Publishing Ebooks on Smashwords
August 30, 2011 by Lillie
Most of my readers know I’m a big fan of ebooks. I read on a Kindle, but I believe in making my books and my clients’ books available for a variety of ebook devices. The easiest way to accomplish this is to publish on Smashwords, a platform that allows anyone to publish their work as an ebook for free. Currently I have eight titles available on the Smashwords website and in its Premium Catalog.
- Trapped by Love, a free novelette that has been downloaded more than 5000 times on Smashwords and has five 5-star reviews
- Dream or Destiny, a romantic mystery with a paranormal touch and a theme of domestic violence
- Stroke of Luck, a contemporary romance, five-star rated, featuring a disabled heroine
- Fern’s Fancies, a humorous contemporary romance with four 5-star reviews
- The Secrets of Fantastic Houseplants, an indoor plant care guide based on a small booklet I wrote for customers in my plant shop many years ago
- Finding the Information You Need: Research Tips for Your Family, Business, or Personal Pursuits, a short how-to guide to research, useful for writers as well as individuals and families
- Preserving Memories: How to Write a Family History, tips for writing a family history or memoir to share with family or to publish
- Creating Fictional Characters, my newest offering, based on a series on my blog—at least three of the posts rank among the top 10 in Google for the keywords “creating fictional characters” as well as among my most popular posts
All except Dream of Destiny and Stroke of Luck, which are published by a small press, are self-published and available only as ebooks through Smashwords. All my self-published ebooks sell for $1.99. In addition to my own books, my associate and I have published a dozen ebooks on Smashwords for clients, so I’ve been through the process enough to share a few words of advice.
The magic of Smashwords is the Meatgrinder, the system that takes a Word document and converts it to a variety of ebook formats for sale on Smashwords and other retailers across the Internet. Books in the Premium Catalog are distributed to Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, Apple, Diesel, and Scrollmotion and will be distributed to Amazon when the two companies complete technical integration. While authors can upload ebooks directly to most of these stores, letting the Meatgrinder do the conversions and Smashwords do the distribution saves a lot of time and frustration.
Preparing a manuscript for Smashwords takes some time and occasionally causes some frustration, but when it does, the simple solution is to follow the Smashwords Style Guide. Mark Coker, Smashwords’ founder, has spelled out in detail exactly how to prepare your Word document (be sure to use .doc, not .docx) to make the AutoVetter (the technology that Smashwords uses to check your manuscript for formatting errors) happy. In my experience, when a file has been rejected by the AutoVetter, the reason is failing to follow the Style Guide exactly.
You don’t have to learn from your own mistakes when it comes to Smashwords. I’ll share my mistakes with you so you can learn from them. The following tips suggest things to do and not do—for details see the Style Guide.
- Do remove all formatting—even the hidden formatting you don’t know is there. Mark explains how to find and remove the formatting and how to normalize your text. When the Style Guide says to remove all formatting, believe it. Don’t think you can get by using that fancy font that you love so much. Stick with Times New Roman, Garamond, or Arial.
- Don’t mix a lot of different styles. Start with everything in Normal paragraph style, then add the variations you need for headers and font attributes such as bold and italics, but keep styles to a minimum. Elaborate formatting doesn’t translate well to most ebook formats.
- Don’t use tabs, paragraph returns to create blank lines between paragraphs, tables, columns, or text boxes. Instead use paragraph indents and set the “space after” to 6 point in your Normal paragraph style; convert tables, columns, and text boxes to plain text.
- Don’t use Word’s AutoCorrect, AutoFormat, or automatic table of contents creator. All of these features are apt to put garbage into your ebook. You may think it takes a little longer to create the table of contents manually, but, believe me, if you corrupt your file with an automatic table of contents, you’ll wish you had spent a little extra time initially.
- One simple rule for success: Do follow the instructions in the Style Guide. Mark Coker has provided step-by-step instructions that work if you follow them exactly. And if you still get AutoVetter errors after following the instructions, fall back on the “nuclear option” and paste your text into Notepad to remove whatever hidden formatting or corruption is causing the problem. Then start over following the Style Guide instructions.
Anyone can publish anything on Smashwords. As an editor, I have one piece of advice that isn’t a “how-to” but a “what-to.” Ensure that your book is ready for publication before you start formatting. Hire a professional editor or find a knowledgeable friend who can edit your book for you. Smashwords will produce a lovely ebook in nearly a dozen formats. Make sure the quality of the content is commensurate with the quality of the formatting.
Smashwords is a great tool and an opportunity for the ones who really want to write, and they are good at it. Imagine if Jane Austen had such a tool, how many books she could have written.
Mia,
Yes, Smashwords gives everyone the opportunity to publish their work.
Thanks for introducing me to Smashwords. I’ve written hundreds of thousands of words for conference papers, technical book chapters, and various articles. I’ll apply the Smashwords style guide and quickly publish my back catalogue to get to grips with the system. However, I’m no writer for a large audience, so I need to continue my training. It’s fun though, and that’s what life is all about. I still keep imagining Jack and yourself go-carting round the supermarket in the middle of the night when I need to make myself happy.
