Smashwords teams up with Shortcovers
By Paul Biba
Smashwords announced today that it has teamed up with Canadian publisher Shortcovers which will distribute Smashwords books in 189 countries. Here’s an excerpt from the news release:
Shortcovers by Indigo Books & Music, Inc. (TSX:IDG), a leading global eBook service, and Smashwords, a global publisher and distributor of independently published eBooks, today announced a content distribution partnership that promises to democratize eBook publishing for authors and small independent presses around the world.
Effective November 18, Smashwords will begin supplying eBooks to Shortcovers, drawing upon Smashwords’ rapidly expanding catalog of nearly 5,000 original eBooks from 2,300 self-published authors and small publishers. Smashwords’ authors and publishers come from over 20 countries.
Shortcovers operates a mobile and web-based eReading service with almost a million downloads across 189 countries. Shortcovers offers eReading applications for the iPhone™, BlackBerry®, Palm® Pre™ and Google Android™ smartphones. The company also supports Adobe EPUB downloads which enables Shortcovers to offer eBooks on popular eReaders like the Sony Reader.
November 16th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Bravo, Mark Coker, for yet another stroke of networking genius for Smashwords, which is great news for all the Smashwords authors.
Cooling in my cellar is a nice bottle of wine for you, for the day when Smashwords lets me upload ebooks — EPUB and PDF — with my own formatting. Unique design is a part of publishing and epublishing that I don’t want to give up.
Either way you win: if this Smashwords feature comes sooner, then you get my ebooks; if it comes later, then you get a better — more aged — gift to celebrate.
Michael Pastore
50 Benefits of Ebooks
November 16th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
I agree with Michael above. Sites like Smashwords are really leveling the playing field for indie authors. And SW agreements between other companies like Shortcovers and B&N mean indie authors have a much wider distribution channel. Of course, that goes without saying.
Great work Smashwords!