Publications

[R. Richard]

I now have some 32 published novels. The novels were selling, on a steady basis, but I wanted more sales. I needed a method to get more exposure and more readers.
After quite a bit of thought and searching, I found Smashwords. The Smashwords site allows an author to pretty much self publish. (The author does need a cover artist, available via Smashwords.)
I then read the Smashwords publishing guide and tried to publish a short story. Smashword stories require very special formatting and the Smashwords formatting guide is not all that easy to understand. My first story was rejected several times, but I persevered and eventually figured out how to do it right.
One thing that I found out, before I even submitted my first story to Smashwords was that I needed to very carefully edit the story, several times. (Unlike submitting to a publisher, there's no editor to correct your mistakes.)
It's difficult to edit your own work, because you know what it says. However, your readers might not understand what you understand. You have to read your own story, as a reader would. If anything is even a little unclear, clarify!
I'm now getting some paid sales via Smashwords. (Unfortunately, I have had to put off, for a while, the ordering of a Rolls Royce.) One nice thing is that I can publish my season/holiday specific stories to take full advantage of the season/holiday, instead of having to wait for a publisher to work through submissions.
The main benefit of my Smashwords publishing is that I can see more sales for my novels. (The order of my 'best sellers' now changes much more frequently.) I'm building a readership, not just via my novels, but also via my short stories.
That's my Smashwords experience. Does anyone else have a Smashwords experience to share?

 

[lovecraft68]

Smashwords is a really easy way to get published. First off they will accept any subject (they do have 18 plus rules like lit), so a couple of incest stories I put up there have done okay (nothing outstanding, so not only no Rolls, no highrade copy of House Of Mystery #1 either)

I found the formatting to be fairly easy, and I have never had an issue getting paid. The sales reports are easy to understand, and it costs nothing except if you want to pay for a cover. I use stock photos for $3 and found a site that puts text and other effects on a photo for free.

They also push your stuff through several different markets and keep track of it. All in all it seems pretty win win.

 

[R. Richard]

Yeah, so far Smashwords has been a very good experience for me. One thing that I do like is the e-mail notification of sales. I'm getting sales on a regular basis and, small that they be, I'm working toward that Rolls Royce!

 

[lovecraft68]

Yeah, so far Smashwords has been a very good experience for me. One thing that I do like is the e-mail notification of sales. I'm getting sales on a regular basis and, small that they be, I'm working toward that Rolls Royce!

Another feature I just took advantage of is it is easy to make any changes and to add better edited versions without having to take your original down in the meantime.

What is your name on there? I'll check you out!

 

[R. Richard]

Another feature I just took advantage of is it is easy to make any changes and to add better edited versions without having to take your original down in the meantime.

What is your name on there? I'll check you out!

All of my publications are under the same name, R. Richard.

 

[BettyMidnight]

I'm published on Smashwords and haven't had any problems... the best bet is to make sure you their Style Guide. It's a pain to get through it, but the information there is really great. Most of it you can apply to your documents if you plan on publishing it on other formats too.

 

[nakdsub]

You mean there's actually a way to make money?

How does it work?

 

[sr71plt]

How does it work?

You put up e-books on online distributor sites that buyers want to buy--usually because they liked what of yours they bought before.

 

[lovecraft68]

How does it work?

It's pretty easy-hell I'm barely computer literate and can do it-

However, initially there is not a lot of money to make. It takes awhile to build your name and there are thousands of books for people to choose from. The trick seems to be, to be pretty prolific. Short strokers seem to do well there.

I have 2 names over there. One I was charging $1.99 for some 12-20K stories and another I am charging .99 for some "quick and dirty" type stories around 4-5k the short ones sell better, and I think it's the price not content.

I recently went and changed the $1.99 to .99 and had a few sales right off the bat. If you scope around many people are just putting everything up for the .99, but if you look you will see others charging $7.99 or so for as little as 8k don't know how well they are doing, but I would imagine not too well. People are fundamentally cheap these days.

I would imagine one could make a living off of it, but it would take a long time and a lot of stories, but it resembles lit in the sense people can fav you and the more people who do so the more sales you know you should get. Selena Kitt puts some stuff up over there as well as Carl East and Pilot and I hear they do pretty well.

 

[R. Richard]

I'm published on Smashwords and haven't had any problems... the best bet is to make sure you their Style Guide. It's a pain to get through it, but the information there is really great. Most of it you can apply to your documents if you plan on publishing it on other formats too.

I have applied some of their Style Guide requirements to my other documents and the general ideas are good.

 

[Firebrain]

Are you on Amazon as well? All the publishers/self-pubbers I know get far better sales on Amazon than Smashwords.

I will shortly have a Smashwords experience. I have admittedly farmed everything out though--have a separate editor, formatter and cover artist (and I'm not paying them; have called in favours from talented friends. The internet is fabulous for making such connections). I've altered She Needs a Montage, added new scenes etc, and I'm going to offer it as a freebie to get some market presence before my novels come out next year. I've got a blog tour planned on various review sites and have sent out lots of ARCs, so fingers crossed that I don't fail miserably, lol.

 

[sr71plt]

Amazon accounts for over 75 percent of my sales. B&N is increasing its sales share. If I remember correctly, Smashwords can get the e-book on B&N.

 

[R. Richard]

Are you on Amazon as well? All the publishers/self-pubbers I know get far better sales on Amazon than Smashwords.

I will shortly have a Smashwords experience. I have admittedly farmed everything out though--have a separate editor, formatter and cover artist (and I'm not paying them; have called in favours from talented friends. The internet is fabulous for making such connections). I've altered She Needs a Montage, added new scenes etc, and I'm going to offer it as a freebie to get some market presence before my novels come out next year. I've got a blog tour planned on various review sites and have sent out lots of ARCs, so fingers crossed that I don't fail miserably, lol.

I have novels in Amazon, but not my Smashwords short stories. I like the idea, but I have no clue as to how to get my Smashwords stories in Amazon, what the payout would be and how to set things up. If you know, please tell me.

 

[Firebrain]

I have novels in Amazon, but not my Smashwords short stories. I like the idea, but I have no clue as to how to get my Smashwords stories in Amazon, what the payout would be and how to set things up. If you know, please tell me.

You format for Kindle (HTML basically) and load it up on the site, the same way you've done with Smashwords. They will delete anything that involves incest though, most of the time. I shall be uploading at the end of this month, so we'll see how that goes...

Also, remember to "tag" your Amazon books (other people will need to do this for you; there'll be an option on the sales page). So if you have mfm, you can tag as such, and when people search for that, you'll come up.