Fringe Fiction Unlimited discussion

I'm a total N00b about distributors like Smashwords and Createspace since I'm still writing a book without really over-thinking the publication phase BUT figure I might as well ask a few questions so I can have ample time to weigh those options.

Anybody have insights into what is a good distributor if I'm not looking to be exclusive through Amazon? They're dandy and all but it seems a shame to cut out nook users and other ebook readers.

I'd like to know myself. I've had a hell of a time trying to decipher non-Amazon/B&N distribution. The main thing that confuses me is the fact Amazon and B&N are retailers with their own distribution channels.

I've been looking into Kobo a lot laterly, myself. It seems decent.

Yeah, I'd hate to choose between the two :(

I'm choosing neither lol

Smashwords is great. With them you get to all the other stores, even Kobo. It takes a whole lot of sales to get your book to Amazon through them so you don't have to worry. You can publish on Amazon too, so you get covered everywhere.

Createspace is POD. You automatically get your paperback on Amazon and in their own store.

G.G. wrote: "Smashwords is great. With them you get to all the other stores, even Kobo. It takes a whole lot of sales to get your book to Amazon through them so you don't have to worry. You can publish on Amazo..."


So - for my clarification - you could publish with Smashwords, Createspace and Amazon and there's no conflict of interest there?

I'm also curious if authors are truly independent - as in if they publish with Amazon does it own their rights or can you always just pull your book and try submitting with traditional publishing at any point?

See, that's what confuses me. Things like that makes sound like all online distributers are owned by Amazon. I suppose that's possible, but probably not quite right.

I was looking into a Canadian POD company and chatted with them, asking some questions, reading their FAQ. At first, they claimed to have over 250 distirbutors. But when I dug into it more, only 6 by 9 paperbacks are allowed, and! If you want your book in Amazon or B&N, not only the size restriction, but it has to be listed at a price that's lower than Amazon or B&N. Also, all the distributor were actually sites like Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, etc, etc.

So I decided to ignore all of it.

Bloody confusing, I tell ya.

AFAIR you only need to give Amazon the exclusivity if you upload your book to KDP "Premium" catalogue or however it's called. So as long as you go with their regular catalogue, you're free to publish your story anywhere else.

So yeah, you can publish with Smashwords and Amazon (and supposedly Createspace) simultaneously; well, that's even what Smashwords itself recommends (as you need to get into $2,000 club to even be considered for their distribution to Amazon).

Courtney wrote: "I'm also curious if authors are truly independent - as in if they publish with Amazon does it own their rights or can you always just pull your book and try submitting with traditional publishing at any point?"

I'm not sure about that one. I've wondered myself. I'm pretty sure the trad publisher buys all rights if the book is prolific enough with a huge fanbase, but that's rare.

Courtney wrote: "I'm also curious if authors are truly independent - as in if they publish with Amazon does it own their rights or can you always just pull your book and try submitting with traditional publishing at any point?"

No, Amazon has nothing to do with your rights. It's just a marketplace - just like a bookstore doesn't own the rights to your book if they somehow put it on their shelves.

You can publish with all three without conflict unless you choose KDP Select. This one forces you to have your eBooks only on Amazon. (Createspace stays untouched by this as they are paperbacks, It only affect Smashwords.) The contract is renewable every three months BUT you need to disable it yourself because otherwise, it renews automatically and you're stuck for another three months. So as long as you don't go exclusive with Amazon, you can publish your eBooks with anyone else you want.

Amazon doesn't own your rights. You can pull your books out any time you want and do whatever you want with it. However, it is my understanding that a traditional publisher might not want to touch an already published book unless it has a tremendous amount of sales already.

Thanks, GG!

Lily wrote: "Courtney wrote: "I'm also curious if authors are truly independent - as in if they publish with Amazon does it own their rights or can you always just pull your book and try submitting with traditi..."

Yeah, it's more about me wanting the peace of mind to know if I feel like submitting to an agent I always can rather than feeling I've screwed myself out of any chance to do so.

Jacek wrote: "AFAIR you only need to give Amazon the exclusivity if you upload your book to KDP "Premium" catalogue or however it's called. So as long as you go with their regular catalogue, you're free to publi...

Funny Smashwords requires you to prove something by them before working with Amazon. I'm not sure I'm a fan of that. If anything, I would bet more readers are likely to happen across a book on Amazon than Smashwords...

Since you brought it up, I've seen a lot of agents say, don't even mention it's self-published unless you have a bajillion sales.

Smashwords asks you to prove something? I haven't seen that. Curious.

G.G. wrote: "However, it is my understanding that a traditional publisher might not want to touch an already published book unless it has a tremendous amount of sales already."

