Is Smashwords the answer?

[scrapking]

While I haven't personally used either service (yet), Bookbaby.com is another one to consider. Smashwords takes a percentage for its troubles (in perpetuity?), whereas Bookbaby takes an up-front $99 fee for theirs. So if you end up with the next breakout indie hit, Bookbaby may be better. If you end up toiling away in obscurity, Smashwords may be better.

It's worth noting that Bookbaby indicates that they offer layout advice for your e-book's cover in that $99. They don't *do* the cover, just offer advice. However, they do offer cover creation as an add-on service for $150+.

For someone who might, in years gone by, paid to have 100 copies of their self-written book created (so-called "vanity" publishing) at a much higher cost, $250+ for a professionally made cover and distribution to a pile of e-book stores isn't so bad. The stores in question that Bookbaby supports are:

- iBooks

- Kindle

- Nook

- Sony Reader store

- Kobo Marketplace

- Copia

- Gardners

- Baker & Taylor

- eBookPie

Like I say, not an endorsement, just something I saw online, and throwing it out there for those who think success is on the horizon and would rather give up a fixed amount than a percentage.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by scrapking

While I haven't personally used either service (yet), Bookbaby.com is another one to consider. Smashwords takes a percentage for its troubles (in perpetuity?), whereas Bookbaby takes an up-front $99 fee for theirs. So if you end up with the next breakout indie hit, Bookbaby may be better. If you end up toiling away in obscurity, Smashwords may be better

You don't work for them, do you? Cause this sure sounds like an ad.

Personally, I don't have $99 to blow every time I release a short story or something, so its cheaper to do my own layouts and release a new cover when I get the resources, than it is to bet more money than I can easily afford on a service that might not even help me.

[scrapking]

Originally Posted by teh603

You don't work for them, do you? Cause this sure sounds like an ad.

I absolutely don't work for them, don't know anyone who works for them, and have no association with them in any way. I own a bicycle shop in Canada, whereas they're an e-publishing firm in Oregon if their 503 area code is anything to go by.

And as I said in my post, Smashwords is likely better in a lot of circumstances. Bookbaby might be better if you think you're really sitting on the next Hunger Games or believe you're the next Amanda Hocking, but otherwise Smashwords' royalty model is likely better.

And Smashwords might be better in all circumstances if you take the time to do the majors by hand (Kindle, Kobo, Nook, etc.) where the biggest volume of sales are likely to be, and then use Smashwords to fill in the gaps.

[scrapking]

Originally Posted by teh603

Personally, I don't have $99 to blow every time I release a short story or something, so its cheaper to do my own layouts and release a new cover when I get the resources, than it is to bet more money than I can easily afford on a service that might not even help me.

If I understand how it works (please correct me if I don't), and presuming that you are aiming for price points where most e-book stores will give you 70% of the proceeds (generally $2.99 and up, from what I read), you'll pay about $100 to Smashwords on $1000 in sales ($1000 - $300 for the e-book store's take = $700, with 15% of that being $105).

Of course, if you're selling at $0.99, and losing 50%+ to some e-book stores, then you would need maybe $2000-3000 in sales to hit the $100 level, possibly even more depending on how well it was selling in what e-book stores (and the fact that Smashwords also has to deduct credit card/paypal fees off the top in some cases too).

If I were releasing content for $0.99 or $1.99, or if it was content that I believed was of appeal only to a very small niche, I would almost certainly prefer Smashwords over a service that charges a flat rate. If however the book was of novel-length, and I felt had potential to sell $1000+ in total at $2.99+ per copy, an up-front flate rate like Bookbaby sounds pretty good.

I honestly have no idea if the average indie author is doing anything close to those kind of numbers through Smashwords. It would be interesting to find out, actually. Does anyone know what kind of range of sales numbers are common for indie authors?

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by scrapking

And Smashwords might be better in all circumstances if you take the time to do the majors by hand (Kindle, Kobo, Nook, etc.) where the biggest volume of sales are likely to be, and then use Smashwords to fill in the gaps.

Err... Smash does Kobo, and Nook. So you only have to worry about Kindle in addition to Smash currently .

