Kindle Review – Kindle 3 Review, iPad Review

This makes zero sense to me. Apparently you can get more than the 35% cut that Independent Authors get from the Kindle Store.

By going through SmashWords.

SmashWords say on their blog that they will pay Authors and Publishers 42.5% of the Kindle Store list price -

Smashwords will pay authors and publishers 42.5 percent of the digital list price (set by the author) for book sales through Amazon. 

The rate is higher than what many ebook authors can receive on their own if they publish direct with Amazon.

Really? A Publisher will pay Indie Authors a bigger cut than Amazon will?

Great for SmashWords, Makes no Sense for Amazon

Isn’t it a bit strange that Amazon would rather send independent authors to SmashWords than have them come straight to Amazon.

1. SmashWords has also struck deals with Sony and Barnes & Noble and ShortCovers.
2. Which means that not only do Independent Authors make more in the Kindle Store they get three additional channels.

Well, if a Publisher is prospering it might as well be Smashwords -

1. They give up to 85% of revenue to authors (for sales at Smashwords).
2. Authors can choose to give some part of that 85% to affiliates who promote their titles.

So when a blogger reviews your indie title you can throw in an incentive.

SmashWords’ Criteria to get into their Premium Catalog

Do read the full details under Criteria for Inclusion. This is a summary -

1. ePub format. 
2. Smashwords Style Guide formatting.
3. Title, Description, Book Cover, Copyright Page, Published By, etc.  - all in reasonable shape.
4. Accept the Terms of Service and not violate it.

Mark Coker is definitely doing a great job with SmashWords. The question is – How Great?

Could SmashWords become a Publishing Behemoth?

Consider what they have in place -

1. Tie-ups with Amazon, Sony, Barnes & Noble, and Shortcovers. 
2. That includes fictionwise.com and ereader.com as they are owned by Barnes & Noble.
3. A 42.5% cut for Authors when Amazon offers just 35%. 
4. A very compelling deal i.e. only give up 15% of your book’s revenue to Smashwords.
5. An affiliate program so you can incentivize bloggers and site owners to promote your titles.
6. They only have format requirements and let readers decide on quality.

They aren’t shy about expanding either -

1. They bought New Zealand publishing start-up Book Habit on November 19th. That added 340 authors to SmashWords’ roster. 
2. They signed up with Stanza/Lexcycle in January 2009.
3. They have all the major eReader makers signed up.

Best of all – no competition that I know of. SmashWords might become huge just by showing up.

Why aren’t there more companies in this space?

An individual indie author may or may not succeed.

However, as a whole – Independent Authors are going to make platforms like Amazon and Publishers like Smashwords a lot of money.

1. There are 100 different companies making eReaders.
2. Yet, there are just a handful of companies getting into Publishing.
3. Surely, people who buy eReaders are going to want books to read.

SmashWords have a great model -

make money off of every sale, get every indie author on-board. Then, as long as ebooks are selling, you’re doing well.

The 100,000 copies success makes you money and the 57 copies failure makes you money.

As a bonus everything is bits and you could even use Amazon’s very own Cloud Computing Services to do it all for super cheap.