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Check your Smashwords accounts/trying out Draft2Digital
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Congratulations, Andre.I haven't sold a single book through Smashwords or any of its friends since June last year. I gave a few of my short stories away while it was free, but that's it. On the other hand I've sold a whole 3 books through Amazon this month, despite giveaways through KDP select last month, so I think I can safely say Select doesn't work any more either.
Back to square one.
Mod
Treespeaker is with Apple, so is my short story. I sold 1 copy of Treespeaker last year and didn't give away any of the free short story. Maybe I need to concentrate on marketing them to iPad users?
Apple hasn't reported or paid for the Christmas period yet, so we can't know, but my assumption is that we are all in for a pleasant surprise.How would one market to iPad users?
B&N and Impressive Bravado (543) are my big winners on SMashwords. I haven't sold a single copy on B&N otherwise. Sony is my second best market (257) again, with IMpressive Bravado. I might have a niche market with horse stories.
I've earned a smashing $9 in 6 months. That's after Impressive Bravado was free most of last year. It took me 3 years to earn my first $20, but I've earned $10 in less than 6 months.
With Select, I've given away a slew of e-books. It helps me earn my small but respectably consistant $10 a month. Still, being exclusive puts my tail out of joint.
Snails are faster than Smaswords sales. However, if I want to double my income, it won't take much.
Kench.
Hi Andre, I've pretty much given up on Smashwords. I've just uploaded most of my books (those that aren't in Select) to Draft2Digital. I uploaded last Sunday and the books were live on B&N and Kobo within 24 hours. Apple took a little longer but sales have already started to show up, unlike SW where you have to wait months for anything to happen. :-(
I'm impressed so far.
Mel
M.A. wrote: "Hi Andre, I've pretty much given up on Smashwords. I've just uploaded most of my books (those that aren't in Select) to Draft2Digital. I uploaded last Sunday and the books were live on B&N and Ko..."
I'm so glad this showed up in my feed, and that I actually checked my feed for once this morning! I've read through the whole discussion so far and have a few thoughts.
First, I enrolled my fiction novel in the Select program in late October. I gave away tons of books, and then sold maybe a half-dozen in the week following. After that, nothing happened until late January. When I got the SW newsletter nothing that sales were flat at Amazon, I cursed myself for my poor timing. I cursed myself again a couple of weeks back when I realized the book had been automatically reenrolled in Select. (D'oh!) You can bet I went and unchecked auto-renewal immediately afterward. I did the same for a short collection of essays that's been on Select only since June of last year.
It's been so long since I joined SW, I've stopped looking at alternatives. I just took a peek at Draft2Digital and it already looks so, so much easier than dealing with SW. This is handy to know with one month left on Select for my essays and 2.5x that for my novel, as well as a second novel in the works.
Mod
Gee - took a look at their website. I wonder how they manage to get better exposure than Smashwords?
It certainly looks easier if you don't need to slavishly follow a style guide.
Andre - would you be kind enough to let us know if it is indeed easier to use? And if the sales are better?
Mod
Mod
The Smashwords style guide is actually a helpful minimum requirement for getting a glitch-free, if not necessarily very pretty, books from a DOC. I learned from Mark just to zap all documents regardless and reformat them in Pages, and once I've made a DOC from Pages, never to open it again in Word. It has worked well for me. (Okay, that's not what he says, that's my developed version of his nuclear option.)
However, the good advice from Smashwords is accompanied by some irritating stuff, like Mark Coker's insistence that no part of the title of a novel be in capitals, which is a pain for some of us who use capitals to separate parts of the title logically.
We'll see what the Draft2Digital layouts look like. Mel?
I signed up to receive a draft2Digital beta code if/when they became available. I received a code immediately. I don't have any books I can upload for another few weeks, but I signed up. I thought I'd share this tidbit, too, in case any of you are curious to give it a try before then.
