Los Gatos, Calif. and Wellington, New Zealand – November 19, 2009 — Silicon Valley based Smashwords, Inc. has acquired Wellington New Zealand company BookHabit Limited, consolidating Smashwords’ position as the world’s premier ebook publishing and distribution platform for independent authors and publishers.

BookHabit was founded in 2008 as an ebook publishing platform for independent authors. During that time, BookHabit developed relationships with 340 authors who collectively published over 600 books.

Smashwords launched in May, 2008. Today, the fast-growing service publishes over 4,700 ebooks from 2,100 independent authors and publishers around the world. In the last several weeks, Smashwords has opened new distribution channels for indie authors and publishers by announcing distribution relationships with major online retailers Shortcovers, Sony and Barnes & Noble.

“I’m pleased to welcome BookHabit authors and readers to the Smashwords family,” said Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords. “This acquisition boosts our international base of authors, ebooks and customers. We look forward to helping BookHabit authors gain access to our worldwide distribution network.”

“This acquisition benefits the BookHabit author community by offering broader sales and distribution opportunities, especially in North America,” said Clare Tanner, founder of BookHabit. “Smashwords makes it fast and easy for authors to publish multi-format ebooks, readable on all the popular e-reading devices. I’m pleased to help our authors take full advantage of the free publishing, marketing and distribution tools offered by Smashwords.”

Smashwords purchased the assets of BookHabit for an undisclosed cash sum. Smashwords and BookHabit will immediately begin migrating BookHabit’s authors, books and customers over to the Smashwords platform. BookHabit authors, as with Smashwords authors, will continue to retain all ownership and copyright to their books, and are under no obligation to migrate their books to Smashwords.

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.

The Expo is primarily about regular books, but there were two ebook items of interest. First, Allen Lau of Wattpad was an exhibitor. We chatted about how Wattpad was doing and Allan made the following comments:

Looking at the statistics from his servers, there seem to be a proportionally more writers to readers in Canada, Australia and the UK. The US is jut the reverse with more readers than writers.

Wattpad’s new social media features have become extremely popular, especially the Twitter-like fan site and message boards. Authors have note that publishing on Wattpad does not seem to cannibalize their print sales, and, as a matter of fact, seem to increase some author’s sales on LuLu.

I asked him about his relations with publishers, given the problems of pirating. Alan said that they are getting along well with most publishers. The publishers have submitted their Onyx files to him which contain over 150,000 entries of full text books. Wattpad can immediately match posting against these files and delete the infringing material as it is published. In an odd turn of events, those publishers who seem to be the most averse to ebooks and epublishing are also those who refuse to submit their Onyx files, and so are hurting themselves as Wattpad can’t filter out any works that infringe their publications.

Some publishers are encouraging their authors to use the social medial functions of Wattpad to increase their exposure.

Mark Coker of Smashwords spoke and gave the basics of epublishing to the auidience (without a big plug for Smashwords, which was very nice). One thing he said was that he feels that ebooks should be formatted very simply as they have to look good on a huge variety of screen formats. The more complicated you make the formatting the more trouble you’ll run into later.

FTC disclaimer: In keeping with the FTC’s rules about “freebies” I need to report that Alan Lau of Wattpad saved me $3.25. The Expo didn’t have any coat racks and when I went downstairs to check my coat I found that the hotel charges $3.25 per item. So I want back to the Expo and asked Allan to let me put my coat behind his table. I don’t want the FTC on my back so I thought I should mention this up front and hereby declare to the FTC that I will, sometime in the future, hold Alan’s coat so we will be even.

I realize not that many authors would necessarily want to exclude their content from the B&N site.  But I can think of a few reasons to do so: Concern about security, for one; or a displeasure with the B&N eReader’s display of my books, for another.  For people like that, there should be a way to keep your material out of B&N’s site if they wish.  But does Smashwords make that easy to do?  Can you do it at all?  Should it be considered okay for them to do it without my express permission?  Or should they have to formally ask?

I think Smashwords should have an “opt-in” (or “opt-out”) button prominently displayed on its publishing or dashboard pages, giving authors the clear choice of  having their material forwarded to Barnes & Noble.

According to Smashwords’ legalese, you can do a few things to keep your e-book out of B&N’s catalog.  Some of those things are the exclusion of certain material they are looking for (like copyright info).  Another thing you can do is to not select the ePub format to convert your e-book (apparently B&N will use the ePub file to do their own conversion, as opposed to using the eReader format you may have already converted your e-book into… interesting).  But I had to dig down into the Premium Content pages to find these tips.  And for those of us who happen to like the idea of our books being available in ePub, having to de-select one of the fastest-growing formats to keep it out of the B&N store doesn’t seem very right.

