Smashwords Accepting New Formats in 2012
From Self-Publishing Review:
The biggest mark against Smashwords is their meatgrinder – it’s necessary to submit a bare bones files or else the meatgrinder will convert it with myriad formatting problems, and the file won’t be eligible for distribution. That has been the main way that Smashwords can distribute the same file to many different outlets, as each retailer has different requirements.
Now that ePub is becoming standard (except at Amazon) it only makes sense to allow direct ePub upload. In 2012 you’ll be able to submit your already-formatted ebook to Smashwords, which can then be submitted to retailers. So: better formatting plus complete distribution makes Smashwords one of the best possible tools for self-published distribution.
Link to the rest at Self-Publishing Review
And from ebookNewser:
Mark Coker, founder and CEO of the Smashwords self-pub service, announced earlier this week that Smashwords would soon offer authors a new submission option.
. . . .
But one problem with Meatgrinder is that it doesn’t offer output that satisfies ebook design pros, many of whom think that (compared to making an eBook from scratch) it’s not easy to control the quality of the output. A lot of the pickier eBook creators (like myself) don’t like it for just that reason.
Starting in 2012, Smashwords is going to allow everyone to submit other eBook files instead of the DOC file that is used as the source for Meatgrinder. This new service will be called Smashwords Direct, and it means that an author can make a beautiful Epub and offer that as the preferred format.
Link to the rest at eBookNewser
Passive Guy has always wanted to like Smashwords. Mark Coker says a lot of smart things and the idea of submitting one place for distribution to places other than Amazon and the Nook Store sounds good.
Unfortunately, PG’s experience with the Meatgrinder has been negative. He jammed one book through the acceptance process earlier this year, but decided to forego Smashwords after that.
A couple of weeks ago, after he had just finished epubbing one of Mrs. PG’s backlist books, he decided to shoot it up to Smashwords. He stopped the pain after receiving the first Meatgrinder critique on an MS that made it through CreateSpace review with no probs and looked terrific in both ebook and POD formats.
So Smashwords will probably get some business from PG when it starts accepting epub files.
Ebook/Ereader Technical Issues, Self-Publishing, Self-Publishing Strategies
Glad to hear this! There are a lot of things to like about Smashwords, but the Meatgrinder was not one of them.
I haven’t had problems with the Meatgrinder, but then, I also don’t quite follow their advised process. (No styles, and I don’t nuke my formatting—but then, I also know what those little formatting symbols mean in MS Word.)
That’s an interesting development, although I won’t use it myself–I use the Meatgrinder to produce an epub file that I can then tweak in a few minutes and upload directly to B&N, so for some people it’s worth working with the restrictions it imposes.
Has anyone seen anything about when exactly in 2012 this will happen? Is it January or is it ‘at some point’ in 2012?
I’m looking to self-publish in April and would like to publish through Smashwords, so I’m interested in finding out.
Yay, so glad about this. I know the tech people at Smashwords couldn’t like depending on Word documents. What technical person would want to deal with Microsoft Word documents? I’m married to a geeky type of person who shuddered when I showed him the Meatgrinder. I bet this is an internal pressure as much as an external one over there at SW.
I don’t even use Word, so I have to reverse engineer my ePub back into RTF and then into Word to come up with a .doc, which is then not quite right.
And if you have to fix a typo in your book, you now have at least two (three if you do Mobi for Amazon) master copies to correct and maintain.
So, yay to the change. I also wonder when in 2012. Come on, SW folks, you can do it
Gretchen –
Amazon started accepting epubs in September.
-Dan
I’ve purchased Scrivener because it puts out e-Pub files.
So far I’ve fallen passionately in love with the software.
If you have books to send to smashwords before this change, feel free to use my template–it passes autovetter with no troubles at all http://jdsawyer.net/2011/03/30/smashwords-and-openoffice/
But oh, YES! Being able to author a sharp-looking epub for all platforms? I’ve been waiting for this one. Thanks for the heads up!
-Dan
Fantastic news!
I started with Smashwords in 2009, by this year, I had stopped entirely because of their formatting issues. Recently I uploaded the 1st book of my YA series BAD APPLE to Smashwords, only there not for distribution, priced at $0 to see if I could get Amazon to meet the price. For me, that’s all it’s good for right now. Sorry, Mark.
This is good because formatting and uploading to Smashwords was such a pain in the ass I decided to not to do it again. Kindle is less onerous, Pubit is the most user-friendly. Extremely user-friendly!
Agreed, Julia.
I haven’t have problems with Smashwords, but it would make my life SOOOOOOO much easier if I could ditch Word. I prefer to work in plain text, and I can do my formatting in Dreamweaver or InDesign (depending on whether it’s for print or for ebook).
I have had virtually none of the formatting problems people have encountered, but I don’t like some of the compromises, notably the double cover on the epub so that the cover appears in other formats. (It seems like such a trivial problem to fix with a checkbox control…) I’ll be taking advantage of the direct epub upload when it’s available.
I have held back from uploading to Smashwords so far precisely because of the Meatgrinder issues. I can see that the Meatgrinder has its advantages for the tech-challenged among us. But I take a lot of care to get the formatting of my books right and I don’t want to reformat everything only to get a lower quality output at the end.
But once they start accepting epub, I will upload to Smashwords, particularly because they are the only way for me as a non-US-citizen to sell at Barnes and Noble.
[...] The announcement seems to be garnering some positive reactions so far, such as this one from The Passive Voice. [...]