Mod
It does seem as if their invitation to upload just the text of the book and let them worry about the cover, blurb, title page, title verso (the rights page), and index (TOC), should be taken seriously. I'll try that next.
Reading the terms of service (TOS), it becomes clear that they envisage that in instances where you have a book provided to say Apple already, they will also provide it to Apple.
Before I commit to Draft2Digital fully, I want to know how they are financed and by whom. It seems to me that their method could require tremendous hand-labour, and that soon they could be overwhelmed by a flood of indies whose books will never recover the investment. I certainly hope that the evidence of handwork is only temporary while they sort the glitches from automation.
I wonder if Smashwords demands exclusivity.
More follows when I know more.
Oooh, this sounds promising! Thanks for bringing it to our attention, Deborah!
Mod
As for their promise to make various front matter and rear matter pages, they have a long way to go. By way of example, they missed out on the cover of my book, after I laboriously filled in details about all the co-authors lumped everyone but me into "et al" (yeah, I can just see Dakota and Andrew wearing that!), missed out most of our books, provided no space to put an editor on the title verso, lots of details.
What they can do already could easily satisfy your basic indie with one book who will be be impressed by a clean layout and not having to do it himself. For anyone with more complicated requirements, they're not there yet.
However, what they have already is impressively clean. If one can manage to work out a scheme to get what you want within what they have already, and if they correct the major error of an TOC at the back, this could easily become the bookmaking engine of choice. If they then also manage to make CreateSpace books, as promised in the literature but not executable anywhere in the operating instructions yet, many indies will think they've gone to heaven.
But I would still not put all my eggs in one basket. These guys will have to do handwork for a while yet. We don't know that they won't run out of money. If their software is good, some larger shark might buy them (Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, even Smashwords) for that alone.
I'm working on getting something right for a complicated book with three authors within their constraints and will report back later.
Thanks, Andre. Your beta testing is much appreciated. Will be watching your progress.
Mod
Total earnings for all CoolMain authors about one-sixth of Amazon earnings: some books were on Smashwords for only a small part of the time they were on Amazon.
Barnes & Noble outsold Sony 7:2, Apple 4:1 and Kobo 15:1. Sales on Smashwords itself was fractionally more than on Apple. Some books were on the others for Christmas but not on Apple because of the conjunction of a tight schedule at CoolMain Press, Smashwords' mindless insistence on lower case titles, and Apple's handvetting of books before listing them.
This year we'll get a fairer picture of what Apple is good for, but it has already shot up in January, as has Kobo (which last year lagged badly) for some unknown reason, possibly expansion.
Clearly, it doesn't pay to ignore Smashwords, even by itself, nor several of the channels it distributes to, the best ones by this showing being Barnes & Noble, Sony, Apple and Kobo. In addition, the ones where we didn't sell well, may be the stamping grounds of readers of types of books we don't do -- we concentrate on quality literature for the higher end of the market.
This confirms to me that the lower Amazon sales reported (we didn't actually see a dip as reported elsewhere but we were launching new books right up to Christmas) is not the result of a fall in the market but a shift in the market to the other vendors.
Ignore Smashwords and the channels it brings you in a convenient package at your own peril!
Mod
With apologies for not reading the entire 24 pages... I absolutely applaud every marketing channel that gives writers another marketing channel. I've been trying out the service.
A. A few questions:
1. Does D2D demand exclusivity on any book?
2. Does Smashwords demand exclusivity on any book?
3. We have a couple of dozen books already out there, and a dozen a year following. Arranging exclusivity for any aggregator would be a pain, and probably cause him to be struck off our list as impossible to satisfy.
4. It seems to me clear that the vendors can't object; they already have many sellers flogging the books of any writer with a trad backlist. But does anyone have hard information to the contrary?
5. Will D2D offer a selection among their channels or do you have to take the package deal? Where is the page on which you can choose which of the channels you want any book to go into?