Just a little bit of clarification, sorry for a small off-topic: publishers can be rather unwilling to go for a book that HAD a tremendous amount of sales (at least on the specific market). Why? Because if you had sold, say, 10,000 copies via Amazon, it means there's hypothetically 10,000 less people still interested in your book, hence less future sales, hence less money for the publisher. But there's also a lot of other factors so...

Courtney wrote: "Funny Smashwords requires you to prove something by them before working with Amazon. I'm not sure I'm a fan of that. If anything, I would bet more readers are likely to happen across a book on Amazon than Smashwords..."

I'm not sure Smashwords is at fault here. It maybe that Amazon won't accept an eBook by another company unless it proved a seller... That's why Smashwords advises you to publish on both platform, theirs AND Amazon. You can always decide later on if your book reaches the point where Smashwords could export it to Amazon, if you want to go with Amazon or have Smashwords do it. In any cases, you get more royalties from Smashwords so in the end, it could be a hard choice.

Yeah, you know, with all these behind the scenes connection, it's hard to tell.

I guess it's more the issue of Amazon because you don't have to prove anything to get into B&N or iBooks via Smashwords. Like their page states:

"Although we have a distribution agreement with Amazon via their Kindle Direct Platform, they're unable to receive our entire catalog until they create a bulk upload facility. In the meantime, we're only distributing a few hundred titles to Amazon out of our catalog of over 250,000. We understand that many Smashwords authors would prefer the convenience of consolidating their distribution to Amazon via Smashwords, rather than uploading direct to Amazon."

You've probably seen Smashwords' distribution info but just in case, here's the link: https://www.smashwords.com/distribution

Hmm, that's unfornate. Though, I don't see anything wrong with selling on Smashwords only.

Smashwords has a lot of retailers (I don't recognize most of them but I suppose they're pretty significant in their region) plus a really good pricing ratio (about 70-80% of book's price goes onto your account) so I guess that's a pretty decent option. Plus you can always additionally upload your story directly to Amazon for what it's worth.

I have never honestly purchased a book through Smashwords. Not saying other people don't but I always go on Amazon.

Man, this is like figuring out which basket to put all your eggs in lol

Courtney wrote: "I have never honestly purchased a book through Smashwords. Not saying other people don't but I always go on Amazon.

Man, this is like figuring out which basket to put all your eggs in lol"

Now you know how the rest of us feel lol

Just glancing over Smashwords it doesn't seem like a lot of people leave reviews, even for books listed as "bestsellers".

I know reviews aren't the end-all, be-all in indicating whether a book is selling or not but it makes me feel like I'm browsing blind :/

Courtney wrote: "Just glancing over Smashwords it doesn't seem like a lot of people leave reviews, even for books listed as "bestsellers".

I know reviews aren't the end-all, be-all in indicating whether a book i..."

Smashwords is more like an online catalog, and not really a retailer with seperate categories, etc. I guess it's best for those who already have fans and need some place to buy.

Gotcha - yeah, as a random reader it basically looks like fanfiction.net to me except the absence of ratings gives me zero-clue whether a book is even decent.

I'd be super wary to grab anything because even a bestseller could just be a bandwagon if I have no idea what readers are saying about it.

Courtney wrote: "I have never honestly purchased a book through Smashwords. Not saying other people don't but I always go on Amazon.

Man, this is like figuring out which basket to put all your eggs in lol"

To be honest, I never bought on SW either. They don't use credit card, they use Paypal. Personally, I buy myself gift cards to use on Amazon and ITunes. I don't have a Paypal account.

Yeah, it's rather a catalogue that lets you distribute books to various retailers with just one click. So you just publish your book there and within a few days it's also available in B&N, iBooks, Kobo and several other stores.

Jacek wrote: "Yeah, it's rather a catalogue that lets you distribute books to various retailers with just one click. So you just publish your book there and within a few days it's also available in B&N, iBooks, ..."

That sounds advantageous but it doesn't limit you from publishing with Amazon independent of them?

Pros and cons to everything I'm afraid.

I like the idea of directly uploading on Kobo. The only disadvantage I've found with Kobo so far is they only give royalty payments every quarter if you have a minimum of 100$ in sales. If it's less, then they pay twice a year. So, seems like it's just extra, for those first starting out. Still, I don't see the harm. Can't hurt.

It seems to me, with online retailers and distributitors, have to keep your options open and basically, try everything until you get sales and see what works for you.

I'm using Draft2Digital which is getting me pretty good distribution.

I have heard good things about D2D.