There could be a clear “opt-in” on the publishing page the Smashwords member uses to build their e-book offering, or possibly on the member dashboard.  Right there, along with pricing and selecting of formats, tag-words, etc, should be a button to check that gives permission to have your material forwarded to B&N (assuming it passes muster otherwise).   That would allow users to prepare their Smashwords e-books as they desired, and not worry about how they will appear in the B&N site.

I realize that my very use of Smashwords could be considered a de-facto agreement to allow my material to be uploaded to B&N (though that obviously wasn’t an option when I put them in, but applied after the fact).  But I wonder if that’s good enough, legally.  I wonder if there shouldn’t be a more obvious “opt-in” choice for Smashwords users.  My feeling is yes.  What do you think?

Related: Techmeme roundup and a new TeleRead post, E-library strategy idea for Sony: Long Tail books, especially of local interest. – D.R.

September 29, 2009—Continuing to deliver on its promise to provide customers access to the widest selection of content available, Sony today announced relationships with Author Solutions, Inc. and Smashwords, Inc.  Together with Sony, these companies will give independent authors and small publishers the opportunity to offer content through The eBook Store from Sony.

Starting today, established publishers as well as independent authors and smaller publishers can access Sony’s newly re-launched Publisher Portal.

This portal serves as an easy way for larger publishers who may not already have a relationship with Sony to get in touch and  also provides a way for individual authors or publishers with just a handful of titles to work with market-proven solution providers to publish books and make them available on Sony’s eBook store.

“We’re committed to providing our customers access to the broadest range of eBook content available and believe these collaborations will allow us to expand the store selection with a host of compelling works from independent sources,” said Chris Smythe, director of the eBook Store from Sony. “Additionally, we recognize that it is important to provide independent authors and publishers the opportunity to quickly and easily bring their ideas and content to a wide audience of readers.”

New authors can select a self-publishing path and get their work published and for sale on Sony’s eBook Store in as little as ten days. As Sony completes the conversion of its eBook store to the industry-standard EPUB format, Smashwords and Authors Solution will expand the offer to all existing Author Solutions and Smashwords authors to get their titles up on the Sony site.
“Author Solutions is pleased to work with Sony to make our titles available through the Sony eBook store,” Author Solutions, Inc. CEO Kevin Weiss said. “ASI is the leader in the fastest-growing segment in book publishing — bringing to market more than 20,000 new titles annually. To best serve our authors, it is imperative that we make their content available digitally to a multitude of readers."

“We’re thrilled to help power the new Sony Publisher Portal,” said Mark Coker, founder and CEO of Smashwords, a publisher and distributor of multi-format eBooks.  “The free Smashwords service makes it easy for any author or publisher, anywhere in the world, to distribute their eBooks via the eBook Store from Sony.  Authors and publishers simply upload their manuscript to Smashwords as a Microsoft Word document, select the price, and then we manage the conversion and distribution.”

Author Solutions and Smashwords will offer authors the option to publish content in the EPUB format, the International Digital Publishing Forum’s (IDPF) XML-based standard format for reflowable digital books and publications. EPUB has gained acceptance among major trade book publishers with dozens of publishers already producing the majority of their eBooks using the standard.  Sony recently announced that the company is transitioning its content library to the EPUB format.

I can’t speak for all buyers, but if you want to know why I buy or don’t buy from various sites—well, here’s the lowdown. No ESP needed. I hope this is useful to retailers and aspiring self-publishers of e-books, although most of the sites named here don’t accept titles from the latter group.

Self-publishers face a daunting learning curve these days. So many stores, so many formats, what to do? Many novices begin with Amazon—Amazon makes it easy, and enjoys a large market share. But the company’s Kindle side officially focuses just on the United States, leaving out me and many other voracious readers (I’m Canadian). Sorry, Amazon. Here’s where I am buying e-books.

Stop One: Fictionwise

Fictionwise (screenshot), which normally does not deal with the self-published, is my preferred e-book store, for several reasons. Firstly, the Fictionwise site is the most pleasant of the big storefronts to navigate. I have checked out its main competitor, Books on Board, and can never seem to find things there when I just browse; I need to have a certain title in mind.

