Smashwords or Amazon?

[carlieplum]

For SciFi and Romance e-books, maybe erotic, maybe just standard sexuality found in your average book, where would you place your writing and why?

 

[sr71plt]

Both. And as many other distributors that fit as well--and on every electronic platform you can get it on.

 

[lovecraft68]

Yes, both. There is no reason to have to choose.

One word of warning Amazon has a policy that you cannot sell your book anywhere else for less than your amazon price.

So make sure your prices match or if you want to try for more make the SW price a little higher.

 

[BONNIEBREA]

Just do Smashwords.

They have a style guide that is pretty easy to follow. If you format your .doc file - especially ToC - in comformance with the style guide, and follow a few other minor guidelines (like a good and presentable cover) your book will qualify for the Smashwords Premium List. They have a program they put the .doc file through (it happens as soon as you submit the file) that formats the file to be compatible with nine different reading devices.

Any submission can be available on the Smashwords site. But the titles on their Premium List go out to many different retailers, and Amazon is one of them. So there's no real reason to have to go to the trouble to format your file however Amazon would want it done just to gain access to that one outlet. Through the Premium List at Smashwords you'll gain access to many other retailers. At the moment they're affiliated with Sony, B&N, Kobo, Amazon, Apple, Diesel, Page Foundry, B-T Blio and Axis 360, and Library Direct.

I find I get a pretty steady smattering of sales directly from the Smashwords site, but the great majority of my sales come through affiliates, principally B&N, the Apple Store, and Sony (and a few through Amazon).

So save yourself some bother and just utilize the Smashwords resource, and you'll be accessing Amazon at the same time.

 

[bashfullyshameless]

Both.

The only reason to go exclusive on Amazon is if you're hoping to tap into the lending library system, but then anyone with a Nook or other non-Kindle e-reader is out of luck on your book.

FWIW, I have routinely done better on Amazon than Smashwords -- BY FAR. Even so, I'm reluctant to ditch Smashwords, but the fact is that Amazon accounts for a huge portion of the customer base when it comes to e-books.

 

[sr71plt]

My publisher has advised that Amazon is steadily losing sales position to B&N and Kobo.

And I wasn't aware that Smashwords would get the book on Amazon. I let my publisher worry about such things, but I'll have to ask him for confirmation on that. It certainly wasn't the case a couple of years ago.

 

[lovecraft68]

Just do Smashwords.

They have a style guide that is pretty easy to follow. If you format your .doc file - especially ToC - in comformance with the style guide, and follow a few other minor guidelines (like a good and presentable cover) your book will qualify for the Smashwords Premium List. They have a program they put the .doc file through (it happens as soon as you submit the file) that formats the file to be compatible with nine different reading devices.

Any submission can be available on the Smashwords site. But the titles on their Premium List go out to many different retailers, and Amazon is one of them. So there's no real reason to have to go to the trouble to format your file however Amazon would want it done just to gain access to that one outlet. Through the Premium List at Smashwords you'll gain access to many other retailers. At the moment they're affiliated with Sony, B&N, Kobo, Amazon, Apple, Diesel, Page Foundry, B-T Blio and Axis 360, and Library Direct.

I find I get a pretty steady smattering of sales directly from the Smashwords site, but the great majority of my sales come through affiliates, principally B&N, the Apple Store, and Sony (and a few through Amazon).

So save yourself some bother and just utilize the Smashwords resource, and you'll be accessing Amazon at the same time.

This is not really true.

Yes, Smashwords lists amazon as a retailer, but they cannot upload books there due to some type of glitch.

I have been on SW since March 2010 and none of my titles have ever gone there.

If you would like proof of that here is the link to SW's year in review type announcement where they uploaded their first 200 titles ever to amazon and their is a sales requirement for you to qualify and its a high one.

So do both amazon and SW.

And Mobi pocket creator is free software that easily puts your word doc into kindle format

and make sure you do both and as many as possible as amazon's sales are starting to decline, but there are so many e-readers out there the market is spreadout.

I will note that even "declining" amazon sales are still better than what I see on SW and their affiliates.

 

[lovecraft68]

Both.

