This week I worked on getting Dead Dwarves, Dirty Deeds and Dead Dwarves Don’t Dance up on other platforms besides Amazon Kindle.
I manually formatted Dead Dwarves, Dirty Deeds for epub and you can buy it for Barnes & Noble Nook right here. Boy, was that epub formatting a chore. But, I got it to look good. If there’s any interest, I might post about the epub formatting process. It is a long and laborious process.
Then, I went to Smashwords and used their system. It’s much easier. Just put your book in Word, make sure it complies with their style guidelines, upload it, and your done. The Smashwords MeatGrinder converter tool converts your Word doc to HTML, Javascript, mobi (Kindle), epub (open industry format), PDF, RTF (most word processors), LRF (Sony Reader), PDB (Palm reading devices), and text. Nice! Unfortunately, some of the converted types have little problems in how the book looks.
Smashwords is also good to use because they have a deal with B&N and other sellers that the Smashwords price will not be discounted. This prevents B&N from discounting my $2.99 novel to $2.00, which will prompt Amazon to also discount my book, which means that I go from making $2.00 per sale on Amazon to only making $0.70 per sale. That was the only reason I was reluctant to put my books up on B&N. But, that won’t happen now so I can go ahead and publish everywhere.
As soon as each of my books is approved for the Smashwords Premium Status, they will start appearing on other ebook sites.
But, you can buy my ebooks in all places now:
Dead Dwarves, Dirty Deeds
Dead Dwarves Don’t Dance
Hi, Derek. I have started reading Dead Dwarves, Dirty Deeds and am liking it very much. I just don't have a lot of reading time, unfortunately. Anyway, I just added your 2 titles to my shelf on shelfari.com and wanted to point out that site, librarything.com and goodreads.com as spots to manage to help your work get attention.
ReplyDeleteI love cyberpunk and would like to see it flourish and yours are fun, good examples of the genre. :-D
Hi Derek,
ReplyDeleteGreat move, I now bought both, and will read them soon.
You may want to update your blog and website to mention and add the links :)
Derek...! I didn't know you were still having issues with epub. Shoulda read Zoe Winter's book on self-publishing. It's available on Smashwords, Amazon, etc. It was $2.99, but I think it just got boosted to $3.99.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, really good book:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/29261
And among other things, it talks about how the best process for PubIt is to put the book on Smashwords (pretty easy), pull down the epub copy Smashwords generates, open the file in a free epub editor, do a couple quick edits of the epub, and voila - you get a PubIt ready book.
Great book though. Lots of good bits like that inside.
VampireYears, thanks! I did nto know about those sites. I will check in to them.
ReplyDeleteSFReader, yep. Updating my sites is on my todo list.
Kevin, no problem. The primary reason I wasn't going up on B&N was the discount issue. After you posted about Smashwords "no-discount" policy, I decided to go there.
I'm still torn between PubIt and Smashwords for B&N. You earn 5% more per book via PubIt (65% vs 60%), which can add up. Both now offer the "no discount" policy. You have control of the pricing. Both are pretty easy to get listed on. I'm almost inclined to go via Smashwords instead of B&N's Pubit though, because:
ReplyDeletea) Smashwords books don't get the "PubIt" logo, and don't seem to get the "click this if you find the content offensive" tag on B&N. I worry that the PubIt logo could end up being seen as meaning "amateur book".
b) I sorta see Smashwords as a "force for good" out there in all of this. Or at least a friendly face. ;) I'm of the mind that doing small things to support them could help me (us) in the long run.
Kevin, I did not know that B&N now has a "no discount" policy. When did that happen, and where is it stated?
ReplyDeleteIt has since they launched PubIt - if I am recalling correctly, anyway. ;) Pretty sure I remember Zoe writing that PubIt was the preferred B&N method, because Smashwords books on B&N sometimes got discounted, but PubIt books did not. Worst case, you always have control of your prices via PubIt (like DTP) so you can change them rapidly if need be.
ReplyDeleteGuess that no longer matters as much now, with Smashwords having the deal to not alter books they place. Which leaves Smashwords with more pluses in their column than minuses (their commission) I think.
Ug. I've been struggling to do this. I have Zoe's book. I just need to sit down and do this. Geh, I hate formatting. My least fave part of self-publishing.
ReplyDeleteI have been surfing on-line more than three hours today, yet I never discovered any fascinating article like yours.
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the net can be a lot more helpful than ever before.
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