6. Who is financing D2D and what is their capital? What I have in mind is that D2D will be doing expensive handwork for a while yet. One needs deep pockets to stay the course until profitability arrives. If D2D goes out of business soon, or sells out to one of the major vendors, possibly even to the worst scenario, Amazon or Google, indies will have done the work of transferring books for no gain, however marginal, in additional security over the present oligopoly, in which they are dangerously exposed.
B. Here are some observations about trying the service with the sort of clean DOC from which Amazon makes a great AZW/MOBI file and Smashwords makes an acceptably clean if aesthetically unexciting EPUB file:
1. The Digital2Draft system cannot handle multiple authors. The last author's name is printed larger than the others. This applies whether you supply formatted front and rear matter or whether you leave them to D2D to insert.
2. If the body text is clean, D2D renders it well. It messes up front and rear matter by boosting up the font sizes and weights unpredictably. That's not the way to a clean layout. Why should he rights warning (not the far more important legal copyright date) be larger than any other text on the title verso?
3. If you have illustrations, say your other book covers or author photos, in the rear matter, D2D loses all but one.
4. D2D on several tries didn't manage to place a cover, whether it was supplied loose or included in the manuscript file.
5. The ToC is placed right at the end of the book and includes all the wrong things while missing out the right ones.
C. So far on the DOC files. Having checked what D2D made with them, and finding the glitches unacceptable, I'm about to delete that book and start again with a working EPUB of my own, utterly complete with cover and TOC, on the principle that D2D can't screw that up if it's just a passthrough operation to the channels. The effort and extra work might be worth it to support a very necessary alternative marketing channel.
D. I understand this is a beta, but unless it is improved, and assuming that the EPUB when we've prepared it is not screwed up as my DOC files were (and don't bother to question our DOCs -- they're nuked and reformatted as a matter of course), writers innocent of design and code skills will be in a [i]worse[/i] position than with Smashwords, in that for consistency they will have to make EPUB files complete with NCX indexes, whereas now they can hand over a DOC file to Smashwords and, if they followed the rules, be assured of getting a clean (if unimaginative) EPUB out the other end. That D2D beta is a fair way from primetime.
E. Sorry, if what I've seen so far are the "great" files D2D creates, printed books made from them at best will look like amateur hour. I know standards have been lowered since the arrival of ebooks and indies, but do those who pay $15 and up for a paperback book know [i]and accept[/i] that?
Thanks for this information, Andre. My books have some tricky formatting, with a lot of italics and occaisional song lyrics or poetry, so the thought of being able to just upload a .doc file and get back properly formatted books was like a dream come true. Too bad it turned out to be more like a nightmare.
Mod
They can already give you back clean body copy, if of course you give them clean copy.
It's the front and rear matter currently causing a problem, and that may go away if you give them EPUB files, which most us us can write directly out of Pages or Scrivener or get some free software to handle. I'll know tomorrow or the day after.
I expect them to solve the problems I've listed. Those are details, compared to what they've already solved. However, their promises are much larger than what they've delivered, or what merely fixing the visible problems will deliver. We'll see about those promises.
Mod
http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/GAUNTL...
You can download it and see the remaining small glitches, which number four:
1. On the title page, one of the author names, Andrew McCoy, is set larger than all the other text and bold. Why?
2. On the title verso, the text "No part of this publication may be reproduced or performed by
any means without the written permission of the publisher." is set larger than the rest and bold. It isn't the most important text on the page, which is "Copyright © 2012 André Jute, Dakota Franklin, Andrew McCoy
The authors have asserted their moral right"
3. On the next to last page another random sentence has been set larger than the rest and bold.
4. The ToC is at the back of the book. This may be not be a glitch but an attempt to establish a new format.
In the scope of the atrocities that even distinguished publishing houses have been perpertrating in ebook settings, never mind the innocent taste-crimes of ignorant indies, these are such small matters, many indies may decide to overlook them.
NEXT: We'll see whether by making our own perfect EPUB file it translates whole, and, in particular, whether it is recycled by Amazon into a goodlooking MOBI.