I also have time/effort/resources already expended on the Fictionwise Buywise Club for frequent buyers. This makes Fictionwise often the cheapest source for me because I get a member discount. I also get rebates from them when I buy certain books and I can use these rebates to keep buying more. I have an incentive to shop there because I get money back to spend on other things.

Additionally, Fictionwise has the largest selection of DRM-free multiformat books. I have switched devices several times during my patronage and appreciate that each time I do, I can go back and re-download my past purchases in the format I need for my new device. It is very important to me that my purchases are readable in the future because it is, to me, the great benefit of e-books over print books. I have had to give up print books in the past due to lack of space to store them. With that not being an issue with e-books, I like the idea that I can keep them forever. I would not want to buy an e-book that was so infested with restrictive DRM that its future usability on a device of my choosing would ever be in question.

I also appreciate that Fictionwise offers e-magazine subscriptions as part of its inventory. Again, for me, this has been a space issue in the print world. I like that I can subscribe to a magazine, be able to download it in the format of my choosing, and keep it forever just like a book. I have been reading Asimovs this year and might change to Alfred Hitchcock next year. It’s been a treat for me to get a new issue added to my bookshelf every month.

Finally, I appreciate the one-stop shopping aspect. I like having a record of all my purchases in one spot, and I like being able to log in at any time and have all my past purchases right there for reference and re-download. It’s so much easier than having to back up individual files myself from any of a dozen different solo author websites!

Stop Two: eReader.com

I have not bought from eReader.com (owned by Fictionwise and also closed to self-publishers) yet, but its recent price-matching of Amazon’s $9.99 for new releases and best-sellers, has put eReader on my radar, and it offers different promotions from Fictionwise which might make one book or the other a better buy from eReader at any given moment.

Unfortunately the DRM-locked eReader format is not readable on my Sony. If it’s a real bargain price and an author I love, I may go for it since I can easily read it on my iPod Touch. But I prefer to do the bulk of my leisure reading on the Sony; and if a book cannot be easily and quickly used with that device, I hesitate to buy it. I can say without hesitation that the $1,000 and change I have spent on e-books so far would be at least double if DRM were not an issue and I did not have to worry about such things. Publishers and authors have absolutely lost real, legitimate sales from this!

Stop Three: Smashwords

This is another Web site which has recently entered my radar but from which I have not yet purchased. I love that in nearly every case, you can sample part of the book for free to make sure you’ll like it. Plus, Smashwords is friendly to independent writers and offers many self-published titles that other sites don’t carry.

I have already bought one e-book based on a sample; a prior Fictionwise read of mine had the first chapter of the author’s other book included as a bonus, and I liked it enough to buy the second book. Also, if I do read a book and I enjoy it enough to recommend it to friends, the sample allows them to check out my recommendation without a big commitment of time and money. They can read the free sample and make their own decision.

The only problem I have had with Smashwords so far is that I am unfamiliar with nearly all the authors. I have a lot of backlog in my To Read pile right now, so I have not had a lot of time to go exploring. But an author adept at self-marketing who gets on my radar could absolutely convert me into a Smashwords customer. That Web site is absolutely built on a model I could get behind!

Stop Four: Baen Books

As a reader, I love Baen Books’ business model (the company tends to give away the first book for free in hopes of hooking you into the series) and love that Baen offers a range of formats in a DRM-free approach similar to the Fictionwise multiformat offerings. The only reason I am not a more avid customer: I don’t read a ton of conventional sci-fi. If someone recommends something to me, I will absolutely check it out and see what it’s about. But as with Smashwords, I need someone to get me there first. Unfortunately Baen isn’t for self-published writers.

Now, where don’t I shop, and why not?

• Amazon, for the obvious reasons (no Sony support, and more importantly, no Canada support).
• Scribd (okay for browsing short documents, but every long document I have ever downloaded from Scribd has been an absolutely horrifically messy PDF with no proper line breaks and has looked terrible on my Sony, although I understand that Scribd is working to phase in ePub for many titles).
• Bookstores with restrictive DRM and onerous usage limits (for example, a previous device I had where all books could only be read on the device which bought them, and even if you changed devices to another device from them, that was that)

As for author web sites, I addressed that a little above—I tend to favor store sties. But I will say that an author who puts together a good package may yet convince me. One author who has caught my eye has all 30-odd books available in a bundle from his Web site at a substantial discount over buying them separately. Once my to-read pile is under control, that author may get a sale from me. But for the most part, I do prefer to one-stop-shop when I can.

