Amazon-Kindle-Digital Text Platform Publishing

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Permalink Reply by Patricia Pillard McCulley on June 13, 2010 at 11:05am

And then there is Smashwords that will do it all for you for $$$. I'm thinking of just putting a link on my website where they can pay thru Paypal as I have seen done.
Pat

Permalink Reply by Regulo Zapata Jr. on June 14, 2010 at 3:04am

Hi Patricia,

Thank you so much for sharing this information on e-book Publishing and online distribution platform to major ebook retail stores with Smashwords.

I just got thru reviewing their website and they look very interesting and professional. This sounds like a good way to go on ebook publishing. It appears that they can help you alots on the marketing and distribution of your ebook to online stores.

I like that Smashwords will publish your book in multiple ebook formats, your book is readable on any e-reading device, including the Amazon Kindle, the Apple iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad, the Sony Reader, the Barnes & Noble nook, your personal computer, and others. Which makes this good for other buyers with different reader devices.

One very important information I noticed from Smashwords is that you retain full digital rights.

I'm interested in converting my book into digital and I'm researching the different epublishing companies. I'm still reading Smashwords information on epublishing instructions.

I'm trying to compare to Amazon Kindel Store Digital text Platform and Smashwords!

I look forward to talking to you some more!

Thanks for all Your Troop Support!

Reggie

Permalink Reply by Theresa M. Moore on June 25, 2010 at 2:34pm

Uh...Smashwords. Been there. Yes, they now charge you $$$ for distribution, but you will have to follow their style guide, which will delay your entry into the publishing sphere significantly. I left for no sales for almost a year, and they are about as unprofessional as one can get. However, I have also published for Kindle and it will go up with little difficulty for free. If anyone is interested in how I do it without using HTML, ask. Coming July 1, Amazon will be paying 70% royalties on ebook priced $9.99 and under. Since you are looking for digital publishing of this kind I also use Off The Bookshelf, which is a young company with a lot of promise. They offer a full service platform, and are working on wider distribution. You can upload a doc file and they will convert it to epub for distribution to various devices. The ceo is user friendly and willing to take suggestions, which is more than I can say for Smashwords. I also host buy buttons through PayPal on my own site and links to other booksellers which carry my books. Another solution to reach Amazon is to use CreateSpace for printed books, which I recommend highly.

Permalink Reply by Regulo Zapata Jr. on June 28, 2010 at 2:55am

Hi Susan, Thanks for the help and information on the selection between Smashwords and Amazon Kindle! I'm still researching on which to select and trying to convert PDF file into word format file so that I can submit to one of these ebook publishers. Any other ideas please forward!

Reggie

Permalink Reply by Theresa M. Moore on August 10, 2010 at 1:14pm

I have put all my books up on the Kindle Ebook Store through Data Text Platform and it is better than doing it through Smashwords. Thus far Smashwords is not up to the task and their track record is not good because they experience too many outages, site interrupts and also their auto vetter does not work well with the files.

I have done both Kindle and also put up PayPal buttons for my PDF and printed books on my own site, and allowed Off The Bookshelf to host my ePub and PDF files. DTP does just fine for Kindle and I have developed an alternate way to post on DTP without glitches.

Permalink Reply by Nick on October 6, 2010 at 11:20am

After being hounded off the createspace forums for spreading your misinformation about Smashwords you've settled here? Yes, you've had a bad experience with Smashwords. What I've taken from your posts, and press releases that the moment something happens to one of your files you don't understand, or are asked to change formatting you leave the service in an angry huff, and then blast said organisation. Very effective way of throwing out the baby and bath water, and burning bridges.

Smashwords gives any one who has written a book the chance to distribute it to major eBook channels for FREE and assigns it an ISBN for FREE too if you choose. The price you pay is following there very simple style guidelines (I did it all in OpenOffice thats how easily it was explained) and you only pay if you sell anything, and the commission that Smashwords takes is tiny compared to the service they offer.

During the time of your Smashwords rant on Createspace I was reformatting my novel The Tether so I could get it into the iBookstore. Following the guidelines and an exchange of very helpful emails from Matt I got the file to pass the Epub preflight and got my novel into the iBookstore. On every turn I've found Smashwords to be helpful, insightful and a joy to work with... And Mark almost held my hand throughout the entire process for FREE!!!

Smashwords did hiccup at the beginning of September due to unexpected growth in traffic, and Mark soon resolved that problem. The Autovetter I've never had a problem with, even at the beginning when I thought I knew better than the style guide to get my novel into Premium Distribution.

Now with a near perfect formated file I've used it (modded slightly) to go into the Kindlestore via DTP, and into PubIt too. You need to stop being precious about the format of your work and realise how it is presented on eReaders, and the various size screens they use. Somethings just don't work right yet on any eReader.

The style guide even helped me tidy up some errors on my Print manuscript, so the short of it is this don't use Tabs unless its the Print version of your book!!!

To answer to OP is this... Use the Smashwords style guide to help you format your book yourself, then use this Document to cross over to the other services. It really isn't difficult once you get into it and...

