Great News From Smashwords!

It seems Smashwords have now dropped the incredibly annoying requirement that you had to put “Published by Smashwords” or some similar text on the title page of your ebook when submitting for Premium distribution.

Why such good news? After all, it’s just a line of text, right?

First, many of us don’t use the Meatgrinder. It’s good (better finish than D2D) but it’s not excellent, it’s bloody cumbersome, and it’s very limited. Professional indies usually have professionally-made epub files that we load direct to retailers, including Smashwords. 

But because of this ridiculous requirement we had to have two versions, one with the extra words in to keep Mark Coker happy, and another for other outlets. 

Second, professional indies do NOT want Smashwords listed as publisher on our title page when Smashwords is not our publisher. It’s called self-publishing for a reason. 

Aside from which many authors go to considerable expense and effort to have their own ISBNs and their own publishing imprint. They pay so that that ISBN is assigned to their imprint and they are the publisher of record. A waste of money when Smashwords is insisting we stated they were the publisher instead.

That said, many indies assert ISBNs are a waste of money. Period. We’ll be taking a closer look soon at ISBNs and why we feel they do have something to offer.

Third, having Smashwords printed there, just like having CreateSpace on the title page of a POD, screams out that the book is self-published.

To some readers, and to some retailers and other interested third parties, that matters. Like it or not, being self-published still carries a lot of stigma and closes doors in our faces.

Those in the know understand indie imprints are still self-published, but they also understand, and respect, that those authors have made the effort to distance themselves from the NaNoWriMo first drafts that give self-publishing a bad name.

We only have to look at the Smashwords-OverDrive fiasco to see that. Smashwords titles are hidden away in a self-published ghetto while indies who used a different aggregator such as Ebook Partnership have their titles proudly displayed in OverDrive libraries and retail outlets.

Fourth, it’s disingenuous of Mark Coker, since the site clearly states Smashwords is not our publisher, but he insisted on adding wording in every ebook that said it was.

Five, we accept that Smashwords has a handful of outlets we cannot get into otherwise, so we play the game and have another epub made with the required wording.

No big deal if you make your own or are competent with the Meatgrinder. Not everyone is. Many an indie author has ended up atop the Brooklyn Bridge, ready to end it all, after yet another merry-go-round with the Meatgrinder’s utterly meaningless auto-vetter rejections.

So most professional indies have their epub files made for them, in the same way most of us farm out our cover designs or our editing or proofing.

And that becomes a very big deal if you are paying the crazy prices some ebook formatters charge.

So either you had “Published by Smashwords” in your epub even if you were going direct to Nook, or to Google Play, or whatever. Or you had to have two epub versions, one with the wording and one without. Which could get seriously expensive for those paying for the work..

But now we can load the same epub to all retailers – and of course that includes Amazon. One of the many upsides to Amazon is that you can upload a quality epub file to KDP and they will convert it to a mobi file. No-one should be paying extra for a mobi file for Amazon when your epub will load in KDP just fine, and now you don’t need a separate epub file for Smashwords.

All that said, if you use a Smashwords-allocated “free” ISBN then Smashwords will still be your publisher of record and it will still say “Publisher: Smashwords” in the metadata on the product page.

The only way to avoid that is to buy your own ISBNs. Again, more on this thorny subject soon.

 Ebook Bargains UK

 Far more than just an ebook promo newsletter.

 Far more than just the UK.

300+ Global Ebook Outlets? It’s As Easy As One-Two-FREE!

We all know the ebook market is going global. But for most indie authors it seems we’re still partying like it’s 2009. Many of us are still exclusive with one store, or in so few other outlets that we may as well be.

Meanwhile that international ebook market just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

So just how many global ebook stores can we indie authors get our ebooks into without taking out a second mortgage and busting a blood vessel?

How does over 300 sound?

 ~

 Amazon has eleven Kindle sites, but readers in Ireland, Belgium, Monaco, St. Marino, Switzerland, Austria and New Zealand can buy from neighbouring Kindle stores without surcharges, as can South Africans. So effectively nineteen outlets covered there.

NB In theory many other countries (by no means all – over half the world is blocked totally) can buy from AmCom, but sending readers to Amazon US only to be surcharged will reflect badly on the author, as readers won’t know that the $2+ surcharge (even on “free” ebooks!) goes to Amazon, not to you. For that reason we’re counting just the above-mentioned countries for Amazon.

f you are with Apple you can add another 51 countries to the list. Apple is the second largest ebook distributor by dedicated-country reach. Extensive coverage of North America, Latin America and Europe. Not so hot in Asia or Africa.