1. Mark Coker is a very nice person and it is really neat to see a nice guy do well;

2. It is also neat to see a start-up (only 15 months old) leap from a small operation into the mainstream in such a short period of time;

3. For “self-published” authors this is just a phenomenal way to get their books into the mainstream, and even make some money given Smashwords author-friendly fee structure;

4. The rise of ebooks continues. At the Sony press conference this week I met the president of Overdrive and asked him how business was going in this economy. His answer was something like “I’m in ebooks, every day is a good day for me”. This is another example;

5. It gives Amazon some competition. They are no longer the only big guy in the mainstream self-publishing category;

6. It’s surprises like this that makes covering this nascent industry so much fun.

Here is the full release:

Smashwords has signed an agreement with Barnes & Noble to distribute Smashwords ebooks.

As you might imagine, we’re thrilled.

Until today, it was difficult if not impossible for many independent authors and publishers to gain such mainstream digital distribution. Now with Smashwords, virtually any deserving author, anywhere in the world, can receive broader distribution for their ebook.

Update: see, also, the Amazon Kindle Review for some more thoughts about this from a Kindle perspective.

We trust this is good news for Barnes & Noble as well because it makes thousands of new titles accessible to their customers. As any large retailer can attest, you want to carry the broadest possible selection for your customers yet it’s virtually impossible to strike relationships with every individual author or publisher who walks in the door.

Even with ebooks, where an online store can offer virtually limitless online shelf space, it’s still a challenge to sign on promising authors, because each business relationship requires technical setup, contracts, accounts payable systems, automated data feeds, sales tracking and more. We’re an onramp that makes it easy for Barnes & Noble to accept and sell books from indie authors and publishers.

This is an important milestone for Smashwords. 15 months ago when we launched, we were an ebook publishing platform for self-published authors. Earlier this year we opened our services to publishers. And today, we expand our role to that of an ebook distributor as well.

Smashwords ebooks are now distributed via multiple online channels, including Smashwords.com, Stanza (the e-reading app used by 2 million + people on the iPhone/iPod Touch), Aldiko (for Google Android phones) and soon, the Barnes & Noble network (Barnesandnoble.com, Fictionwise, Ereader app, others).

If you’re an author or publisher, I invite you to join with us today. We’ll make it easy for you to publish and distribute your book to a worldwide audience. Our services are free. As the author or publisher, you keep up to 85% of the net (net = proceeds to Smashwords multiplied by .85). We offer you free social media-enabled tools to help you take control over your marketing and promotion.

As part of this development, we’re creating a Premium Catalog, which contains Smashwords titles that meet the mechanical requirements for distribution. We posted a page to inform our authors and publishers about how to gain inclusion in the Premium Catalog: http://www.smashwords.com/distribution. Pardon our dust. These guidelines will surely evolve as we work out the inevitable kinks and bugs along the way.

Stay tuned. We’re just getting started.

Fresh from a popular keynote presentation in New York at Publishing University 2009, where he also presented the one-hour “p-Books to e-Books” class alongside Dan Poynter, Mark Coker of Smashwords will help demystify ebook publishing, distribution and marketing.

What you’ll learn in this session:

1. Why ebooks are hot
2. Latest market sales data
3. Will ebooks cannibalize or complement print books?
4. How ebooks fit within overall publishing strategy
5. What books work best as ebooks
6. How Ebook formatting is different
7. Why multi-format is important
8. Evolving distribution models: The new ebook supply chain
9. How Amazon is vertically integrating its ebook business: friend or foe to the independent publisher?
10. To DRM or not DRM?
11. Ebook pricing models

Get the answers to your ebook questions in this information-packed webinar.

Whether your readers want to consume your book on the iPhone, a laptop, an e-reader or other device, you’ll be ready to “serve up” your content the way they want it after listening to our e-book expert. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to learn from Mark Coker of Smashwords who is “walking the talk” when it comes to ebooks!

That said, I wish the Lecycle crew luck just the same. Here’s an Amazon news release on Stanza’s first birthday—on its amazing journey. TeleRead was among the first to discover Stanza. Let’s just hope that Amazon will let Stanza continues as a gateway to public domain books from sources such as Project Gutenberg, and new content from places such as Smashwords. Allowing Stanza to continue its ePub focus wouldn’t hurt, either.

At Smashwords, we’re always thinking of new methods to improve the discoverability of our books for the benefit of our authors, publishers and customers.