[altworld]

Originally Posted by scrapking

While I haven't personally used either service (yet), Bookbaby.com is another one to consider. Smashwords takes a percentage for its troubles (in perpetuity?), whereas Bookbaby takes an up-front $99 fee for theirs. So if you end up with the next breakout indie hit, Bookbaby may be better. If you end up toiling away in obscurity, Smashwords may be better.

It's worth noting that Bookbaby indicates that they offer layout advice for your e-book's cover in that $99. They don't *do* the cover, just offer advice. However, they do offer cover creation as an add-on service for $150+.

For someone who might, in years gone by, paid to have 100 copies of their self-written book created (so-called "vanity" publishing) at a much higher cost, $250+ for a professionally made cover and distribution to a pile of e-book stores isn't so bad. The stores in question that Bookbaby supports are:

- iBooks

- Kindle

- Nook

- Sony Reader store

- Kobo Marketplace

- Copia

- Gardners

- Baker & Taylor

- eBookPie

Like I say, not an endorsement, just something I saw online, and throwing it out there for those who think success is on the horizon and would rather give up a fixed amount than a percentage.

Sure reads like and advert and endorsement, even going as far as trashing Smashwords for people who want to work in obscurity... Nice and classy that

So, I'm going to give the counter speech, and while all my books are on Smashwords that is the end of my affiliation with them. The choice is Bookbaby who have zero confidence in being able to sell your book as a self-publisher so they gouge you $99 or $150 to get your work into the marketplace. Good news is they don't take anything else because you've taken the risk and they have your money.

You have Smashwords that takes % of your 70% sale you get from each distribution stream nominally works out to be $0.08 per transaction. In return, and for no money upfront they give you a FREE ISBN, FREE book formatting advice, FREE distribution into premium catalog once they check the file is correct. They do this all for FREE without a promise of a sale of your book, putting faith in you that you can sell your work. Getting you into the marketplace with no money out of your pocket is a huge advantage and worth losing up to 15% of proceeds to do. Most of the time I've noted they've only taken 10%

In the end it comes down to business, if someone can do something for you for pennies that would normally cost you dollars you go with the penny option. I don't begrudge such a small backend transaction for all value added services Smashwords gives me and provide for my books.

But I'm cheapskate indie laboring away in obscurity so what would I know?

Edit - Did some match based on the amount of stories I sell a quarter through Smashwords I think I make them about $2.40 every three months.

[scrapking]

Originally Posted by altworld

Sure reads like and advert and endorsement, even going as far as trashing Smashwords

Believe what you choose. The reality, however, is that I like Smashwords, and would probably choose them myself if self publishing, as anything I write would likely be pretty niche and do better under a royalty system than a flat rate system. I've also purchased Smashwords-published content several times on my Kobo, including one this morning. I only even know of Bookbaby because they only recently added Kobo support, and I have a news alert set up for anything new related to Kobo. Now Kobo, *there's* an e-reading company I'm a bit of a fanboy of, that I can't deny. :-)

If Smashwords only takes 5% then I retract my statement as it was based on SW taking 15% (which is what they seemed to be saying on their website). If you're correct, that means you'd have to sell a whole lot more before a flat rate model like Bookbaby became attractive.

[altworld]

You also forgot to mention that Bookbaby charges you per change, you get one FREE change a year and after that is $50 a pop... Changes on SW FREE no matter how many. Then the ISBN is $19... ISBN on SW FREE... Then a $19 yearly listing fee, no yearly listing FEE on SW

Now we get into the meat of BB charges, they generously let you have 10 FREE images in your book and then charge $2 per image. So for my latest book which was an illustrated tale it would cost me out of pocket.

$99 - Book Conversion Fee
$19 - For ISBN
$19 - Yearly listing Fee
$22 - To insert all images
$159 out of pocket.

Now because I am crap I had to do two changes to the book once I eBooked it, minor things but niggling enough for me to change... So used up my FREE change and would have to pay BB $50 for the second change.

$209 out of pocket.

Now I noted BB offers advance formatting for books they judge need it, which is $150 an hour on top of the other fee's. Now if I want to make it a little different and personalized there is another set of fee's on top of that. A little bit confusing and a lot of fee's that seemed designed to take money from an Author and give little value added back. I kinda get antsy when I see this....

