Smashwords Studies Its Sales

For those who don't already know, Smashwords is an all-in-one platform for authors to publish and distribute their e-books. It has its pros and cons for both writers and readers, which I don't have the time to go into right now, but it is very popular in the indie community.

Authors who publish with them are able to track their sales and story sample downloads to gauge how well their works are faring on Smashwords. There's also aggregate reports of daily sales on other platforms that Smashwords distributes your work. But last year, Smashwords began collating all of that data to see if any patterns can be discerned from it or if its random noise.

Every indie author should read the findings for themselves. The data regarding price point, title length, length of book, and sales are definitely very interesting and something to be taken into account when an author publishes their work.

Anyone wishing to discuss it in the comments section, please go ahead! I've always had a fascination with statistics, which is all about finding patterns in what appears to be just random numbers. But I don't have anyone to talk to about this study. That's where you come in. :)

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DED

Barnes & Noble Gets Support From Microsoft

While the future of Barnes & Noble's bookstores may be uncertain, the company has helped to ensure its place in the e-reader marketplace by partnering with Microsoft. Microsoft is investing $300 million in Barnes & Noble's Nook digital book business (full article).

"As part of the move, there will be a Nook application included in the new Windows 8, which is scheduled to have a release preview in early June. Later this year, computers and tablets with Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system are expected to go on sale."

This is a complete 180 in Microsoft and B&N's relationship. Previously, Microsoft had sued B&N over patent infringement with regards to the Nook. As B&N is such a smaller company, some have argued that Microsoft was in fact trying to bully its way into the ebook marketplace.

Whatever the truth may be, this is a win-win relationship for both companies. Microsoft gains access to the e-reader and tablet market via ebooks, after giving Apple and Amazon quite the head start (par for the course with Microsoft: see videogame consoles, internet browsers, etc.). Meanwhile B&N gets a much needed shot in the arm to help it compete with Amazon and Apple. Besides giving B&N access to its deep pockets, Microsoft offers access to its technological base. If this goes well, I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft bought the whole company and either shut down B&N's brick and mortar business or revamped them entirely to mirror Apple stores.

Thinking of KDP Select? Read the fine print...

Amazon just gave a big fat middle-finger to all the other ebook stores out there with the announcement of their KDP Select program. It sounds great:

KDP Select gives you access to a whole new source of royalties and readers - you not only benefit from a new way of making money, but you also get the chance to reach even more readers by getting your book in front of a growing number of US Amazon Prime customers: readers and future fans of your books that you may have not had a chance to reach before! Additionally, the ability to offer your book for free will help expand your worldwide reader base.

But as with all things that "sound great," you need to read the fine print:

1 Exclusivity. When you include a Digital Book in KDP Select, you give us the exclusive right to sell and distribute your Digital Book in digital format while your book is in KDP Select. During this period of exclusivity, you cannot sell or distribute, or give anyone else the right to sell or distribute, your Digital Book (or content that is reasonably likely to compete commercially with your Digital Book, diminish its value, or be confused with it), in digital format in any territory where you have rights.

In other words, if you also published your ebook on Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, etc., you'll have to remove it from those sites while you're in the KDP Select program.

Now this is a brand new program, so I don't pretend to know if placing my ebooks in it is worth the lost sales from the other online bookstores I use. I'll wait for all the first-adopters to be my guinea pigs.

But the program's costs/benefits aren't the most interesting thing about it to me.

What's interesting is that KDP Select's "Exclusivity" clause means Amazon has just declared war on every other ebook store. Now authors will have to think about whether their ebooks will get more exposure/sales from KDP Select's -- admittedly -- large marketing mega-phone, or if they'll do better on the virtual shelves of multiple ebook stores. Many authors will choose KDP Select and give up placing their ebooks elsewhere.

The other ebook stores must respond to this. They have no choice. Whatever they do, though, it'll only benefit authors. They're fighting over us and want to lure us into their stores with the better deal. Without authors, they have no product to sell.

Feels nice to be fought over.

Originally posted at Quarkfolio by Rob Steiner.

The Smashwords Option

Smashwords.com is a ebook publishing platform through which you can publish your work, free. Smashwords then takes a cut on each sale of your ebook.

If you have published through Smashwords, go ahead and tell us your story.

Selling E-books on Amazon.com

In an earlier post I wrote about the possibility that POD writers might see their sales decline in this economic climate. But a writer who wants to publish his work still has options. E-publishing is one possibility that seems to be especially attractive now.

Aaron Powell reports on his experience selling his E-book on Amazon.com

Getting setup as an Amazon publisher is easy. The only step beyond having an Amazon login account was to give them my bank information for payment (them paying me, that is—I didn’t have to pay them anything). Adding books takes slightly more work. Most of this consists of filling out forms (title, author, edition, description, price, etc.) and the bulk of the work is in formatting the manuscript for Kindle viewing.

What do you think? If you have published a book through POD, would you consider using Amazon.com to publish a new version or your next book direct to Kindle?

The novel has sold relatively steadily since publication, with a slight bump in October (people like to buy horror stories around Halloween, oddly enough). ”Relatively steadily” means roughly a copy a day—which is far better than I expected, actually, and an encouraging number for first outing.

Does anyone know whether this is more or less than daily sell through via POD? Seems to me that selling a book a day is pretty impressive, certainly something that is to be an exception in the POD model.

Darryl Sloan's POD experience

Darryl Sloan offers his experience of publishing POD in this video.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqTM0Zn1fMc]