Nook is kind of in limbo right now. Apart from the US Barnes & Noble store and Nook UK (a reminder: it’s NOT called B&N in the UK) there are another thirty or so countries served by Nook with a Windows 8 app.

At some stage they will all become fully fledged stores, maybe, but for now, let’s discount those and just add the two key Nook stores to the list.

19 Amazon stores, 51 Apple stores and 2 Nook stores means you already have easy access to 72 global ebook stores.

If you are with Kobo then in theory you’ll be in the localized Kobo stores in US, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Africa, India, UK, Netherlands, Germany, France… You’ll be in Kobo partner stores like Bookworld, Collins, Angus & Robertson and Pages & Pages in Australia, in PaperPlus in New Zealand, in National Book Store in the Philippines, in Crossword in India, in Indigo in Canada, in Fnac in France and Portugal, in Mondadori in Italy, in Livraria Cultura in Brazil, and probably a few more that aren’t springing to mind right now.

Okay, so twenty-two more retail outlets right there, taking you up to 92.

Then there’s the Indiebound stores. Indiebound is a Kobo partner project whereby bricks and mortar indie stores have a Kobo ebook store integrated with their website. As an example, checkout Poor Richard’s in Kentucky. Or The Velveteen Rabbit Bookshop & Guest House in Wisconsin. Or Octavia Books in New Orleans.

We haven’t done a full appraisal of all of the Indiebound stores yet (soon!), but there are well over FOUR HUNDRED b&m indie bookstores selling ebooks via Kobo. Some just send you to the main Kobo store. Others have a fully integrated ebook store as part of their website.

We discount the first lot here and just include those with an integrated Kobo store. Let’s play safe and say there are, very conservatively, just 50 integrated Indiebound stores with your ebooks in (more likely well over 200!).

Suddenly we’re looking at 142 retailers with your ebooks in.

If you are in ‘txtr that’s another twenty stores right now, and with six more in Latin America about to open.

162 global retail stores.

If you are with Smashwords then as well as ‘txtr you ought to also be in Blio and Versent, and in the Indian megastore Flipkart.

Bookbaby will also get you into Blio and Flipkart, and if you are with Bookbaby you can be in eSentral. E-Sentral is based in Malaysia but also has stores in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand and Brunei.

Bookbaby will also get you into Ciando, one of the key retail outlets in Germany. And as per this link – http://www2.ciando.com/ – the Ciando ebook store in Germany is in English!

For those who haven’t been keeping count that’s 173 global ebook retailers.

Throw in All-Romance and OmniLit, which is free-access, to make that 175.

American and British indies often don’t look beyond Smashwords and D2D, and maybe Bookbaby, totally ignoring the free-access aggregators in Europe like Xin-Xii and Narcissus. We do so at our peril.

Xin-Xii will get you into the seven key Tolino Alliance stores (Hugendubel, Weltbild, Thalia, etc) that devastated Amazon market share last year. Essential places to be if you want to make it in Germany.

But Xin-Xii will also get you into Donauland in Austria, Casa del Libro in Spain, Family Christian in the US, Otto in Germany, and Libris in the Netherlands. It will also get you in the ebook stores of the mobile phone operators O2 and Vodafone.

Lost count yet? We’re talking 189 global ebook stores already.

So let’s see if Narcissus can push us over that 200 mark. Narcissus is based in Italy, and little known outside, but it a gem of an aggregator.

Quite apart from many of the stores already covered above, Narcissus will also get you in Ultima, in LaFeltrinelli, in IBS, in Net-Ebook, in Libreria Rizzoli, in Cubolibri, in Book Republic, in Ebookizzati, in DEAStore, in Webster, in MrEbook, in Ebook.it, inLibrisalsus, in Libreria Fantasy, in The First Club, in Omnia Buk, in Il Giardino Dei Libri, in CentoAutori, in Excalibooks, in Hoepli, in San Paolo Store, in Libramente, in Ebook Gratis, in Libreria Ebook, in Byblon Store, in Libreria Pour Femme, as well as numerous specialist and academic stores. Narcissus also distribute to Nokia. Yes, as in the phone company. Ebooks are still widely read on Feature phones, and Nokia leads the way.