With in in mind, today we launched Smashwords Satellites, a collection of 33 standalone web sites, organized around different themes, featuring slices of Smashwords content. Think of them as digital shelves.

Each of the satellites features experimental, customizable interfaces for book discovery which look quite a bit different than the regular Smashwords.com web site. You can search for your ebook your way, by exposing the information you want or hiding the information you don’t want. Many offers instant on-screen sampling of up to 10,000 words on a single web page.

Interested in free erotica ebooks? Then head over to Free-Erotica-Ebooks.com.

Interested in only fiction ebooks? Visit Fiction-Ebooks.com.

Interested only in short fiction? Try Short-Fiction-Ebooks.com

How about ebooks you can download to your Sony Reader? Try Sony-Ebook-Downloads.com. For your Amazon Kindle? Try Kindle-Ebook-Downloads.com

And there are about 30 others you’ll find at Smashwords Labs, where we now list some of our ongoing experiments and development initiatives.

Over time, if readers enjoy the experimental interfaces, we’ll migrate some of the features into the main Smashwords web site. We’ll iterate the interfaces based on your feedback.

Already, just during the development of the Satellites, we developed some new features that have already found their way to Smashwords, such as the new Smashwords 100 page. We’re also excited about the new Smashwords Cover Browser (seen here at Cheap-Reads.com), so we’ll soon find a home for that on the main site as well.

Smashwords, an independent publisher, distributor and retailer of ebooks, today introduced the Smashwords Affiliate Marketing Program. The program allows bloggers, authors, readers, publishers, website operators, online specialty bookstores and professional affiliate marketers to receive commissions of 11 percent or more simply by linking to Smashwords ebooks.

“Our mission at Smashwords is to help authors and publishers publish, promote and sell their ebooks,” said Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords. “The Smashwords Affiliate Marketing Program will help authors and publishers expand their digital shelf space while providing affiliate marketers the opportunity to profit from the rapid rise of electronic books.” …

Much to the chagrin of affiliate marketers, Amazon earlier this year removed Kindle ebooks from their Amazon Associates affiliate program. Amazon’s program change means that many affiliate marketers are driving ebook customer traffic to Amazon for which the affiliate receives no commission.

“We hope to fill a small part of the ebook void for affiliate marketers,” added Mark Coker. “While we offer only a fraction of Amazon’s content, we do offer a broad selection of over 1,400 independently published ebooks in a wide range of genres and subject matters. Many of our books aren’t available anywhere else.”

Unique “Juicing” Feature Allows Authors to Increase Affiliate Commissions

Affiliates receive minimum commissions of 11 percent of the net selling price on all participating ebook titles. “Net” to the affiliate is calculated as (selling price – PayPal fee)*.11.

Authors and publishers can “juice” their affiliate rates so that affiliates have greater incentive to promote their books. This will allow for affiliate commissions as high as 81.5 percent for authors and publishers who want to sweeten the promotional appeal of their books to participating affiliates.

For a complete overview of the Smashwords Affiliate Marketing program, and to learn what it means to authors, publishers and affiliates alike, read the online documentation at and the Terms of Service.

For professional affiliates experienced in web design and web services, Smashwords offers an API through which developers can access book titles, book samples and associated metadata.

Future Enhancements Planned
Over the next few months, Smashwords will introduce several enhancements to the Smashwords Affiliate Program. Anticipated enhancements include widgets, improved book filtering, improved affiliate reporting and metrics, and a new online service code-named “Smashwords Foundry.”

Smashwords, an e-book publishing platform and online bookstore that launched one year ago to serve self-published authors, today expanded its focus to serve publishers as well.

Smashwords helps book publishers make the transition to e-books, and offers an attractive alternative to traditional online retail outlets because it pays publishers 85 percent the net proceeds from sales of their titles. Ebooks are sold to customers DRM-free and multi-format, making them readable on any e-reading device. …

The Smashwords service is free to publishers. Each publisher is provided a custom-branded online bookstore, and can list an unlimited number of e-book titles from an unlimited number of authors. Publishers gain access to numerous free promotion and selling tools offered by Smashwords, including the popular Smashwords Coupon Generator which makes it easy to run creative promotions across online social networks, blogs and web sites.