The only reason to go exclusive on Amazon is if you're hoping to tap into the lending library system, but then anyone with a Nook or other non-Kindle e-reader is out of luck on your book.

FWIW, I have routinely done better on Amazon than Smashwords -- BY FAR. Even so, I'm reluctant to ditch Smashwords, but the fact is that Amazon accounts for a huge portion of the customer base when it comes to e-books.

Same for me, but no reason to ditch a source. The thing about spreading out is at the end of the month you may only be making a couple of hundred bucks on the smaller sites, bt if you're on a lot of them it all adds up.

Besides I like Mark Coker and he was the only one who went to bat big time against paypal and pretty much backed them off their little censorship game in the beginning of last year.-

 

[BONNIEBREA]

This is not really true.

Yes, Smashwords lists amazon as a retailer, but they cannot upload books there due to some type of glitch.

I have been on SW since March 2010 and none of my titles have ever gone there.

If you would like proof of that here is the link to SW's year in review type announcement where they uploaded their first 200 titles ever to amazon and their is a sales requirement for you to qualify and its a high one.

So do both amazon and SW.

And Mobi pocket creator is free software that easily puts your word doc into kindle format

and make sure you do both and as many as possible as amazon's sales are starting to decline, but there are so many e-readers out there the market is spreadout.

I will note that even "declining" amazon sales are still better than what I see on SW and their affiliates.

I can't speak to your experiences. As I mentioned in my previous post, the great majority of my sales come from three other SW affiliated retailers, but sales through Amazon do show up on my sales report from time to time. So my titles are selling through Amazon.

And, really I'd rather just let Smashword's conversion program do the converting, rather than bothering with downloading anything - even if free - and fooling around with it (and then having to download something else to deal with the conversion to the next device).

 

[NaokoSmith]

Do both.
My blogpost comparing my publishing experience on here, on Smashwords and on Amazon

Where to publish your hot stuff

Although Amazon say they won't publish for more than the price elsewhere they put my stuff up for sale when it's free elsewhere. They know I'm doing this as I told them in an email when they asked me about whether it had been plagiarised. They still put it up. They have a returns policy where if the buyer finds out the story was free elsewhere they'll refund the money.

It's better to start with Smashwords as that's an easier and much quicker uploading experience than Amazon. If you want to be free on Amazon you have to join their Select club and only publish on there, I don't like people who want that much control so I steer clear of it.

xxx

 

[evanslily]

I can't speak to your experiences. As I mentioned in my previous post, the great majority of my sales come from three other SW affiliated retailers, but sales through Amazon do show up on my sales report from time to time. So my titles are selling through Amazon.

And, really I'd rather just let Smashword's conversion program do the converting, rather than bothering with downloading anything - even if free - and fooling around with it (and then having to download something else to deal with the conversion to the next device).

P'raps you've got a book that's earned over $2,000 across the Smashwords distribution network? Because Smashwords themselves say that they currently distribute around 200 titles to Amazon--presumably those that've earned earned over $2,000. They say they limit the Amazon distribution to Smashwords bestsellers because the uploading and management is completely manual for them, just as it is if you the author upload direct to Amazon.

Unfortunately I haven't, LOL. But hey, maybe one day...

 

[carlieplum]

Wow! An abundance of information! Thank you all for taking the time to share your knowledge! (Cheese with rice, that's a lot of exclamation points.)

 

[lovecraft68]

P'raps you've got a book that's earned over $2,000 across the Smashwords distribution network? Because Smashwords themselves say that they currently distribute around 200 titles to Amazon--presumably those that've earned earned over $2,000. They say they limit the Amazon distribution to Smashwords bestsellers because the uploading and management is completely manual for them, just as it is if you the author upload direct to Amazon.

Unfortunately I haven't, LOL. But hey, maybe one day...

I've had 2 do that, but unfortunately they're incest which cannot be uploaded to the prudes at Amazon.

B&N has no such inhibitions and I was just surprised to see SW updated the affiliates for Dec. 2012 and I sold 238 books through B&N 190 of which were incest.

I keep toying with opting out of B&N with SW and going there myself, but its a lot of work and I need to figure out the calibre software first.

As an aside, I think amazon should rethink publishing incest. It sold extremely well and right now they are beginning to seem like their ship is sinking.