the leading ebook publishers in the world.
A writer can now self publish their own book and Smashwords will handle the distribution of the book by submitting it to major online retailers such as Apple, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and the Diesel eBook Store. They are apparently still working out the finer points of distributing through Amazon Kindle (although you can choose to handle your own distribution yourself though the Kindle Direct Publishing site.
Publishing on Smashwords doesn’t cost you a cent. They take a percentage from the sale of each book, however this is nothing like the percentage you pay through a regular print publisher.
So, where do you start? Well, write your book first and polish it until it shines like silver.
Logon to Smashwords and set up an account. Click on the “Publish” tab.
Enter the title of your book, both a short and long description (these will be forwarded to online retailers), the language you want it published in and choose if your book contains adult content.
You then determine a pricing. I’ll talk more about this in a later posting.
Next you can choose to allow readers to sample a percentage of the book for free. This is highly recommended. Most people who sample and like what they read will then go on to purchase. You then choose the publishing categories e.g. Fiction, then thriller and so on.
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