More on the Grand Experiment

[rolanni]

So, yesterday, I submitted the epub edition of Writing Neep to Smashwords, as planned.  Probably predictably Smashwords fussed that the cover was too small, so I had to upload a bigger image. Then it told me the book was published, but I couldn't find it in my dashboard, so this morning, I re-re-uploaded the book, and it is now showing on the dashboard, as published and pending review.

So, yay, right?

Wrong.

Yesterday, a friend reminded me that Smashwords, in addition to all of the rest of its annoyances, large and small, requires that Certain Particular Holy Words be placed on the copyright page, something like "This is a Certified Smashwords Edition," or...something.  Which brands the book as coming from the Smashwords Distribution Empire, and bully for them, but which also means that No Standard Copyright Page will satisfy them.  You cannot put the Holy Words on a page of their own, they must be in a particular place on the copyright page, and the words must be exact.

I had of course forgotten this, but what it means is that the book will not pass Real Human Vetting.

I am therefore calling it quits with Smashwords' storefront and distribution empire.  The books that are on Smashwords will stay there, but I will not be adding new books.  I'm sorry about that, because I, like some of you, like to have alternatives to pubbing to Kindle and Nook; OTOH, Smashwords and I simply can't reach an accommodation.

(Yes, I'm aware that millions of people every day pub to Smashwords and adore it.  I am not one of those people, and since I don't use Word, Smashwords' decision to base their entire conversion process on a bloated, buggy word processor works very much against me.)

So, that.

Last night, Steve and I watched "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar" and had a good time with it.  This morning, we're doing catch-up with a variety of tasks, including getting Chapter Fourteen of Shan and Priscilla Ride Again ready to upload tomorrow, and doing some side-laundry.  I need to get with Sprite a little later and give her mane a trim under her chin where it wisps up into her mouth and gets made into little, soggy corkscrews of fur.

Also, the ribs still giving me back-chat, as they are, some careful stretching, and some time out in the comfy chair with The Golden Hawk, which I started yesterday.  My goodness, it does get on its bike and ride, doesn't it?  And, despite a few eye-rollers like the first mate wondering, given the notoriety of their ship and captain,  how the crew can expect to land at Xtown to satisfy their "manly needs," it's really very readable.  Mr. Yerby knew how to write sentences, so he did.

Monday sadly requires phone calls, and I've got to get to the bottom of this desk, which has become chaotic again, mostly with Mundane Matters.  I wonder if there's room in this house for a House Desk, so I can dedicate my desk to writing.  Too much to ask?  Yeah, probably so.

So!  Off to do battle with the to-do list.  I hope everyone has a restful Sunday afternoon.

Warrior Princess Jasmine Sprite reposing among her trophies

Comments

[oldcharliebrown.livejournal.com]

I prefer Draft2Digital, myself. It takes five minutes to set something up, and if you're familiar with KDP's process, D2D is easy-peasy.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I talked about my initial experience with D2D yesterday: http://rolanni.livejournal.com/1009791.html

The "problem" is that D2D doesn't have a storefront, which Smashwords does, thus providing an alternative to buying from the Big Guys. Other than that -- the process at D2D cast Smashwords into the shade.

[oldcharliebrown.livejournal.com]

Ah, you're right, I didn't take that into consideration.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

How about Kobo? They're fairly simple to use, and they have a storefront. They're mostly in Canada and overseas, but they do show up in the US. They're also the ebook source of choice for many indie bookstores.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Oh. I hadn't realized Kobo was so well-regarded. As it happens D2D does distribute to Kobo.

Also iBooks, Oyster, PageFoundry, Scribd, and Tolino, which, yeah, are also storefronts.

I guess I was looking for a Smashthing equivalency. . .

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

I do Kobo direct because sometimes they let BVC authors into their sales. D2D is my entree to Apple since I don't own a Mac. Plus I checked the checkies on Oyster etc.

I tried one book at Smashwords, loathed the interface, never went back. D2D is ever so much easier to use.

[cgbookcat1.livejournal.com]

Since B&N won't let me download physical book files to my laptop any more (a deal-breaker for me) and I don't have another e-reader, Kobo has been my main source of e-books outside of Smashwords or publisher storefronts. I am glad D2D distributes to it.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

Warrior Princess Jasmine Sprite reposing among her trophies

*Love Offerings*

...oh lordy, I had forgotten about Yerby, I went through a phase of reading him... when I was about 16 or so. I still have some of the old paperbacks.

[bandicoot.livejournal.com]

I confess that I'd never heard of Smashmouth or any of the other suggestions that have been made. I'm with you on not letting Smashmouth dictate your format or any part of your work. Wouldn't put up with it.

Time for your own storefront - Tree and Dragon Galactic :)

[countrygirlxxoo.livejournal.com]

Have you tried www.omnilit.com? This site has the general fiction and non-fiction type books. They are the sister site to www.allromanceebooks.com. They are one of the biggest third party ebook sellers. They let you post stories at whatever price level you want from free to whatever (as far as I can tell) and you can offer whatever types of format you want. All the books I've gotten from them don't make the authors include the site name in the copyright info either. Also, on the purchasing side, the books you buy are downloaded to your computer and are available on your library site on their site so you can download them again if so needed. I've got some in my library from at least 3-4 years ago. The only thing that was disturbing about them was a year or two ago, there was some kerfluffle with censorship regarding erotica on the allromancebooks site. I don't think it affected the omnilit site which is where your stuff would probably go. And I think the problem has been resolved or come to some sort of accord. I don't know what the profit price breakdowns are. I seem to have read somewhere that they are better than amazon, but I might be wrong. That's all I know about them. Hopefully there is not some problem I haven't heard about lurking around there.

[countrygirlxxoo.livejournal.com]

I hate stupid livejournal sometimes. I wrote you a big paragraph about another site to try, and stupid livejournal informed me that they marked it as spam after I couldn't get the text back. *sigh* I hope you can see it. If not, check out www dot omnilit dot com. They are affiliated with www dot allromanceebooks dot com which is one of the biggest third party ebook sellers on the web. I'm too hacked off to recreated the original post, but I don't think they have the same problems as smashwords. Hope this helps.

[countrygirlxxoo.livejournal.com]

Figures...now they've put the original post up. Stupid livejournal.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

LOL. I guess I came over and unspammed the first one while you were typing the second.

Thanks for the tip; I'll check them out!

[thewol.livejournal.com]

I know next to nothing about this document conversion thing of which you speak, but there's a program called Calibre which I have used to change formats of book files from other formats to mobi so I can read them on my Kindle, and it seemed like it might be fairly straightforward to do other things with. Of course, it may be useless for your purposes, but I thought I'd mention it. It is a free program.