As
teleread reported yesterday,
SmashWord's Blog tells us that Smashwords has signed an agreement with Barnes & Noble to distribute Smashwords ebooks.
More complete information for authors is at
Smashwords Titles to Enter Broader Distribution:
Quote:
Premium Feed: This new catalog is distributed to major online retailers and other distribution outlets that have higher mechanical standards such as requiring quality book cover images, books with copyright pages, and other requirements outlined below. If you're a serious author or publisher, you want your books included in Smashwords Premium Catalog.
Royalties - We're still fine-tuning details, but I expect authors and publishers will continue to receive 85% of the proceeds to Smashwords and Smashwords will receive 15%. Since retailers typically take a big chunk of sales, often 50% of the list price (and we have little control over this), your net may equal approximately 42% of your list price. So, if you set the price of your book at $10.00, you'll receive about $4.20 from each sale. We will clearly disclose to you your estimated proceeds from each of the major online retailers we add to our distribution network. If you are not satisfied with the terms, you can opt out on a retailer by retailer basis by clicking to the new Channel Manager feature in your Dashboard (as soon as we finish building it). I expect the only authors or publishers temped to opt out will be those who already have relationships with our outlets.
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I think this is great news for indie authors, since it provides a new outlet for their work. However, if B&N discounts from list price, it may be bad news for selling direct from the Smashwords web site.