“Smashwords makes it easy for publishers to publish, promote and sell their e-books,” said Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords. “Publishers simply upload their books as Microsoft Word .doc or .RTF files and we automatically convert them into multiple e-book formats, ready for immediate sale online at a price set by the publisher. Our books are also distributed in the native catalog of Stanza, the popular e-reading app used by over 1.5 million iPhone and iPod Touch owners to read ebooks.”

Prior to Smashwords introducing a publisher solution, publishers had difficulty listing titles with Smashwords because the service was architected for individual self-publishing authors, as opposed to multi-author publishers.

Last month I wrote a two-part series examining why publishers are like venture capitalists and authors are like entrepreneurs. In both pieces, I drew parallels between technology startups and publishing.

Today, I add a part three to the series with an exclusive interview with entrepreneur, Forbes columnist, and now Smashwords author, Sramana Mitra.

Yesterday, Sramana published two books on Smashwords that explore the secrets of successful entrepreneurship.

In the interview that follows, Sramana explores the intersection between entrepreneurship and indie authorship, and shares how authors can think beyond the book to build their personal franchise.

[Mark Coker] – Tell us the story behind Entrepreneur Journeys, and your newest title, Bootstrapping, Weapon of Mass Reconstruction

[Sramana Mitra] – I am deeply interested in mentoring entrepreneurs and teaching them how to build companies. As a self-taught entrepreneur myself, much of my learning came from my own mentors – coffees, conversations, dinners – through which they told me their stories, shared their insights. Entrepreneur Journeys is my attempt to capture that knowledgebase and institutionalize it, so entrepreneurs all over the world can vicariously experience those conversations, those dinners, lunches, coffees which I have been fortunate to have access to, and through which I built myself up. There are so many stories, and so much tribal knowledge. I want to capture a great deal of it, and leave it as a resource for those coming after. That is why I am doing this project – so that we can unleash a vast mass of entrepreneurial energy upon the world. As I developed the series, the 2008 financial crisis came upon us. Capital started drying up. Entrepreneurs are now left with little option but to bootstrap. That’s where the idea for the second volume, Bootstrapping, Weapon Of Mass Reconstruction comes from. We have to rebuild. We have to reconstruct. Entrepreneurs have to play a critical role in this process. Learn from the masters. And not give up!

[Mark Coker] – What led you to publish your books independently, rather than through a mainstream commercial publisher?

[Sramana Mitra] – I wanted a fast-track way to get this book series out ASAP. I am publishing 5 books in a span of 18 months. Traditional publishers take very long to get their acts together, and frankly, I don’t operate with those timelines. Besides, I got a great royalty structure plus lots of other goodies from my “special” deal with Amazon (BookSurge). It gave me an opportunity to be an entrepreneur and disrupt an industry. You can imagine how attractive that is for someone with my profile. But also, I have a traditional publishing deal with Hachette in India, so it is not that I am not working with the regular publishing industry. I am. I am simply doing whatever makes the best business sense to me right now, given my agenda of getting to the right audience, and as fast as possible. iPhone is one such audience, and hence, I am on Smashwords, Stanza, etc. I am also on Kindle.

[Mark Coker] – In your books, you study and interview many of today’s most successful entrepreneurs. What lessons can indie authors learn from the best practices the entrepreneurs you’ve studied, and what can entrepreneurs learn from authors?

[Sramana Mitra] – Entrepreneurs often bootstrap their way to proving their concepts, and then follow up with additional financing from investors. Authors can think of it the same way. Develop your concept. Bootstrap. Build a blog. Write books. eBooks. Columns. Build a platform. Build a franchise. Build a following for your work. Then, if you like, you can also get to work with regular publishers and get additional leverage. This is how I operate. I have a very good blog that showcases my work, and I have a good readership through that. I have a Forbes column. I have a series of books. I syndicate my writings to many other publishers. And lo and behold, I have a franchise. And I operate a publishing franchise with the mind of an entrepreneur, because at heart, that’s what I am, first and foremost.

[Mark Coker] – Many non-fiction authors earn the bulk of their income not from book sales, but by consulting and public speaking. Based on your own experience, how can authors leverage and monetize their expertise beyond the book?

[Sramana Mitra] – Yes. My blog started off as a brochure for my consulting practice. It still serves rather well in that capacity. I think it is one of the absolute best ways in which to monetize a personal franchise. Publish books, blogs, columns in your area of expertise. Then you become known. Your work becomes known. Your point of view becomes known. And you can consult, speak, monetize in many different ways. You may want to read this piece on the future of journalism that talks more about the phenomenon. I see it as becoming more and more important and prevalent.

