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Old 01-12-2010, 09:30 PM   #1
Zerhackermann
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Casual publishing

My second post on the site. So please forgive me if I am bringing up an old subject.

Let's say I have a story written, novella-ish in length, that I want to make available for a buck or two. But I'm not particularly interested in marketing or attempting to make a fortune. I'm more interested in making the file available and splitting any proceeds with the host.

Where would I start?

I see Smashwords and Fictionwise mentioned often. But to be honest, I only considered the idea this afternoon.
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Old 01-12-2010, 09:50 PM   #2
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Smashwords would be your best bet. Fictionwise has gotten more...stringent on their acceptance since they were bought by B/N.

You may also want to look into LuLu dot Com if you want to make an actual physical copy available.
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Old 01-12-2010, 09:50 PM   #3
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Smashwords is great. I love buying from there because it is so easy and the titles are DRM free. Looks like they have some good resources on there too. From what I understand it's pretty easy to get your work up on there.
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Old 01-12-2010, 10:06 PM   #4
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Good thoughts, both of you.

Lilac, you do bring up a couple of points:

1) DRM - no thanks. would rather folks be able to take a chance and enjoy the story (or not ) than to be worried about counting pennies. I'm of the mindset that locking it up is stepping over dollars to pick up dimes.

2) formatting - and kind of DRM-ish. If someone converts the text from one format to another and does a good job of it, it would be great if that format could be "fed back" my way and offered as well.
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Old 01-12-2010, 10:09 PM   #5
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Smashwords actually does all the formatting for you. And they do a pretty good job. As long as you follow their template.

In my experience, I've found that using OfficeXP and then "Read on Reader" with "convert formatting" usually does an excellent job that can be downfed into Calibre and converted. That's how Beyond the Black was done.
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Old 01-12-2010, 10:15 PM   #6
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Originally Posted by jaxx6166 View Post
Smashwords actually does all the formatting for you. And they do a pretty good job. As long as you follow their template.

In my experience, I've found that using OfficeXP and then "Read on Reader" with "convert formatting" usually does an excellent job that can be downfed into Calibre and converted. That's how Beyond the Black was done.
Interesting. So no specialized editing software?

FWIW - I'm using Open Office.
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Old 01-12-2010, 10:23 PM   #7
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The only ones I used were "Read on Reader" which was a free add-on for OfficeXP - 2005.

And then Calibre, which is a free program that is used to convert programs.

Alternatively, you can try the myriad of automatics out there (google doc2epub), but their results are rather hit/miss.

But, from the goals you described, I think your best bet would be smashwords.
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