But just those 26 examples from Narcissus take us to 215 global ebook stores.

And then there’s Google Play. You can go direct to Google Play or free (pay as you sell) through Narcissus.

Google Play have 57 global ebook stores (and more on the way).

Which takes us up to 272 ebook stores. And counting.

On top of this we can add the ebook subscription services like Oyster (US only) and Scribd (global), accessible through Bookbaby, Smashwords and (in the case of Scribd) D2D.

Then there’s digital libraries. Even leaving aside the as yet unresolved mess that is the Smashwords-OverDrive saga, indies with Smashwords or Bookbaby may be in libraries through Baker & Taylor.

Bookbaby also distribute to the wholesale catalogues Copia and Gardners, which supply libraries and also a ton more retail stores over and above those listed above.

Throw in the Copia and Gardners outlets and we EASILY cross the 300 retailer mark.

Remember, ALL these are accessible free of charge (you pay a percentage per sale).

There are other options, like Vook. IngramSpark and Ebook Partnership, which would substantially add to this list, but these options either have up-front costs or offer a very poor percentage return for free-access.

But worth noting that players like Ebook Partnership can get you not just into the OverDrive catalogue, which means an appearance in key stores like Books-A-Million, Waterstone’s, Infibeam, Kalahari and Exclus1ves, as well as the myriad OverDrive library partners, but also other key up and coming outlets like Magzter, like Bookmate in Russia, and so on and so on.

 ~

 The global ebook market is growing by the day. There are huge new markets opening up in Latin America, in India, in China, and across SE Asia right now that most indies are not a part of.

In the near future Africa will take a big leap forward as retailers make ebooks accessible to the hundreds of millions of Africans currently locked out of our cozy ebook world.

Make no mistake. The global ebook market will dwarf the US ebook market many, many, many times over as it gains momentum.

No, there won’t be many overnight successes, yes it will take time, and yes it will require a good few hours of effort to make sure you are in all these stores in the first place.

Sorry. There are no magic wands to wave. No just-add-water instant solutions.

No pain, no gain.

But you only have to upload to these stores once, and a handful of aggregators can do most of them for you in a couple of rounds, planting the seeds for future harvests. Then you just need to pop back now and again to tend the garden. It’s a one-off effort now that will pay back over a life-time as these global markets take off.

That list of 300+ stores above is just going to grow and grow and GROW as market fragmentation and international expansion gather momentum. The global ebook market has barely left the starting line!

The savvy indie author thinks about the next five years, not the next five days. Don’t get lost in the minutiae of your every-day ebook life and miss the bigger picture here.

Because we are all privileged to be part of something that is way, way bigger than just selling our books. We are witnessing – participating in – the early stages of a New Renaissance quite unparalleled in human history.

A New Renaissance on a global scale that will not just make accessible existing art forms to every single person on the planet, but will create new art forms as yet unknown, but in which we can be sure writers will play a key role.

Be part of it.

’Txtr Launches Ebook Stores In Latin America. Wears Its Smashwords Badge With Pride. Indies, It’s Time To Return The Favour!

Berlin-based ebook retailer ‘txtr (for those unfamiliar, there’s no capital, no vowels and the apostrophe is in the right place!) is about to take another big leap forward with the imminent launch of six new ebook stores. Five in South America – Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela – and another in Mexico.

At this point the store menu (bottom right on the ‘txtr home page) has visual links to the new stores, but they feed back to the central store in Germany. We’re hoping to hear back from ‘txtr on a firm launch date for these, and whether we can expect ‘txtr to follow Google Play’s lead and roll out across a wider swathe of Latin America.

Some observers will be dismissive.

‘Txtr has yet to make a significant impact anywhere, and its token stores in the US, Canada, UK and Australia face fierce competition from established American and domestic brands. ‘Txtr also has the failure of its ultra-cheap ereader the ‘txtr Beagle to weigh down its reputation.

But as Tennyson would have said had he lived to see digital books, better to have tried and lost, than never to have tried at all.

Here’s the thing: ‘txtr is a plucky little outfit with ambition, vision and, it seems, enough money (3M, itself no stranger to ebooks, are among its backers) to play the long game.