Each to there own, but starting out going with the SW option seems to be the better road as you find your feet. Someone who doesn't make money unless you make money is more motivated to push your material than someone who took their money upfront.

Fee listing is on there website I don't want to fall foul of any bizarre linking rules here on MR so use Google to find it.

[scrapking]

Originally Posted by altworld

You also forgot to mention that Bookbaby charges you per change, you get one FREE change a year and after that is $50 a pop... Changes on SW FREE no matter how many. Then the ISBN is $19... ISBN on SW FREE... Then a $19 yearly listing fee, no yearly listing FEE on SW

You also neglected to mention one of Smashwords' biggest advantage, IMO: they're a destination portal for books, the brand name of indie book publishing as it were, and offers you the potential to get an 80%+ take (85% - credit card/paypal fees) on e-books sold through their site. Piles of people have heard of Smashwords, virtually no one's heard of most of the alternatives to SW.

I still believe that a royalty-based model may not ideal for something you think is going to be a breakout hit, but (as I mentioned earlier) you can mitigate that by doing the work yourself for just the major few (Kindle, Kobo, etc., though I'm in Canada so I would have to let SW do Nook), and letting SW fill in the gaps and sell on their own website.

[scrapking]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

Err... Smash does Kobo, and Nook. So you only have to worry about Kindle in addition to Smash currently .

I understand that. My point was that you might choose to do the majors, and get SW to submit only to the smaller e-book stores, if you thought you had a breakout hit on your hands and thought the royalty savings justified your time.

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by scrapking

I understand that. My point was that you might choose to do the majors, and get SW to submit only to the smaller e-book stores, if you thought you had a breakout hit on your hands and thought the royalty savings justified your time.

At least with my book, the division between Amazon sales and all other stores is huge... the difference between say Kobo and Smashwords... is tiny (in numbers of books moved). So while it makes great sense, to me, to handle Amazon myself ... it is just not worth it to add 3 or 4 more places to publish verse just letting smash handle it.

That is my experience at least.

[altworld]

Originally Posted by scrapking

I still believe that a royalty-based model may not ideal for something you think is going to be a breakout hit,

Every self-published Author I've met starts the journey with what they think will be the breakout hit. Many fall be the wayside because they didn't get the reception for their material that they thought they would get... The KB boards is littered with posts about how disappointed they are. Using SW, KDP & Pubit at least tempers this by not adding any upfront expenses.

Bookbaby is of the tradition of a vanity presses that take money from Authors who are starting out and who really don't know any alternatives, or how easy you can actually format your book yourself. Maybe, just maybe they might be viable once you do have a breakout hit if you really want to wait six weeks to get relisted into the sales channels you would have to pull out of.

First rule of self-publishing... Money flows to the Author

[Lazybones]

I sell my books at Amazon and Smashwords, letting SW handle the distribution to the other online stores. More than 90% of my SW sales have been through Barnes and Noble, with the rest split between SW itself and the Sony store. Diesel, Kobo, and Apple just don't seem to sell well for me.

I like the features others have noted, including the ease of updating and the convenience of automatic distribution and registering for ISBNs. Plus Smashwords has some nice features for gifting books, offering discounts/coupons, and so on.

One issue to be aware of with Smashwords is that the affiliate sales reporting can be sporadic. For most of the stores, sales reports are quarterly, though B&N has been better of late, updating every two weeks or so. So if you're like me and you check your sales frequently it can seem like nothing is moving, then suddenly you get a deluge of sales when the affiliates get around to reporting in.

[scrapking]

Originally Posted by altworld

Bookbaby is of the tradition of a vanity presses that take money from Authors who are starting out

I agree, and even made the comparison to vanity publishers myself in my OP.

That annual relisting fee for Bookbaby you mentioned is disappointing and, IMO, pointless since they're not offering on-going services to you (except what they charge you for, such as change fees). I hadn't been aware of that. As I say, I've used neither service and just threw it out there for discussion for those looking for a royalty-fee model. But adding an annual fee on means that it's effectively a flat-rate annual royalty. Useless.

[Annie Seixas]

It takes for flippin' ever to get on their Premium Catalog though!