Russell,
I’m happy to introduce you to Smashwords and hope you sell lots of your work. Keep me posted!
And I’m glad visions of Jack and me scooting through Walmart give you a smile!
I’m bookmarking this post for later use, Lillie. I’m also interested in your book about creating characters and the one on house plants.
Thanks. You are a vast cavern of wonderful and useful information!
Dominique,
Smashwords would be a great way for you to get started publishing. I’m eager to see some of your work available there.
Hi, Lillie,
Thanks for such an informative post about Smashwords! I adore Smashwords and have found it to be just another way to read the works of other great writers out there. I know some authors have also used Smashwords as a promotional tool to provide free samples of their books. I myself have not used it for my own books (I leave that to my publishers) but maybe one day I will. And if so, I’ll come back to this post for your tips.
Take care!
Dawn,
Smashwords is a great way to find new authors. I’m glad you’re a fan as well.
Great article for newbies, when it comes to publishing ebooks online. Thanks.
Matt,
I highly recommend Smashwords as a place to publish online.
Oh my, this post of yours is God sent! My wife works as an ebook writer on odesk and it is an absolute pain in the bum to format using Word. I can only imagine how productive we will become using this tool. Thanks, I’ll make sure to buy one of your ebooks.
George,
I’m not clear on how Smashwords will help with odesk because books that go through the Meatgrinder are to publish on Smashwords. However, the Style Guide may be very helpful in creating ebooks for other applications, as well.
I have habit of book beckoning and I keep myself to explore new resources of book.Your this post has helped me a lot.
Azhar,
I am glad the post was helpful, but I hope you will clarify your comment. I don’t understand what you mean by “book beckoning.”
These are good reads! And the greatest of all they are free! Will surely be reading them. Top on the list is Trapped by Love followed by Fern’s Fancies. Thank you.
Jane,
I hope you will read all of the ebooks. However, only Trapped by Love is free. The others are $1.99 to $5.99–still a bargain, but not free.
I have been thinking about creating an e-book for some of my course materials. Setting aside some of the potential frustrating formatting issues, being able to take a word document and convert it into an ebook might make the task easy enough to actually accomplish!
Derra,
Smashwords might be the perfect way for you to create an ebook from your course materials.
You have introduced a good stuff for knowledge.I appreciate the introduction of Smashwords.
Jamal,
Are you interested in Smashwords from a reader standpoint or from a writer standpoint?
I believe that smash down is a great tool for writer’s and those who wants to be one. With this amazing review about smash down,surely I can awake my writing skills.
Thanks for sharing, I’m going to try it soon..
Shana,
First, it’s Smashwords, not smash down.
Second, it’s a publishing platform, not a tool to improve your writing.
I’m not sure if you didn’t read thoroughly or if my writing is so bad it’s not clear.
Maybe I have this totally confused since I never published an e-book, but what are your thoughts on clickbank vs smashwords (advantages and disadvantages)?
Ryan,
I’ve never used Clickbank, so my response is based on what I think it is. Perhaps I’m wrong.
My understanding is that Clickbank is a place to sell products, including ebooks, through affiliates. As far as I know, Clickbank doesn’t actually publish anything. You have to create your ebook then put it on Clickbank for sale.
Smashwords is a publishing platform. You input your manuscript, and the Smashwords “meatgrinder” converts it to a number of different formats. Smashwords is also a distributor, selling ebooks on its website as well as through its premium catalog.
So as far as I can tell, there is little to compare between the two. Clickbank only sells–and primarily through affiliates. Smashwords publishes and sells–through its own website (which does offer an affiliate program, but that’s not its primary goal) and through other online retailers.
Hi, Lillie…
(That just made me think of Leslie Caron…
)
Thank you for your wonderful review of Smashwords. I just want to know – have you tried any of the other ebook publishers such as Lulu and Fifobooks? Would you be able to compare/contrast the services of other companies with that of Smashwords?
Yours truly,
Cecilia Roesler
Cecilia,
I have uploaded books to Lulu.com for a couple of clients. Lulu does both print and ebooks, and one of my clients did her print book both at CreateSpace and Lulu and her ebook at both Lulu and Smashwords. In both cases, I was happier with the companies other than Lulu (CreateSpace and Smashwords) as far as the process of uploading, and she was happier as far as sales go. Her sales at Lulu have been negligible–she has sold much better at the other sites.
I have no experience with Fifobooks–in fact I have never heard of it and had a hard time finding anything in a Google search. Finally I was redirected to bookhunch.com, which requires you to submit an email request for an invite. That would all lead me to believe that it wouldn’t exactly be the best place to try to sell ebooks or anything else. If people can’t find you, it’s pretty hard to sell. Also I found some ripoff and scam reports, so it doesn’t sound like a good choice to me.