With twenty-five global stores ‘txtr has already more than doubled Amazon’s Kindle stores, and is firmly in third place behind Google Play and Apple for dedicated ebook stores catering to overseas markets. Throw in the reach of ‘txtr’s partner stores and ‘txtr ebooks are available in some fifty countries. Without surcharges.

Our guess is Russia, Brazil and India will be priorities for ‘txtr, and then to embrace those areas of Europe so far by-passed (notably Scandinavia and east Europe), before turning its attention to S.E. Asia, following close on Google Play’s heels.

For indies this is great news. While some indies have been enjoying sales at ‘txtr for several years through Ebook Partnership, it is only recently that ‘txtr has been easily accessible, thanks to a distribution deal with Smashwords.

Yet bizarrely many indies seem to have opted out of ‘txtr distribution.

Their loss, because ‘txtr is one of the few ebook stores that wears its indie badge with pride.

Check out the indie section on ‘txtr’s US and UK sites, where indie titles are being given significant exposure. Not a self-pub ghetto like on OverDrive (an update on this soon) but front page stuff saying ‘txtr are PROUD to host self-published titles.

At which point you’ll be thinking, yeah, very nice, but it will be the usual suspects. Ordinary indies like us don’t stand a chance.

Think again.

No sign of Hugh Howey and Joe Konrath here! Konrath of course is exclusive with Amazon (apart from Be The Monkey), and Howey, it seems, just can’t be bothered with ‘txtr, or even Smashwords. Given Smashword’s is the world’s biggest indie aggregator and indie ebook store this is a rather curious stance from someone who purports to champion the self-pub cause.

So which indies are ‘txtr showcasing?

Click on this link – http://us.txtr.com/smashwords/?referral=banner – and you’ll see a slide show of highlighted indie authors. Delve deeper to see highlighted indie series and other great little boosters.

Doubtful these authors will be buying their second luxury yacht off of ‘txtr sales just yet, but don’t dismiss ‘txtr out of hand just because no-one’s ever heard of it in indieland.

In the real world beyond, ‘txtr has a lot going for it.

An ebook store with over a million titles, a great device-agnostic platform, and a key understanding of glocalization that Amazon sorely lacks.

While Amazon hints at a pending Kindle Netherlands store, maybe, some time, when they can be bothered, and meanwhile surcharges Dutch readers who try to buy from the Everything Store, ‘txtr long since provided the Dutch with their own ebook store. And the Belgians, and the Swiss, and the Danes, and the Poles, and the Hungarians, and…

In fact, going where Amazon can’t be bothered is a key part of ‘txtr’s strategy.

“Especially in markets where Amazon isn’t yet present, network operators can combine the competitive advantage of being first to market with their billing capabilities to lead the development of the local ebook market. txtr’s e-reading service comes with an integrated billing solution, but we have extensive experience of connecting to 3rd party payment providers.”

‘Txtr has been around since 2008, a year before Amazon launched KDP, and as above counts 3M among its backers. At the other end of the business ‘txtr counts classy book retailers like Foyles (UK), and major tech-players like T-Mobile and Lenova as partners.

‘Txtr may not have Amazon’s brand recognition or traffic, and may forever be a bit-player in the key US and UK markets, and even in its home market in Germany, but elsewhere ‘txtr is shaping up to be a significant player in the global ebook market Amazon shuns.

Here’s the thing: Amazon’s Kindle stores runs on rails. Print rails. It’s a sad irony that the store dedicated to accelerating the transition to digital at home (mainly to reduce storage overheads and shipping costs) predicates its international Kindle expansion on the print market.

That’s just beginning to pay off in Brazil, where Amazon is starting to gain traction in the lucrative print market. But as anyone who has sold an ebook on Kindle BR will know, you can hit the best-seller charts with a single sale, and make the higher echelons of the in-store chart with just a handful.

Brazilians were buying ebooks from domestic and Latin American stores back when Amazon was slapping surcharges on readers who tried to buy from AmCom. No surprise then that Brazilians haven’t rushed to embrace the Kindle store since it launched.

And it’s a similar story across the Amazon sites. With the exception of maybe Kindle UK and Kindle DE, the satellite Kindle stores are simply adjuncts to Amazon’s actual or pending print and other e-commerce interests in those countries.

Which is why we can’t even hope, let alone expect, Amazon ever to become a global ebook player in the way that Google Play and ‘txtr are now positioning themselves.

As the global ebook markets burgeons, so Amazon will become more and more marginalized.

