Smashwords coming to the Kindle Store on 25 November

[Daithi]

It actually may be better to go directly through Amazon instead of Smashwords. It doesn't look like Amazon discounts the Smashwords titles, but publishers (even small self-publishers) have their books discounted 20% (at least at the moment). So here's the math

I list my book for $12.49
_____________-$_2.50 (Amazon discounts price by 20%)
______________--------
______________$ 9.99 (Amazon sales price)

______________$ 4.37 (My royalty based on 35% of $12.49 list price)
_____________43.74% (My royalty based on $9.99 sales price)

Smashwords gives the author 42.5%

[fugazied]

The quality of conversions that I have seen from Smashwords has been pretty good, but yeah, a lot of reports of duds floating around.

It's all so hit and miss still...

[pdurrant]

That's fine for authors, or publishers who are paying authors a percentage of wholesale price. Publishers paying authors a percentage of retail price are a lot better off with Smashwords.

Originally Posted by Daithi

It actually may be better to go directly through Amazon instead of Smashwords. It doesn't look like Amazon discounts the Smashwords titles, but publishers (even small self-publishers) have their books discounted 20% (at least at the moment). So here's the math

I list my book for $12.49
_____________-$_2.50 (Amazon discounts price by 20%)
______________--------
______________$ 9.99 (Amazon sales price)

______________$ 4.37 (My royalty based on 35% of $12.49 list price)
_____________43.74% (My royalty based on $9.99 sales price)

Smashwords gives the author 42.5%

[Daithi]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

That's fine for authors, or publishers who are paying authors a percentage of wholesale price. Publishers paying authors a percentage of retail price are a lot better off with Smashwords.

How do you figure? Amazon is paying on a percentage of retail price.

[BearMountainBooks]

There is also no guessing what Amazon will discount -- when or why. Before I was published on Kindle other self-published authors were telling me how to price to get Amazon to discount. Apparently for a while, Amazon discounted $1.00 books to .80 cents. Other already low prices were discounted also. But then it stopped, no warning, no reason. (And I'm not saying they should offer a rhyme or reason.)

While I'd love for Amazon to do a discount that didn't cost me, I'm not going to make any decisions on where to publish based on discounts. Not unless they publish a formula...

[pdurrant]

Yes, Amazon are paying a percentage of retail, not the price at which the book sells.

Say the retail price for an ebook I publish is $10.
Amazon will pay me $3.50 per sale.
Smashwords will pay me $4.25 sale.

Either way, if I'm paying the author 20% of retail price, I need to pay them $2 when a book sells.

So selling through Smashwords on Amazon will net me $2.25 compared to $1.50 from going direct.

Suppose I do go direct, and knowing that Amazon will probably discount my book by 20%, I set the retail price at $12.50, so it sells for $10. Amazon will pay me $4.37, which is more that I'd get selling it for $10 through Smashwords. But I'd then have to pay the author $2.50, leaving me with $1.87, still worse off than selling through Smashwords for $10.

Originally Posted by Daithi

How do you figure? Amazon is paying on a percentage of retail price.

[Daithi]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Yes, Amazon are paying a percentage of retail, not the price at which the book sells.

Say the retail price for an ebook I publish is $10.
Amazon will pay me $3.50 per sale.
Smashwords will pay me $4.25 sale.

Either way, if I'm paying the author 20% of retail price, I need to pay them $2 when a book sells.

So selling through Smashwords on Amazon will net me $2.25 compared to $1.50 from going direct.

Suppose I do go direct, and knowing that Amazon will probably discount my book by 20%, I set the retail price at $12.50, so it sells for $10. Amazon will pay me $4.37, which is more that I'd get selling it for $10 through Smashwords. But I'd then have to pay the author $2.50, leaving me with $1.87, still worse off than selling through Smashwords for $10.

I understand.

[neilmarr]

Hello there LLreader. Sorry to be late back: ***Could you give us some specifics? Are you automating the process? What formats are you converting? I assume you are putting everything into Word format, no?***

I must confess to being a technodunce, so please forgive me if my response ain't full enough (email me for more detail). Our two technotops, Tony and Alex, are dealing with this. No way is the process automated. We must go back to the Word source file from which we created our PDFs, convert to SM specs, correct layout anomalies and proofread each title for tiny conversion-generated errors before it's ready to put over. Gonna be a long haul, but it might get speedier as we get into our stride. Cheers. Neil