I have been thinking of creating ebooks about some of my “how tos” that’s posted on my website, I’m not planing on charging for them but rather give them out for free. Maybe I’ll try smashwords when I get the time to actually write the stuff I’m planning to publish.
Tech,
Smashwords is a great place to publish free ebooks.
Now, you got me interested. I have something that I have written which is collecting dust in my hard drive. Maybe I can take that, spruce it up a bit and see what Smashwords can do. Thanks!
Audrey,
Good luck with your dusty, soon-to-be-spruced-up writings.
Smashwords is heaven-sent to aspiring writers. It’s wise to take advantage of this free platform. They’re relatively new so birth pains are quite understandable. They seem to have a lot of potential though.
Darin,
I’ve been very pleased with Smashwords.
Hi Lillie, just got to your older post and I’m happy I took the time. I love ebooks and well, writing too. I think Smashword would be great in catapulting me to stardom
lolz.
Btw, how do you do the images for your cover? Just curious.
Thanks so much!
Jess
Jessica,
Smashwords is great, and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to publish ebooks.
Sometimes I use an ebook cover generator software program. The one I have is old and isn’t available any more, but there are others online. I can’t recommend any in particular as I haven’t used any others.
Most of the time, though, I use Adobe InDesign with stock photos.
I work with a great graphic designer on covers for my clients’ print books, but I usually do my own ebook covers.
Hi Lillie, to be honest I didn’t know about Smashwords but I am glad I do now! Due to the broad platform of devices this seems to be a solution of making ebooks available to almost anyone. Also thanks for pointing out the Style Guide.
Mark,
I’m glad to introduce you to Smashwords. It is a simple and convenient way to get wide distribution of your ebooks.
Thanks for this. I have actually been looking for a multi platform publishing tool like Smashwords. All the advice I had been given was pointing towards complex and expensive installed tools. This is useful advice, thanks again.
Chris
Chris,
I’m glad my post provided useful information for you. Good luck with your publishing endeavors.
Wow that’s a really cool publishing platform – I’ve never heard of it before! I love e-readers and would be stoked to actually publish something on one.
Maybe I will someday now that I know how (relatively) easy it is. Thanks!
Michelle,
Smashwords is a great platform–easy to work with and great distribution.
Thanks for the tip off regarding Smashwords. It’s a great idea and makes wide-scale publishing a whole lot easier to manage.
Joan,
The founder of Smashwords has just published a free ebook on ebook publishing success. I just downloaded it–haven’t read it yet, but expect it to be very helpful.
Is Smashwords an ebook distributor like Amazon and such? If so, what kind of customer base do they have in comparison to the big players?
Steve,
The great thing about Smashwords is that not only do they sell on their own website, but they also distribute to Apple, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, and a lot more ebook retailers. I find that when I get royalties from Smashwords, most of the sales come from the other outlets rather than Smashwords itself, but I sell as much or more on Smashwords as I do on Kindle (but I also have more titles on Smashwords, so it’s not a direct comparison).
This is a very cool resource. I’ve been slowly writing an ebook revolving around one of my niche sites for a while. I haven’t really looked into the publishing side of this until this morning. Thanks for the great words of wisdom Lille!
Good luck with your ebook, chris!
Hi Lillie,
thanks for sharing such a useful resource – looking at some of the comments, it seems that many budding writers haven’t even heard of Smashwords – including myself! I mostly read ebooks with my ipad, so hopefully the formatting will be ok reading ebooks from Smashwords.
Alex,
You can get an edition readable on the ipad from Smashwords, and you can also buy books in the ibook store, provided that the author has chosen Smashword’s premium distribution.
Smashwords looks great! I’m going to have to try this out.
-Matt
I think you’ll like it, Matt.
I hope we have someday something like Smashwords here in France but for now I’ve no choice but just writing online. Better than nothing I guess.
Laurent,
Glad that you are writing. If you write in English or translate your work into English, you can sell your books on Smashwords.
Smashwords is the really good one to self- publishing the book and they also distribute the books to major ebook stores like Apple, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, etc..Smashwords works well for novel and other simple type books. But it is very hard to format for the complex layout book.
Anyway, thanks for the cool article and it really useful to all the Authors..
That’s right, Maria. Smashwords is best for books that are text–not so well for books with graphics or books that require a complex layout.
Do you know if these can be read on the Kindle Fire? I have a huge collection of ebooks but I can’t read any of them on my new Fire because it only seems able to read Amazon’s products.
Peter,
As far as I know, the Kindle Fire reads the same format as the other Kindle devices, which is .mobi. That is available at Smashwords. You have to download it to your computer, then transfer it to your Kindle via USB, but it’s easy to do.
Regarding the other formats that you already have. Have you tried converting them to .mobi with Calibre? If they are a proprietary format from an older device, it might not work, but for most current formats, it works very well. It’s a free download, then you import your books and convert them to the format(s) you want.