If you haven’t checked in on eBook publisher Smashwords (SW) lately, you’re in for a surprise. The little business that Mark Coker started five years ago is now the biggest publisher of eBooks around. And you don’t have to take his word for it – a Bowker press release in October reached the same conclusion.
So how big is big? According to a year-end blog entry by Coker, big is big, not just in numbers of titles, but in year over year growth. This year, the Smashwords author count jumped from 34,000 to 58,600, and the titles in the SW catalog leaped from 92,000 to 190,600. Eye-popping numbers like that would be the envy of any venture capitalist, but Coker has pulled this off without dipping into that well at all. Amazingly enough, he’s also done it with only 19 employees (up from 13 at the end of last year, and only 3 in 2010).
Of course, there are some downsides as well as upsides to that picture. True, SW offers a great deal that other eBook publishers don’t, such as no up-front fees, higher royalties (60 – 85% of the purchase price), the ability to do almost everything yourself if you want to (using site-based tools and advice), and access – without markup – to a growing ecosystem of recommended book-designers and other service providers to help you don’t. But SW also has an antediluvian Web site, doesn’t deal with print versions of books at all, and doesn’t have a partnership with Amazon (although you can submit your book directly there, allowing SW to handle distribution for you everywhere else). those gaps are a bit frustrating, because SW has so much going for it in so many other ways.
The good news for authors is that Coker’s year end update also includes promises for what SW authors can expect in the coming year, including a rebuild and updating of the SWs on-line book store (“When people tell us the design of the Smashwords store is so circa 2000, we take it as a compliment because we think they’re being generous by at least a decade”). The other improvements, though, are almost all in the nature of “faster” (e.g., catalog approvals, distribution and reporting) and “additional” (distributors, tools, etc.) changes rather than dramatic additions.
One exception is the news, also announced yesterday, that authors now have the ability to upload ePub files directly to SW. Until now, the only option was to upload MS .doc files to the sites “Meatgrinder” conversion software. This will allow SW to deal with books with more complex formatting and layout features. Elsewhere, Coker speaks of pulling together a volunteer team to enable easier uploading of files created using LibreOffice and OpenOffice.
There’s plenty of extra detail at the SW site, and you should be sure to read Coker’s Book-Publishing Industry Predictions for 2013, not only because it’s a fascinating read, but also because several SW authors add comments in detail about what they’re not happy with at SW, and what they’d like to see changed or added. Coker promptly responded to almost all of their concerns, providing further detail on what authors can (and can’t) expect in the future. It’s refreshing to see a business owner stay in such close touch with his customers, although it leaves you wondering where he finds the time to run his business, given the frequency and length of his blog postings and the time he spends answering comments. Unlike a big business with staff people to ghostwrite for the big boss, with only 19 employees one assumes that Coker really does write everything he puts his name on.
It’s hard not to like the SW model and Coker’s attitude, although it’s also hard not to think that he sometimes comes on too strong about the wonderful future of self-publishing, the degree to which traditional publishers are in trouble, and the splendid opportunities available to self-published authors.For example, Coker positions falling eBook prices as a plus for authors, since lower prices will presumably lead to more readers whose words of praise will lead to more readers and more sales. But that’s disingenuous for all but those authors that experience a modest breakthrough with their books to get the ball rolling.
On the other hand, dropping prices for self-published eBook authors is great for a publisher like SW, because there’s no way for traditional publishers to make enough money on $.99 – $2.99 books to bother with that end of the market at all. According to Coker, the average price of an SW title dropped from $4.25 in October of 2010 to $3.15 by March of 2012.With demand relatively fixed and supply continuing to explode (SWs alone is now publishing over 9,000 new titles every month), that sounds like a race to the bottom to me. if you look at the charts that Coker provides in a presentation to a self-publishing workshop, you’ll see how few SW authors are moving many books as it is.
To the good, this August there were four SW authors on the New York Times best seller list, and SW is reaching additional foreign markets through the expansion of its distributors’ networks (notably Apple, which now hosts iTunes stores in significantly more countries than Amazon reaches).
Be that as it may, I think that SW’s success is not only a good thing for its hard working founder, but for the emerging self-publishing marketplace as well. Here’s hoping that Coker continues to reinvest his profits in making the SW platform better and better for Indie authors.
I get so tired of seeing those statistics about Smashwords. As a long-time user and follower of Smashwords, I know that a very large percentage of the “books” that Smashwords publishes aren’t books. One publisher of sheet music has thousands of listings on SW, all of them for material that averages about 140 words. In addition, Smashwords has become a haven for people who tried to earn money using content sites, most of which have either gone out of business or no longer pay anything. The site is littered with thousands of essays, poems, and other ephemera, some of it amounting to as little as 100 words or so. There is no definition which allows sheet music or material amounting to a page or two to be considered a book.
I used to be an avid supporter of Smashwords, but my enthusiasm has seriously waned in the face of such phony statistics and Coker’s chest thumping and constant attacks on Amazon. For all its faults, and there are plenty, Amazon has proven to be a far more viable sales outlet than Smashwords, for thousands of writers. They aren’t captives of Amazon, as Coker tries to convey, nor are they ignorant of Amazon’s efforts to stay on top of the ebook business. If Coker wants to present Smashwords as more ethical than Amazon, he needs to look more closely at his own practices.
@catana,
Thanks for the comments (and I was unaware of the fluff in the figures). Which Smashwords practices are you referring to that you regard as unethical?