Mod
1. In my post above I identified four remaining glitches in the Draft2Digital file made from a guaranteed clean Word DOC file (3 occasions of text in a larger font than the rest, and emphasized in bold, plus a Table of Contents (ToC) at the back rather than the front, besides indexing useless items and not indexing what it should.) You can still get the file containing these glitches at http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/GAUNTL... but be quick, as I have already sent up an EPUB file which will presumably replace it.
2. I nuked the file again back into TXT, the lowest possible common denominator, and tried again. The glitches are still there. They look like artefacts left by a programmer trying something and then deciding he was being too clever for his own good, a feeling we all know.
3. I concluded that in the eyes of most indies these will be mickey mouse quibbles, much as they may irritate those of us who take pride in our books, and that sooner rather than later D2D will be on top of them, at which time I assume the D2D service will be overrun with indies thrusting manuscripts at them.
4. It is therefore a good service, to be heartily welcomed.
5. However, you will get out of it only what you put in. If your file is clean, you'll get a clean result, nothing more. If your layout is well designed, you may or may not get a well-designed book back, but in any conceivable case you will not get more back than you put in. On the other hand, Smashwords, until now the major aggregator, and Amazon's AZW translator to a lesser extent, knock even beautiful DOC files back to a lower common denominator, a very low one in the Smashwords case. (I know several writers who won't do their books in Smashwords because the lack of aesthetic punctilio of those books hurt them physically.) D2D appears on this acquaintance to have more class.
6. The rest of this post is for those of you who want perfectly set books and are willing to do a very little work to arrive there.
B. FINAL TEST with perfect EPUB file
1. It is said in a thread on Kindleboards as if it is some kind of a revelation on the road to Damascus that D2D takes EPUB files. So has Smashwords since last year. We should give credit where it is due, and not rush like lemmings after every itinerant flautist to pass through town. I haven't tried the Smashwords EPUB capability, but the assumption is, as with D2D, that if you make your own EPUB file, you are in control, and as long as it is properly made, Smashwords and D2D won't mess with it; in particular, they won't knock it back to some lowest common denominator aggregator house style. You can therefore achieve the same results with Smashwords as with D2D, as long as you have a good EPUB file. Amazon will also now take EPUB files; I haven't tried it yet.
2. I made a simple EPUB file in about four hours, including some improvements that I didn't put in the DOC file I was working with earlier because I knew they would be knocked down. (In particular, getting flush first pars and maintaining them is hard work in MOBI/AZW and virtually impossible in Meatgrinder. Indented initial pars look amateurish, so that's my test of a system with class, that you can get good looking initial pars in chapters without a tremendous amount of work, and without further maintenance and upset every time you change some small thing.) I tested this file in an iPad and an Android tablet, and on the smartphones of my family lying around (it's the middle of the night here), and on all the relevant applications. It worked on all, as expected; I've done this before, and I have expert help because my designer is sitting here drinking my single malt.
3. Delivering an EPUB to D2D is as simple a matter as delivering a DOC file, and the system automatically distinguishes between them, a nice touch. Custom EPUBs are not yet possible, but I don't like them anyway; you can count on professionals like Apple to honor the standards they've agreed to while those standards are extant, but you can't count on Amazon not to get a bee up its backside next Tuesday and suddenly invent a "standard" of its own, and try to enforce it . For portability you really don't want to go outside the standard. D2D is about having options, and custom code limits your options.
4. The EPUB as processed by D2D was put through the same battery of devices plus a Kindle and Kindle readers on the iPad and Android devices for the MOBI output. All appeared perfect, as expected.
5. EPUBs can be very easily exported from Pages (the Apple word processor), Scrivener (a wordprocessor for magpie minds, very nice too for cleaning up old film scripts) and no doubt half a dozen other applications sitting on my computer, and dozens of free applications for Windows computers. I use Pages because it interfaces seamless with my wordprocessor of choice, Word, across all the devices I want to use on my exercise machines and while I'm taking steam. Pages is cheap, eight or ten bucks, I seem to remember my assistant saying.
