@deadcatwithaflamethroweryeah i’ve heard that from a few people. i had a friend who found a lot of success with it, but it took her about a year to get up and running she said. it’s something i’ve been thinking about for a long time but i’m not sure i have the patience. but if other fan authors do it, i think it would be nice for us all to support each other.
I would love the chance to pay for ofic erotica written by the talented people who gather in our fandom, but I’ve only ever had one fandom author I follow go through with it. So if you do this, tell us about it. We want to support you!
I just… wish it didn’t have to involve Amazon. And their censorship whims, and their “licensed not purchased” DRM philosophy. I wish we could build a haven together on a place like Smashwords instead. Alas my tech-hippie ways are not the ways of the marketplace.
i’ve never heard of smashwords but i love the idea of coming up with an ofic-by-fanfic-author haven.
@thebibliosphere do you have any insight on smashwords vs amazon?
I am not @thebibliosphere, but I have self-published nonfiction on all the major ebook platforms.
Smashwords is cool in some ways–you get a higher percentage of each sale, and buyers can choose file formats–and an enormous pain in the ass in others–less informative sales graphs, a super-finicky formatting checker when you upload.
More importantly, Smashwords’s marketing efforts for you are nonexistent, so you’d be relying entirely on your own network and marketing plan rather than being able to tap into Amazon’s automated stuff. On Amazon, you get added visibility in bestseller lists for your micro-category as soon as you have a few sales, and in the also-bought promotions after you have (IIRC) at least 20 reviews.
People actually browse through Amazon bestseller lists and category filters looking for new stuff to read. Way fewer people spontaneously visit Smashwords, so if you want a sale, you’re going to have to send people there.
I highly recommend David Gaughran’s books on self-publishing to get a feel for how the different platforms work.
, did you know about Smashwords? What are your thoughts?Yeah, I knew about Smashwords, and how they take pretty much everything for eBook publishing. (2-3 diff people brought them up)
The problem is that if you look at Smashwords’ homepage? It’s pretty much impossible to take them seriously. The book suummaries are often ludicrous (and I am sorry for saying that; every author has to start somewhere) but it makes it look like a joke instead of a publishing site.
Anon never emailed me for self-publishing advice. I guess I know what I’m going to be doing tonight…getting ANP off the ground and explaining that all you need is a publisher’s label and then you can submit your book through IngramSpark. Yeah, you may pay like $25 for just an eBook publishing…but then they put the eBook on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and any other bookseller that recognizes them as a valid distributor (which is a lot).
In the meantime: DO NOT PUBLISH THROUGH AMAZON. THE MOMENT YOU SIGN THAT CONTRACT ON YOUR BOOK, THEY OWN ITS CONTENT FOREVER. IT IS IN THE FUCKING CONTRACT, JUST IN COUCHED TERMS. DON’T DO IT.
@internutter, maybe someone to talk to? I have their book, it’s amazing. Not in dead-tree format yet, I ran into cashflow problems, but the sheer fact that it exists is probably a good sign, right?
Don’t publish fanfic on Smashwords. Just don’t. There’s copyright issues, legal trouble, and all sorts of noise with all of that.
I agree that Smashwords is a bit of a mess. That’s because they let their authors do everything. Content, blurbs, covers… It’s the primary reason why self-publishing is such a mess.
For every decent writer, there’s fifteen noobs with unedited manuscripts and stars in their eyes. Maybe fifteen thousand. Readers trying to separate the wheat from the chaff are in for a slog.
For those who want to make money from fanfic - try Steemit. It’s a peer-voting system that pays you based on how many votes you earn and how much good reputation your voters have. It’s slow, and you do stand a chance of only getting a few cents per chapter, but you do get feedback. Even if nobody comments.
For those who are publishing their independent stories… Smashwords is probably the best of a bad bunch, as far as I’m aware. I’m very wary of self-publishing mobs that demand money up front. Remember the Creator’s Creed:
Money goes TO the creator, not away from them.
But I haven’t had a good look at IngramSpark. I’ll get on to that, later on. I am prepared to be wrong in my assumptions :)