[Mark Coker] – What role do you see ebooks playing in the future of publishing?

[Sramana Mitra] – I think ebooks are going to be an essential piece of the portfolio of franchise building tools. You need to think about the various touch points through which your audience can be accessed. Kindle. iPhone. Blackberry. Palm. The laptop. The Netbook. Physical books. The big desktop screen on your desk. May be, the television. All these are access points. The devices and the windows into the user. You have to build your franchise in a way that those whom you want to touch can find you at those various access points. And there is no question in my mind that the eBook is one of the key building blocks of this strategy. Stanza has been downloaded what – over a million times – on the iPhone? There must be Stanza readers who would be interested in my books. My writings. My point of view. How can I not be there?

[Mark Coker] – Thanks, Sramana!

Learn more about Sramana Mitra by viewing her Smashwords author profile, or purchase Entrepreneur Journeys (Volume One) and Bootstrapping, Weapons of Mass Reconstruction at Smashwords as multi-format ebooks for $9.99 each.
Sramana blogs at Sramana Mitra on Strategy.

My roots are in Silicon Valley. For most of the last three decades, Silicon Valley was the world’s hotbed for startup innovation. Our advantage over the rest of the world was our unique ecosystem of talent and funding, and a culture that celebrated creative risk taking, creative destruction, knowledge sharing and yes, even failure.

In Silicon Valley, our heroes are the risk-takers, those who put their skin on the line to pursue a dream of changing the world. For much of these last 30 years, venture capital provided the dreamy entrepreneurs with the money, counsel and connections to make their dreams a reality. Earlier this decade, the Silicon Valley gravy train fell off the tracks.

Non-stop success can breed complacency and arrogance. Many in Silicon Valley thought we possessed the secret sauce to building great tech companies. Actually, we did help invent and improve the secret sauce, but like secrets that shouldn’t be kept, the recipe spread around the world and was improved upon, so that today, promising tech companies sprout in every corner of the globe without our assistance. Silicon Valley has eaten its share of humble pie lately, and that’s a good thing for the future of our industry.

For many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, venture capital was the oxygen that breathed life into what might have otherwise remained an idea scribbled on a napkin. After all, startup creation is expensive. In exchange for the capital, the entrepreneur usually gave the VC anywhere from 20 to 60 percent of their company, and with that ownership they also gave up some control.

VCs, while usually super-intelligent people, are fallible like the rest of us. They have a recurring habit of getting caught up in the greed and feeding frenzy that occurs when a startup in a hot new category hits pay dirt with an IPO. Like drunken lemmings waving fists of cash, they compete against one another to fund similar startups in the same category. The ensuing competition sparks bidding wars that inflate the valuations of the companies and lead to a glut of cookie-cutter startups in the same category. Other entrepreneurs, spellbound by the razzle dazzle of the big dollars, rush to modify their startups to fit the same mold so they too can get funded. Inevitably, consolidation comes because the market can’t support so many clones.

Many entrepreneurs who’ve sold their souls to a VC view VCs with equal parts admiration and contempt. Key positives: VCs offer access to capital, advisors and connections that can maximize their odds of getting their company out there. Key negatives: The VCs make promises they often can’t keep (such as “spend our money quickly, we’ll be here to give you more when you need it”); their allegiance is fleeting (VCs are legend for losing interest at the first signs of hardship); and their interests aren’t necessarily aligned with those of the entrepreneur.

This last two points are the most critical. A VC’s allegiance is to their investors first and foremost, not the entrepreneur or the entrepreneur’s company. At times these interests are aligned, but more often than not they diverge.

VCs play a numbers game. They understand that out of every ten companies they fund, six or seven will be outright failures, maybe two will be “base hits” or “doubles,” and then maybe one will be a home run. The one home run, like the next Cisco, Netscape, Google or what have you, makes up for the other nine duds.

This desire to hit a home run will often cause a VC to manage their portfolio contrary to the best interests of the entrepreneur or their company. In other words, if you are one of the three most promising companies in a batch of ten, the VC may encourage (or force) you to take big risks and swing for the home run, even when a base hit or double is a smarter move. By forcing companies to take inappropriate risks, they do create the occasional home run, but they create many more failures along the way.

