Good news from Smashwords; new book, important author, DRM free
By Paul Biba
Here’s an excerpt from the press release Smashwords sent me today.
Smashwords … today announced that Dan Poynter, author of the best-selling Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual, now in its 30th year of continuous publication, has selected Smashwords as the first digital publisher for the book’s much anticipated sequel, the Self-Publishing Manual Volume 2. …
The book is priced at $7.97 and is available now in multiple DRM-free ebook formats …. The first ten percent of the book can be read as a free sample. The book is also available for immediate sampling and purchase for the over one million iPhone and iPod Touch users of the Stanza e-reading app from the Smashwords Stanza store.
Stanza, Smashwords, eReader, iPhone, Kindle, Sony, and many others – all words we wouldn’t have heard much about a year ago. It seems to me, though I may be too close to the subject, that e-books are beginning to pick up a life of their own. I even got a call from Advertising Age last night. They were looking into the marketing aspects of e-books. A year ago who would have thought ….
February 6th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Hurrah! Onwards and upwards, I say. No stopping the tide, or so it seems to me.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
That is wonderful news! for Smashwords, and for epublishing in general. It’s just not fair — and not feasible — for publishers and authors to relinquish 65% to Amazon for the privilege of appearing inside a Kindle. Smashwords — whose terms are thoroughly author-friendly — is the exactly kind of co-operative project that epublishers and authors need.
March 4th, 2009 at 8:12 am
I can’t work out whether I’m pleased or not that e-books are growing by the day… on the one hand I’m happy because it’s increasing the book market and accesibility for many people, on the other I’m disappointed cos I love a good paperback!
I really get the feeling we’re at a crux point for e-books and book sites like Smashwords and Book Army which are just beginning to establish themselves – time will tell whether they boom or bust!
March 8th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Just published Prison of Power on smashword – a long fantasy novel that, as a previously published writer, I believe deserves an audience. Let the market decide, I say. Why give publishers the power to decide what we can read?
There will be more – The Last King’s Amulet (only 109,000 words) is almost ready.
Now we have the problem of marketing. Any ideas anyone?
Chris Northern