The new publishing paradigm continues to grow. Smashwords, which is one of the best places for self-publishers to sell ebooks – as well as convert an ebook to a number of different formats – now has a platform for publishers with multiple titles.
Smashwords helps book publishers make the transition to ebooks, and offers an attractive alternative to traditional online retail outlets because it pays publishers 85 percent the net proceeds from sales of their titles. Ebooks are sold to customers DRM-free and multi-format, making them readable on any e-reading device…
The Smashwords service is free to publishers. Each publisher is provided a custom-branded online bookstore, and can list an unlimited number of ebook titles from an unlimited number of authors. Publishers gain access to numerous free promotion and selling tools offered by Smashwords, including the popular Smashwords Coupon Generator which makes it easy to run creative promotions across online social networks, blogs and web sites.
Meanwhile, Scribd, a document sharing site that could be used for ebooks, now lists pay content. It is a kind of competitor for Smashwords, but for self-publishers it means another platform to reach an audience.
Document-sharing site Scribd will begin beta tests of an e-commerce platform today in an effort to tap into publishers’ increasing interest in charging consumers directly for digital content….
Publishers will set prices: Unlike Amazon’s revenue-share model, which typically takes as much as a 70 percent split of the revenue from some content providers, the new Scribd Store will let content owners keep 80 percent of the revenue from purchases of their works, said Tammy Nam, Scribd’s VP-content and marketing, in an interview with paidContent. Authors and publishers in the Scribd Store will also be able to set their own prices and DRM options.
About the Author: Henry Baum
I’m the author of The American Book of the Dead. The novel won Best Fiction at the DIY Book Festival and the Gold IPPY Award for Visionary Fiction. Largehearted Boy says it's "reminiscent of Philip K. Dick and Haruki Murakami, a book that boldly explores the future and defies genre." I'm also the author of North of Sunset, winner of the Hollywood Book Festival Grand Prize, and The Golden Calf - first published by Soft Skull Press, with editions in the U.K. (Rebel Inc.) and France (Hachette Littératures). Visit henrybaum.com for more information. I’m the editor of Self-Publishing Review.
Todd Newton said on May 18, 2009
Had not heard of Smashwords yet. Already signing up.
Thanks again for the reco.
William Aicher said on May 19, 2009
I signed up for Scribd yesterday and have The Trouble With Being God available. The service definitely has some kinks to work out though, as every time I tried to upload a revised document it failed conversion. I had to eventually just delete the entire document and start over. Note that Scribd uses the first page of your document as the cover and does not let you upload the cover art separately – so make sure your document is formatted properly for this. They don’t tell you ahead of time (or if they did I missed it).
Henry Baum said on May 19, 2009
Yeah, these places have problems. I just uploaded to bookglutton.com and there are issues. For one, you can’t embed on a blog, but deleting content is also a problem. A lot of these places are very beta.