Courtney wrote: "Jacek wrote: "Yeah, it's rather a catalogue that lets you distribute books to various retailers with just one click. So you just publish your book there and within a few days it's also available in..."

Like I mentioned (and GG clarified), as long as you don't go with KDP Select, you're free to publish your books whenever you want and you're still able to publish it on Amazon - either via Smashwords or (more likely) by yourself. So you can go on Smashwords, get your books into B&N and then decide to also publish it on Amazon and it's no problem at all.

What if you want the book completely removed?

From those retailers? You can set in your options whether you want to Distribute or Opt out from a specific retailer. So if you don't want your book in, say, B&N, you just click a button and it's not available.

Jacek wrote: "Courtney wrote: "Jacek wrote: "Yeah, it's rather a catalogue that lets you distribute books to various retailers with just one click. So you just publish your book there and within a few days it's ..."

- whips sweat from brow -

Good to hear. Not a pressing concern atm but my personality likes to get a lay of the land before it becomes an impending problem :D

Both sites (SW and Amazon) have an 'unpublish' button.

Being that Amazon is a standalone, it's should be quick (as in insta), but on Smashwords it can take a little longer for the books to be removed from their extended distributors such as B&N, iTunes and Kobo. It should be quick to insta on their site though.

If seen authors from Lulu (who I don't recommend) complain that Amazon continued selling their books after it was removed. Granted, that might be an issue with Lulu. I was just wondering if anyone has has similar problems with other various distributors/retailers/self-publishing companies.

Ugh. You know what? That's half the problem right there. They've all merged. >.<

Keep it simple. Pick one. I use Amazon because everyone seems to have that.

I may have already asked this but now that my book is published on CS and Amazon, can I publish it on Smashwords? Reason I also is I'd like to make it available to more places and I hear Smashwords posts it to several interesting spots such as Kobo, ITunes and Google Play Store.

Unless you chose KDP SELECT with Amazon for your title, you CAN publish it on Smashwords.

In case it's not clear, if you published many books on Amazon, but only one is in Select, you can publish all the others on Smashwords too. Just not the Select one. Clearer?

I have my book on smashwords too. You just have to add some Smashwords stuff to the copyright page and do a separately formatted file for their style guide.

I have published 4 books and all 4 have been enrolled in KDP, so I can't use Smashwords?

Justin wrote: "I have published 4 books and all 4 have been enrolled in KDP, so I can't use Smashwords?"

1) by KDP do you mean SELECT? were they in the Kindle Unlimited? (The enrollment that last three months and is auto renewed unless you uncheck it. The thing that permits you to offer your book free or on countdown for 5 days during the 3 months contract.) THAT KDP SELECT, not the regular publishing with Amazon.

2) if yes for the first, are they still enrolled? If they aren't, nothing prevents you from publishing them on SW. (And still have them on Amazon with KDP (just not the SELECT)). You see, it's not SW that forbids you to publish with them, it's the terms of contract that comes with the KDP SELECT that does.

3) So it is important to know the difference between KDP and KDP SELECT.

Justin wrote: "I have published 4 books and all 4 have been enrolled in KDP, so I can't use Smashwords?"

If they're enrolled in KDP Select, then no - Amazon's terms don't allow you to publish it anywhere else, because they're supposed to be exclusive to them. I believe the term of that contract is 3 months, but you'll have to be sure to disable it yourself whenever renewal comes up for you, because they'll auto-renew if you don't.

If all you did is publish it through Amazon but chose not to enroll in KDP Select, then you're good! If you're not sure if you're enrolled, check on your bookshelf on your kdp page. It would give you the option to enroll on the far right if they're not.

Hope that helps!

Justin wrote: "I have published 4 books and all 4 have been enrolled in KDP, so I can't use Smashwords?"

I've just checked your books. I saw three of them on DKP Select. Those cannot be published on Smashwords unless you removed them from Select. The others that aren't select can be published any time on Smashwords. Does that help?

Thank you ladies, yes that helps. My new novel is NOT enrolled in KDP Select so I can take it to Smashwords if I so wish, which I believe I will.

Seeing as it's new I want to try and test out new waters so I'll have it published on Smashwords and probably select all places or most and then test it out and see how it fairs

Justin, something I learned about Smashwords is that 3rd party sales can take a while to show up. Have a friend who I know for a fact bought it on Kobo in July and the sale just registered last week.

So what your telling me is it may not be worth it?

I feel it's worth it just for enhanced distribution and an easy method of salles and gifts but there's always pros and cons. That's a con. I'm comfortable with it though.

They have a page much like Amazon for sales. Their own are practically instant and you can set it to receive an email when someone buys a book.however others stores' reports come out every three months or so.