Not a problem for those authors who think the US and UK are the be-all and end-all of their publishing existence – Amazon will continue to be the dominant player here for the foreseeable future. But for anyone with ambitions to become a truly international bestselling author it is stores like Google Play and ‘txtr that will help make it happen.

At the moment Google Play, while supportive of self-publishers (Google Play is actively seeking out indie authors to sign up for special deals) does not make it easy for us.

The Google Play self-pub portal is a challenging process, and as yet very few aggregators will get you in. The UK’s Ebook Partnership and Italy’s Narcissus, and Ingram and Vook seem to be the only alternatives to going direct.

With ‘txtr, by contrast, access is as easy as signing up to Smashwords.

And as is now plain for all to see, ‘txtr won’t hide your Smashwords titles away like OverDrive does.

Just the opposite. ‘Txtr will proudly shout them from the rooftops.

At a time when indie authors are increasingly being sidelined by ebook stores (in the UK three of the biggest ebook retailers have no self-pub titles at all); at a time when Trad Pub is dominating the ebook charts; and while the big players like Amazon and Kobo continue to pay lip-service to indies while giving Big Pub all the perks (how many years has it taken just for indies to get pre-orders?), we need all the friends we can get.

If you are in Smashwords and have for some reason opted out of ‘txtr, you might want to reconsider.

If you are not in Smashwords at all, then the ‘txtr distribution alone is a good reason to reconsider, plus they have great distribution to Flipkart, India’s biggest ebook store. So far as we know Smashwords is the only “free” (pay-as-you-sell – there are no free lunches!) aggregator getting titles into ‘txtr.

So a big round of applause to Mark Coker and Smashwords for the deal with ‘txtr, and an even bigger one to ‘txtr for embracing and promoting self-published titles, instead of hiding them away.

Now how about we indies do something to show our appreciation?

Next time you’re doing some promo, spare a thought for ‘txtr. No, none of the big promo newsletters even know ‘txtr exists, but there’s nothing to stop you adding a ‘txtr link to your tweets and FB posts.

If we all tweeted a ‘txtr link alongside our Amazon links it could make a big difference, not just to our sales, but to ‘txtr’s future.

‘Txtr is making the effort for us. Let’s return the favour.

 

Ebook Bargains UK.

Far more than just an ebook promo newsletter.

Far more than just the UK.

 

OverDrive Gets Better & Better – But Is Smashwords Delivering On Its Promises?

First a reminder. OverDrive saw over one hundred million digital downloads in 2013. Most of these happened at OverDrive-partnered digital libraries worldwide, but also at partner retail stores, which include Waterstone’s here in the UK, and stores like Kalahari and Exclus1ves in South Africa, among many others.

OverDrive have recently upped their game yet again with the addition of embedded samples, a feature aimed at the library catalogues but which can easily be used by indie authors on their blog or website, or even in social media.

Embedded samples? Essentially when the reader clicks on the sample link, instead of just being taken to the product page in the OverDrive store the first pages of the book will open up right there in your browser to start reading. Then if interested you can be redirected to your local digital library to download the full book.

OverDrive also has another great feature with the embedded samples. Bing users who search for your title will see in the right-hand sidebar (where Google puts its ads) an embedded sample link to the OverDrive ebook version. See an example here at the OverDrive library blog –

All great stuff by OverDrive – the most forward-thinking and innovative of the wholesale distributors – but back to our headline.

Two months back Smashwords made big news with the partnership with OverDrive whereby 200,000 non-erotica titles were going to be available in the OverDrive store.

Wonderful! Except to Michael Kozlowski over at Good Ereader, who ran with the headline OverDrive inundates libraries with 200,000 horrendous indie ebooks.

Don’t be shy, Michael. Tell us what you really think.

Eight weeks on, the big question is, has OverDrive been inundated with 200,000 Smashwords indie ebooks, horrendous or otherwise?

If you are a Smashwords author and did not opt out of this distribution then, two months on, you ought to be there by now, right? After all, two months is plenty of time, and the default Smashwords position is that you get distributed to new partners unless you specifically opt-out.

So why is it all the indie authors we have contacted, who are with Smashwords and did not opt out of OverDrive, are seeing a big blank when they search for their title or author name in the OverDrive store?

 ~ ~ ~

Back in mid June Nate Hoffelder over at The Digital Reader broke the news that OverDrive, apparently, was shunting self-published titles into an indie ghetto.