6. There is nothing special about an EPUB.
7. What is very slightly special is [b]Apple's demand that any file it accepts must have an NCX index.[/b] If you deliver a DOC file to D2D, they make this NCX for you, and place it at the back. If you make an EPUB, you must make it. If you've published books on Smashwords' premium list you have already made such an NCX index (or Smashwords made a simple one for you). It's not difficult at all. You place bookmarks, which you name, at the places in the manuscript you want to refer to, then you hyperlink entries in your index to these bookmarks. You can do it in Word or Pages or any other word processor. Once you understand the principle and the steps in any application, it is boring scutwork, but less than than ten minutes of scutwork to set up a minimum NCX to satisfy Apple and test it thoroughly. TIP: Apple is satisfied with an NCX with only four items, though to newbies it will look like only three items. Three good bookmarks are (all lowrcase, my caps are only for ease of reading) Blurb or Title, Chapter One or StartReading, MoreBooksByMe, plus the Index or Contents which is itself a bookmark referred to by the last entry in the book, BackToTheTop or Contents or Index. You should place the contents list at or near the front of your back.
8. If you mark your EPUB file "use first page as cover", include two cover pages or the book when open will not have a cover.
C. CONCLUSION
1. Draft2Digital is to be welcomed for diversifying the risk of writers.
2. Draft2Digital's translator of ebooks may in time, perhaps shortly, from Word DOCs make glitch free ebooks; it's pretty good already. If your DOC is superior D2D will give you a superior ebook; if it is rubbish, you will get a rubbish ebook. Smashwords by contrast, improves the manuscripts of the ignorant and the careless to a certain minimum standard, but in the process knocks back the books of everyone already above this standard to the common denominator.
3. Those who can make their own EPUBs, including NCX ToC entries, can control the content of their ebooks regardless of whether they use Smashwords or Draft2Digital, and can choose on other factors, or can choose to use both. I shall be trying both at the same time for at least one book to see how it works out.
D. CHECK MY WORK
1. Be quick if you want the first file at Kobo of the book I uploaded as a DOC, so you can check the four glitches. http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/GAUNTL...
2. Presumably the replacement, which I uploaded as an EPUB, will be on the same page and have the same URL; I expect the exchange to happen in 24-48 hours from about now (around 0700 GMT on 16 February). You'll need to return to http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/GAUNTL... to get the glitch free EPUB-based sample.
The thing I am looking forward to seeing from D2D is an expansion to new outlets. They're currently in all the "normal" ones. If they can manage to get into some of the more difficult to reach ones then they will hands down be better than Smashwords and their word-mangling "meatgrinder" . . .I don't meticulously format individual files in Sigil just for the fun of it, after all. ;)
Mod
SW's site indicates that if you run an EPUB you get no formats other than EPUB though. Is that not what happens in practice? I haven't bothered with them at all recently.
Mod
As I told y'all a long time ago, all of you should tread more carefully with Amazon than I need to, because I have somewhere else to go, either back to mainstream publishing or to my natural upmarket home at Apple. So I'm not surprised to discover Apple, with only a part of my list (because of a glitch at CoolMain) doing a third of the turnover in my books, with the Christmas trade still to be added in. We'll see what happened at Christmas when Apple reports next, but I expect the ratio to be even more in Apple's favour, as there is a growing suspicion in my mind that Amazon's flat Christmas wasn't a flat Christmas at all, but other ebook retailers increasing their market share at Amazon's expense.
I'm more than ever convinced I made the right decision in dropping Amazon's Select program, partly on principle because Amazon's demand for exclusivity is oppressive, partly because it is simply better business to build your brand in the broadest market you can reach. In any event, I strongly advise those of you who can to let Smashwords market your books to its clients (Apple, B&N, Kobo, Sony, etc), and the rest of you to do it as soon as you can.