One of the reasons a thousand Silicon Valleys have sprouted up around the globe is that it no longer takes the same amount of funding to create a startup. The tools to build the company are essentially free now. With low cost or free open source software, and limitless free access to knowledge (Wikipedia and Google) and relationships (social networks) acting as equalizers, more and more entrepreneurs are turning their backs on the VCs. Some will utilize angels instead. Angels are service providers or fellow entrepreneurs who have experience in the same field, and who contribute much of the same value as a VC without exacting the same quantity of flesh.

Some of these entrepreneurs grow their business to profitability and then have the option, but not the necessity, to partner with a VC. Once an entrepreneur has proven the success of their business (i.e. they’ve eliminated much of the risk), they can either forego venture funding altogether, or they can bring on the VC under more favorable terms.

Fun with Words
So now, my dear reader, if you haven’t already come to your own conclusions about why publishing is like venture capital, I encourage you to perform this fun word play exercise. Enjoy!

Instructions: Copy and paste this post into a word processor, do the following search and replace (”CTRL-H” in Microsoft Word) in the following order, and then re-read your creation:

replace “entrepreneurs” with “authors”
replace “entrepreneur” with “author”
replace “tech companies” and “companies” with “authors”
replace “startups” with “books”
replace “startup” and “company” with “book”
replace “VC” with “publisher”
replace “venture capital” with “publishing”
replace “funded” with “published”
replace “an IPO” with “a bestseller”
replace “service providers” with “experienced publishing professionals”
replace “business” with “writing career”
replace “open source software” with publishing tools like Smashwords and Wordclay”
replace “venture funding” with “a commercial publisher”
replace “Cisco, Netscape, Google” with “Breaking Dawn, Eragon, Da Vinci Code”
replace “Silicon Valley” with “New York.”

In my next post, I’ll share what I think all the above means for the future of publishing and indie authorship.

Claudio Soares, a Brazilian author and literary blogger, has launched an intriguing multimedia online publishing experiment involving Twitter, CommentPress, videos, music and ultimately, Smashwords.

A couple years back, Soares published his novel, Santos Dumont Numero 8. The story revolves around an aircraft inventor who numbers each of his inventions with "Santos-Dumont number 1" through "Santos-Dumont number 22." Mysteriously, for some superstitious reason, the inventor refuses to use the number 8.

The book follows eight main characters, seven of whom are intent upon unlocking the truth behind the mystery, and one of whom, I assume, is intent on keeping the reason a secret.
Soares has broken the novel into pieces, and is serializing it from the unique perspectives of each of the characters, each of whom has their own Twitter account. In an interesting twist, the characters will interact with their Twitter followers. This has the potential to create an immersive experience, not just for the community of readers that congregates around the book and its characters as the story unfolds, but for the author as well.

At the same time, Soares is serializing the the novel in its entirety from http://www.twiter.com/sd8. Readers can view the twitterstreams of all characters simultaneously at Crowdstatus, an online app that allows you to aggregate the Twitterstreams of multiple people.

There’s a bookish twist to the novel, because it’s also a book about books and readers. The narrator of the story is reading from a book. As Soares explained to me, "The main character, Abayomi, reads and it seems as if the story he reads is really happening." Soares says in writing the book, he found inspiration from by some ideas of the Argentine writer, Jorge Luis Borges, who once said words to the effect that, "the reading of a book makes us experience parallel worlds, which often, superstitiously, invade our reality."

Does Soares believe his experiment presages the future of reading? Not at all. He recognizes Twitter has numerous flaws in terms of its ability to convey a story. Twitterstreams, for example, are like ongoing conversations, and the participants pop in and out of them as if pedestrians passing in the street, so it’s difficult to follow a narrative. People also tend to read Twitterstreams in reverse chronological order, which is also not terribly conducive to an immersive reading experience. And finally, for those who want to follow a story from start to beginning, Twitter doesn’t make it easy to locate the start of a stream, or follow complex conversations that occur within the stream.

According to Soares, discovering the inherent limitations of these social reading tools is part of his experiment. He plans to document his experiences on his blog, and he’ll publish the complete Twitterized version of the novel on Smashwords after the completion of the experiment.

The book is written in Brazilian Portuguese, though you don’t need to understand the language to appreciate the experiment. For additional details on the experiment, check out this imprecise English translation of the project description, visit his blog at http://www.pontolit.com/br, view an online presentation of the project at http://prezi.com/25890/view/#104, or follow his personal Twitterstream at twitter.com/pontolit

No matter how you look at it, we’ve come a long way since papyrus scrolls, stone tablets and Gutenberg.

Editor’s note:  Mark’s original post can be found here.