Smashwords formatting: Same as Amazon ?

saoir · 09-24-2014, 09:22 PM

Hi,

I self published to Amazon at the start of the week and tonight I started the process to do the same on Smashwords.

But as I went through the publishing page it started talking about the detailed 'Styleguide' that the book must quality for Smashwords...

I have an ePub that was fine for Amazon and passed ePubCheck. Do I need to read through the whole styleguide ?

I wish they allowed a step by step process like Amazon, now I have to start from scratch again

Tks for any help guys.

gmw · 09-25-2014, 12:26 AM

These days there are two ways to tackle Smashwords:

1) The old way of producing a Word document according to their style guide (which often means undoing all that stuff you carefully did right in the first place) and then let their meatgrinder try to put it back together again. (Because, after all, we all know that an automatic process will always do a much better job than we could possibly do otherwise. ... Okay, that's me being overly cynical.)

Follow this path and Smashwords will generate all the different formats for you, and offer a preview of the first x% of your book.

2) Upload your validated epub directly - just as you did with Amazon (presumably).

In this case only the epub will appear, and there will be no preview. (Take a look at my books for an example of this.)

Typically (if they haven't improved since I did my last one), if you upload exactly the same epub as you gave Amazon, Smashwords will initially refuse to place it on their premium catalogue because it doesn't say "Smashwords Edition". Assuming this is the only thing "wrong", a polite message to the Smashwords team (I explain that my epubs are not Smashwords' specific editions, they're the same editions I use everywhere) will have them let it through (after a few days).

You can, and possibly should (if you have a good epub), do both. The old way will let you exclude epub from the generation process so your carefully made epub can remain. I say "should", because option 1 is currently the only way to get a preview available on Smashwords - which is sad. Another reason is that option 1 is currently the only way to get a Kindle version available on Smashwords, which can be useful if you decide to use their coupon system for give-aways or whatever. (The other formats seem pretty meaningless these days.)

saoir · 09-25-2014, 07:18 AM

Tks gmw ... really bizarre. I'm thinking twice whether it is worth the effort now.

gmw · 09-25-2014, 08:02 AM

It might seem strange, but Smashwords themselves - I find - are very good to deal with. Maybe not the speediest, but they respond faster than I ever got with BookBaby.

The slightly odd distinctions between the old Word way, and the new epub way are mostly historic (as far as I can tell) ... and, sadly, Smashwords don't seem in a hurry to improve their epub support. I assume that's because the majority of people using them are still happy to submit Word docs and let the meatgrinder do the conversions for them. The results are generally usable, if not pretty when you look at the internals.

I've yet to go through the Word thing - I have not done so with my novels. I thought I might give it a try with one or two shorts, and if it turns out well enough then maybe I'll put my novels through the meatgrinder for everything but epub (for the reasons cited above).

09-24-2014, 09:22 PM	#1
saoir Groupie Posts: 188 Karma: 2088290 Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Ireland Device: Kindle Paperwhite	Smashwords formatting: Same as Amazon ? Hi, I self published to Amazon at the start of the week and tonight I started the process to do the same on Smashwords. But as I went through the publishing page it started talking about the detailed 'Styleguide' that the book must quality for Smashwords... I have an ePub that was fine for Amazon and passed ePubCheck. Do I need to read through the whole styleguide ? I wish they allowed a step by step process like Amazon, now I have to start from scratch again Tks for any help guys.

09-25-2014, 12:26 AM	#2
gmw cacoethes scribendi Posts: 5,818 Karma: 137770742 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Aura One & H2Ov2, Sony PRS-650	These days there are two ways to tackle Smashwords: 1) The old way of producing a Word document according to their style guide (which often means undoing all that stuff you carefully did right in the first place) and then let their meatgrinder try to put it back together again. (Because, after all, we all know that an automatic process will always do a much better job than we could possibly do otherwise. ... Okay, that's me being overly cynical.) Follow this path and Smashwords will generate all the different formats for you, and offer a preview of the first x% of your book. 2) Upload your validated epub directly - just as you did with Amazon (presumably). In this case only the epub will appear, and there will be no preview. (Take a look at my books for an example of this.) Typically (if they haven't improved since I did my last one), if you upload exactly the same epub as you gave Amazon, Smashwords will initially refuse to place it on their premium catalogue because it doesn't say "Smashwords Edition". Assuming this is the only thing "wrong", a polite message to the Smashwords team (I explain that my epubs are not Smashwords' specific editions, they're the same editions I use everywhere) will have them let it through (after a few days). You can, and possibly should (if you have a good epub), do both. The old way will let you exclude epub from the generation process so your carefully made epub can remain. I say "should", because option 1 is currently the only way to get a preview available on Smashwords - which is sad. Another reason is that option 1 is currently the only way to get a Kindle version available on Smashwords, which can be useful if you decide to use their coupon system for give-aways or whatever. (The other formats seem pretty meaningless these days.) Last edited by gmw; 09-25-2014 at 12:34 AM.

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09-25-2014, 07:18 AM	#3
saoir Groupie Posts: 188 Karma: 2088290 Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Ireland Device: Kindle Paperwhite	Tks gmw ... really bizarre. I'm thinking twice whether it is worth the effort now.

09-25-2014, 08:02 AM	#4
gmw cacoethes scribendi Posts: 5,818 Karma: 137770742 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Aura One & H2Ov2, Sony PRS-650	It might seem strange, but Smashwords themselves - I find - are very good to deal with. Maybe not the speediest, but they respond faster than I ever got with BookBaby. The slightly odd distinctions between the old Word way, and the new epub way are mostly historic (as far as I can tell) ... and, sadly, Smashwords don't seem in a hurry to improve their epub support. I assume that's because the majority of people using them are still happy to submit Word docs and let the meatgrinder do the conversions for them. The results are generally usable, if not pretty when you look at the internals. I've yet to go through the Word thing - I have not done so with my novels. I thought I might give it a try with one or two shorts, and if it turns out well enough then maybe I'll put my novels through the meatgrinder for everything but epub (for the reasons cited above).

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