Yes Smashwords is a good place to get your book into for eBook distribution.
Yes Kindle DTP is a good place to get your book into for eBook distribution.
Yes PuBit is a good place to get your book into for eBook distribution.

Just take your time, understand learn each formats limitations and work with it.
Arigato,
Nick D
Read my Paranormal Action Adventure The Tether at http://www.the-tether.com

Permalink Reply by william n. richardson on December 6, 2010 at 12:27pm

I am a senior citizen who is not computer literate and has written short fiction for the past fifteen years on a Macintosh, using the Appleworks 6 word program. I am not all that interested in mastering additional computer skills. Is it possible to hire someone like you to create a dummy that would allow me to download my short fiction collections as files that are formatted correctly into the DTP (digital text platform) for Kindel or is that an unrealistic expectation? Although I am a retired university professor who has published extensively in the print medium, I now live in an area that does not allow me access to institutional tech on-line support, so I am searching for an individual who can make my on-line fiction publishing debut acceptable.

Permalink Reply by Theresa M. Moore on August 22, 2010 at 5:14pm

Just came across a nice new service http://www.ebooksforpleasure.com, which will do all the conversion for a variety of formats and also issue an ISBN for each. They pay only twice a year but they pay a flat 50%, and they will do all the promotion and marketing for themselves and their catalog. You might want to check them out. I am still in the process of examining their contract but they are very nice (so far). I am waiting for pubit (BN) to go live.

Permalink Reply by Bradley Flora on August 22, 2010 at 11:55pm

Theresa,

Thanks for sharing this new service with us. I took a look at the website and was unable to find an answer to one of my questions:

After conversion, does ebooksforpleasure.com control any copyrights, or the ISBN, related to the book?



If you know the answer to that question through your dealings with them, or have any additional input you can share about our experiences with them, it would be much appreciated.

Sincerely,

bradley flora
SPANnet.org

Permalink Reply by Regulo Zapata Jr. on August 24, 2010 at 9:27am

Hey Theresa,
Thanks for the tip and help on conversion format. I finally was able to convert my PDF into Word doc then into HTML after a long trouble-shooting and research method.

At the moment, I submitted HTML doc with Amazon-Kindle DTP and dealing with their Kindle system Preview system before actual Publishing into Amazon DTP. I'm trying to figure out how accurate their Kindle ebook Preview system is? It looks like it might have some Preview clith issues in showing total HTML conversions of your ebook results.

Amazon says that their DTP Preview is an (Approximate view only) of your HTML ebook on their system. Its a sneak preview only. As I look at it, its OKAy but does not even show the live hyper-links and has two errors on sentence spacing indents. I have double checked live HTML format sentence spacing & Indents, and they are correct.

Plus the Amazon DTP ebook Preview system changes everytime you scroll through it to view your ebook Preview on their system. Sometimes it shows errors then somtimes it does not show errors. Have you ever seen this before on their amazon DTP preview system?

Do you have any other information on the Amazon DTP Preview system?

I was also Experimenting with Mobipocket Creator conversion with PDF, Word, HTML also.

Thanks for the Help! Your Thoughts!
Reggie

Permalink Reply by Nick on October 6, 2010 at 11:27am

I would of stopped at convernting my manuscript into word, and concentrated on the formating from there. DTP and the rest of the services takes a .doc file the same as a HTML or PDF and previews it just as good.

Here is my tip, use the Smashwords style guide to help you create a successful file that will convert into the other formats easily and neatly. Use the Smashwords autovetter to help you discover any errors in your file, then use Smashwords for your HTML, Mobi, Epub file creations (you can download them after they are created).

Make your PDF directly off your word manuscript that you are going to use for print, because I am going to assume the formatting is different and closer to your final vision of the work, than the compromise you have to work with for eBook publishing.

Then stop sweating how it looks, just worry about your story and let it go.
Arigato,
Nick D
Read my Paranormal Action Adventure The Tether at http://www.the-tether.com

Permalink Reply by Regulo Zapata Jr. on October 6, 2010 at 3:50pm

Hi Nick, Thanks for the tips and nice comments! I totally agree with you! it's about sharing & telling the story to the readers is whats most important! I just wanted to share with you some exciting news of finally having "Desperate Lands" available on ebook Amazon Kindel Edtion for the readers!

Its been an exciting journey in just trying to format the ebook into its correct Digital Text Format and finally going live on the worldwide Amazon Kindle Store. Thanks to some of the folks on the Amazon DTP-Support Group & DTP-Forum I was able to create the ebook.

Desperate Lands is "Now" available to readers with different reading (Digital Devices). If you "DON'T" have a Kindel device you can still down load the ebook to your (Personal Computer) and later on transfer over your ebook to the Kindel or any other digital device.

Please take a moment to view a sample of Desperate Lands on the Amazon Kindle Store:
http://www.amazon.com/Desperate-Lands-Through-Special-ebook/dp/B004...

"Desperate Lands" will also be on ebook with Barnes & Noble Store very soon too.

Thanks For All The troop Support!
reggie

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