– Andy
That manipulation of figures is purely unethical. It’s similar to the manipulations of sites that refuse to allow people to close their accounts, in order to keep official numbers up. The bias in Coker’s attacks on Amazon is unethical. Anything that isn’t absolutely honest and above-board is unethical. Smashwords has several problems, all of which have caused many writers to withdraw their books — lack of site development, increasing problems with the meat grinder, competition from other sellers, failure of sales channels to make requested changes, etc. The result is that Coker’s statements have tended to become more self-aggrandizing and less factual. He accuses Amazon of trying to lock writers in with the Select program. When Smashwords’ sales channels take weeks and months to change prices or remove books at writers’ request, that’s another kind of lock-in. His intent is to give writers more control, but the system, as it stands today, often takes away control.
@Catana,
Thanks for the expansion. I haven’t followed SW closely before, but I did read the long post (with posted objections along the lines that you mention above). Tying together the scant resources SW has and Corker’s answers, it sounds like a lot of this (though not the inflated figures) boils down to poorly managed growth issues, aggravated by insufficient resources. He acknowledges that in his responses to the objections, although that’s not much consolation to an author.
– Andy
Keeping up with any aspect of self-publishing is a job and a half. Lucky that I’m curious about everything, and a fast reader. I wouldn’t try to discourage any writer from publishing with Smashwords, but I read widely enough to know that there are problems new authors need to be aware of. My own relationship with SW has evolved quite a bit over the last year, but unless the site becomes completely non-viable, I’ll continue to publish there. But it’s no longer my first and only choice.
One other thing about SW — it might be suffering from a very common problem: the person with the insight and enthusiasm to start something brand-new isn’t always the best person to lead it as it matures.
By the way, it’s Coker, not Corker.
I’ve spent over 30 years representing startups, so I’ve seen that phenomenon play out time after time. If the company is VC backed, the issue gets forced pretty quickly. Where you’re the owner, if you’re smart, you hire a good COO to take over the daily operations. If you’re really smart, you know whether you should hire them to be the CEO as well, and act appropriately. And thanks for catching that (now ex-) typo.
I’ve recently published my thriller, Code Word: Paternity, first via KDP and then via Dog Ear Publishing for trade paperback. Both relationships have had their frustrations, but in general I have gotten value for what I put into the arrangements in both sweat equity and cash. I decided initially not to publish eBooks beyond Kindle’s orbit but now want to get on Apple, Nook and others and have decided to use Smashwords as the vehicle for that. Because I’m not proficient with software I’ve hired a converter from Mark’s List to get my Word MS ready to load and pass the vetting for Smashwords Premier. I’ll come back on how that goes.
I, too, think Mark Coker’s blog reveals a CEO a bit infatuated with himself. But, having been a headhunter for fifteen years—after thirty years as a naval officer—I must say, as Andy commented, that that is the way of founder-CEOs. I take it for what it is, the psychological armor required to put your ego and all your assets on the line in order to turn an idea into a business. (Some great combat leaders, like General Patton and Admiral Halsey, displayed that same characteristic.)
I don’t agree either with Coker’s Amazon-bashing. Say what you want about Bezos’ sometimes predatory business tactics, Amazon does attempt to embrace its authors. It’s sometimes a clumsy embrace, but Amazon makes a greater effort than Smashwords or Dog Ear. Amazon Author Central has the best, if imperfect, tools for measuring market impact that are available for free to the self-published.
That said, when something goes wrong in an unknown author’s relationship with Amazon, it is daunting to deal with the behemoth. Amazon Author Central Customer service is easily available, but the nice people on the other end of the phone don’t have much information or much influence with business operations, at least in my recent experience. I’m still trying to get Amazon to fix a glitch in their stock management system that has prevented them from re-stocking my novel for a month. Other retailers—no problem, but Amazon. . . I’ll come back on this one, too.
Thanks, Doug, and I’ll look forward to hearing how things work out.
For those of you reading this, I highly recommend Doug’s thriller, Codeword Paternity. You can find it now in eBook and (normally) softcover at Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/bjq2gva and at other on-line stores.
Here the resolution of the problem with Amazon I identified in my January 13 post. The problem was that Amazon posted “out of stock” on my book, Code Word: Paternity, a Presidential Thriller, on December 8. No other bookseller was having difficulty restocking the book. Amazon remained out of stock until January 17.
In the course of many calls to Amazon Author Central customer service (ACCS) I got to know many of the customer service reps by voice and they nearly all were well aware of the issue when they answered. There was no doubt they were tracking it and trying to get it resolved. In fact one supervisor, Suzanne N (bless her!), really had a bee in her bonnet about it and several times called me to express her determination to get things squared away. I’m sure her persistence helped a lot. BUT, I lost the Christmas season in that channel and have never had an authoritative explanation of what happened.
Lesson Learned: Authors should check frequently to determine whether Amazon has their books in stock. If Amazon displays “out of stock,” call ACCS that very day. Getting back to “in stock” may be a long slog and it may not begin until you make that call. That was my experience.
Thanks for letting us know how things turned out; your experience mirrors my own when Amazon unexpectedly dropped the eBook version of my book, while continuing go sell the soft and hard copy versions. It was months and many calls before it finally reappeared, with no clear connection between my last attempts and its reemergence.
The latest unexplained Amazon strangeness at my end is that the charts for my book at Amazon Author Central quit showing day be day sales on January 24, so there’s a straight line from its rank on that day to wherever it happens to stand at the time I check, with the intervening history missing.
Someone should start a site called “AmazonAuthor.com (other than the fact that Amazon would challenge the name) where authors could compare notes at one central place on their experiences and trade advice (and woes) with their peers.