I understand what you're saying, Steve. I am not opposed to author websites as a concept, and I am not saying 'never!' to that. In fact there is one author who offers bundles on his website where the books are much, much cheaper if you buy them from him. I have been pondering that as I liked his first two books, but the only format he offers which would work for me is HTML and I would have to do some fiddling with them. So I am waiting until I clear out my TBR pile a little. Like Maria says, an author who makes it easy (i.e. paypal link, no need to register) is more likely to get me on an impulse buy for stuff like that. I did check out your site, but (no offense) it's not really my preferred genre, so I have not bought anything
One thing that is appealing to me about Smashwords and Feedbooks is the 'library management' aspect. Manybooks was my go-to site for ages, but it does not keep a catalogue for you of your downloads. I like being able to log in, see everything I have downloaded, then make ratings and reviews. Feedbooks seems to be getting into recommendations based on what you have downloaded already. Manybooks does at least offer reviews. I think such features will become more important on the big sites (free or otherwise) as time goes on because there is just SO much content out there now. People need a way to filter and browse the content like they would in a bookstore. I mean, Google Books alone has 1 million PD titles, who is going to go through them all one by one to find something to read? This is why I like the way Feedbooks is set up, to recommend and to let people submit ratings and reviews. I am not saying I need a Big Brother-esque monitoring of what I download and read, but I do think the 'big' sites (be they free or otherwise) do have that advantage in that they can make connections between what you have read in the past and what might interest you in the future, and that can help people discover new books and authors.