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Old 02-23-2011, 04:42 PM   #76
JonDeus
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cool thanks for info!
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Old 03-15-2011, 04:07 PM   #77
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Sorry, I'm a new user to the forums and don't understand how to use them properly, so this might not be the best place to put my comment. But here goes.

Smashwords is another publisher and distributor of ebooks. Through it you can sell or publish free ebooks (unlike Amazon). Smashwords has its own popular web site, and distributes to barnesandnoble.com, Apple ibookstore, and kobobooks.com. You can self-publish your own epub ebooks on those sites without using Smashwords or paying the 15% commission it charges on sales, but it provides full accounting and a one-stop shop. In addition, Smashwords is one of only two approved content aggregators for ebookstore.sony.com and also the smaller ebook site diesel-ebooks.com. Kobobooks.com feeds the epub from Smashwords to other ebook retailers including borders.com, and handles all the transactions and pays through smashwords.

Smashwords' own site posts your book in Kindle (mobi), epub, lrf, PDF, RTF. and plain text. It's machine converters don't produce the nicest books but it's all automatic, you just upload a .doc file (or rtf) and your ebook cover if you have one.

All of the above are options and you can select all of them or only specify which options you want. There is much more information available from smashwords.com.

Many self-publishers list their ebooks on Amazon and Smashwords.

Last edited by abr; 03-15-2011 at 04:57 PM.
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Old 04-15-2011, 03:23 PM   #78
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There's a very useful resource I mentioned in another (non-sticky) thread, so I'm re-posting it here so I don't lose it again.

http://ebookarchitects.com/conversions/retailers.php

This list the various ebook retailers and wholesalers, and what their requirements are. It seems to be accurate and up-to-date.
Excellent. I know this post is about a year old, but I'm just getting up to speed on this stuff in preparation for publishing a few books.
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Old 04-15-2011, 03:57 PM   #79
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So here's a question I didn't see addressed above -- ISBNs? How to get them and if they are needed and useful or required for self-publishing?
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Old 04-15-2011, 05:51 PM   #80
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So here's a question I didn't see addressed above -- ISBNs? How to get them and if they are needed and useful or required for self-publishing?
You get an ISBN range from the ISBN authority for the country you live in.

You don't need an ISBN for publishing a Kindle ebook through Amazon. I think you do need an ISBN for publishing an ePub, mostly.
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Old 04-24-2011, 09:41 PM   #81
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Kindle

Almost everyone has a mobile device iPhone or Android that you can use Kindle on. I don't own a kindle but I still read kindle books on my android..

My frustration is with graphic novels, I have yet to see a reader that has the software that can render the graphics correctly for a graphic novel. I have published comics before, now I am moving into the novel realm but there are no eReader software, or no hardware software combos that can.

Am I missing something here? Kindle is too low on the totem pole for graphics, iPad has issues even with magazines that end up costing the end user five times the normal amount to read their favorite magazines because apple charges them like 30 percent to make content for iPad.... GTFO in my honest opinion. The only thing that gets close are the new Android tablets with open source software that allows devs to create new content.. lets hope a graphical eReader is in the works from someone.
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Old 04-24-2011, 09:43 PM   #82
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This is a great resource - there are so many places to publish eBooks, it can be overwhelming!! I still am not sure what is the best way to do this. My eBooks are geared more towards Internet marketing, blogging how-to books. Thanks!
I know a few authors who publish via ePublishing, they use Amazon.com for kindle and smashwords.com for everything else. They do all formats including pdf.
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Old 05-02-2011, 12:09 PM   #83
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Originally Posted by Pensake View Post
I know a few authors who publish via ePublishing, they use Amazon.com for kindle and smashwords.com for everything else. They do all formats including pdf.
But sometimes Smashwords ePub can be a bit not all that wonderful since they use and automated meatgrinder to do the conversion. Find a place you can put nicely hand crafted ePub and then you'll be in business.
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Old 05-02-2011, 12:22 PM   #84
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But sometimes Smashwords ePub can be a bit not all that wonderful since they use and automated meatgrinder to do the conversion. Find a place you can put nicely hand crafted ePub and then you'll be in business.
I found smashwords meatgrinder to be quite poor

Last edited by harold1066; 05-07-2011 at 10:25 AM.
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Old 05-09-2011, 03:59 PM   #85
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I found smashwords meatgrinder to be quite poor
I bought a book the other day from B&N that came from Smashwords and it was a Word document converted to ePub via Calibre. The resulting document was nasty. This just makes me want to stay away from buying anything from Smashwords since they just don't know what to do properly.

The way to do it is to allow the author to upload a good ePub and any other formats the author wants and any missing formats get converted from the ePub.
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Old 05-09-2011, 04:05 PM   #86
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Registrant:
Smashwords, Inc.
15951 Los Gatos Blvd.
Ste 16
Los Gatos, California 95032
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: SMASHWORDS.COM
Created on: 05-Aug-05
Expires on: 05-Aug-11
Last Updated on: 06-Jun-10

Administrative Contact:
Administrator, DNS dns2010@smashwords.com
Smashwords, Inc.
15951 Los Gatos Blvd.
Ste 16
Los Gatos, California 95032
United States
+1.4083953600 Fax --

Technical Contact:
Administrator, DNS dns2010@smashwords.com
Smashwords, Inc.
15951 Los Gatos Blvd.
Ste 16
Los Gatos, California 95032
United States
+1.4083953600 Fax --

Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.SLICEHOST.NET
NS2.SLICEHOST.NET
NS3.SLICEHOST.NET
I suggest everyone who reads this gives Smashwords a call and tell them they need to allow authors to upload premade eBooks. The way they do it now is not working well at all.
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Old 05-09-2011, 04:13 PM   #87
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I bought a book the other day from B&N that came from Smashwords and it was a Word document converted to ePub via Calibre. The resulting document was nasty. This just makes me want to stay away from buying anything from Smashwords since they just don't know what to do properly.

The way to do it is to allow the author to upload a good ePub and any other formats the author wants and any missing formats get converted from the ePub.
It isn't just Smashwords that makes bad ebooks from badly formatted Word files, Amazon do it too. The problem is with the source Word file, and anyone who can't format one of those properly is unlikely to be able to format an epub properly either.
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Old 05-09-2011, 05:30 PM   #88
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It isn't just Smashwords that makes bad ebooks from badly formatted Word files, Amazon do it too. The problem is with the source Word file, and anyone who can't format one of those properly is unlikely to be able to format an epub properly either.
Sometimes It is just easier to deal with ePub then it is to deal with Word. My idea is to do the editing in a Word, apply the markdown syntax, save as text and run it through Calibre. That would eliminate all the garbage Word puts in.
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Old 05-09-2011, 06:55 PM   #89
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The way to do it is to allow the author to upload a good ePub and any other formats the author wants and any missing formats get converted from the ePub.
I agree with this; I made the .mobi for the kindle and uploaded it to Amazon and it looked nice.

The mobi made by Smashwords was terrible and I had to delete it, I only allow the epub, .pdf, and .rtf; although the .rtf seems to be corrupt
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Old 05-09-2011, 07:09 PM   #90
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I pay good money no matter how much or how little and I don't like to get an eBook that I could have made better from the same Word document.

Smashwords is causing authors to lose money. There are eBooks I would have bought, but not from SW given how bad they can be under the hood when I want to fix them to how I like.
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