We say “apparently” as we’ve not been able to locate this ghetto, but the quote Nate has from OverDrive concurs with his headline. OverDrive do indeed have a separate section – somewhere –  for “self-published” titles.

Well, it’s their company and they can do what they like. If OverDrive has some objection to self-published titles then it has every right to close the door to them.

But that’s the point. It didn’t.

The team at OverDrive are not stupid. They did not blindly sign a deal with Mark Coker, oblivious to the fact that Smashwords are the biggest distributor of self-published titles on the planet, bar none.

The deal OverDrive signed with Coker specifically excluded erotica titles. That’s a telling point. Because if you go to the OverDrive catalogue you will find any number of erotica titles. OverDrive has no problem with erotica per se.

Try this for size: https://www.overdrive.com/media/465867/letters-to-penthouse-xxxx

In fact the OverDrive catalogue is showing some 13,000 erotica titles. So when OverDrive specifically excluded Smashwords erotica titles they did so for a reason. Because Smashwords’ reputation precedes itself as a free-for-all where anything technically legal in the US is acceptable.

Let’s be clear. OverDrive accept erotica titles. They just don’t accept Smashwords erotica titles, because they know the only quality control at Smashwords is the formatting guidelines.

And our guess is they take much the same position on Smashwords self-published authors. Because it seems Smashwords self-published authors are being shunted into a ghetto, not all indies.

Indie authors who have enough titles to warrant setting up a direct account at OverDrive have no problem. Indie authors using an aggregator like Ebook Partnership have no problem. Their titles are readily available in the OverDrive catalogue, both for libraries and for retailers, and we can confirm from personal experience (one of our team has been with OverDrive and Ebook Partnership for many years) that they are seeing great sales from stores like Waterstone’s, and library borrows across the globe.

But let’s get back to Smashwords.

The day after Nate ran his piece the story was picked up by The Passive Voice and Mark Coker responded.  The comments section is worth wading through, but here’s some key premarks by Coker.

On June 19 Coker said, “I’m investigating”, before assuring us “everything will work out in the end.”

Well that’s nice to know, Mark, but that was a while ago ago and your silence on this since has been deafening.

Back to what Mark Coker said over at The Passive Voice on June 19.

 “The deal with OverDrive happened because so many librarians demanded it, because so many patrons wanted these books, and because OverDrive is committed to serving libraries and their patrons.”

So why have they put Smashwords titles in a separate category that can only be found from a drop-down menu that almost no-one knows exists, including librarians who use the OverDrive portal every day?

Coker noted that some 100,000 titles had already been “ingested” by OverDrive when the official announcement was made, and that it would take 4-8 weeks to complete the process. Tons of indies saw that, according to the Smashwords dashboard, their titles had shipped to OverDrive.

We’ve held off those two months before raising this, but the simple fact now is that even if only those original 100,000 titles from Smashwords were ingested, still none are showing up in the OverDrive store.

Are they in the indie ghetto? We don’t know, because neither we nor anyone else knows how to access this ghetto. If even librarians cannot find it, let alone readers, what point the Smashwords-OverDrive deal in the first place?

In theory the Smashwords partnership with OverDrive (even though only for libraries, not for OverDrive retail outlets) should be up there alongside the Scribd and Oyster deals as tributes to Mark Coker’s commitment to the cause of indie distribution.

But all the evidence so far suggests we’ve been sold a pup. There is very little evidence Smashwords is delivering on its promises on this occasion.

~ ~ ~

And it would seem that Smashwords still does not know what’s going on. We heard from two authors on June 22, over a month after Coker said “I’ am investigating”.

One contacted Mark Coker direct and Coker confirmed he is working on this matter. Other than saying it was OverDrive calling the shots there was no further explanation.

That same day we heard from an author who emailed the Smashwords Sevices Team asking why his titles were not in the OverDrive catalogue.

Smashwords Services Team member Raylene B told the author, “We’re currently shipping out titles to OverDrive in batches. It can take multiple weeks for implementation!”, adding “You can periodically check for your titles at OverDrive by using the link: https://www.overdrive.com/search?q=XXXX where “XXXX” would include the book title’s ISBN #.”

No mention to this author that, actually, you won’t be able to find your titles there regardless, because if they are actually getting to OverDrive at all they will be in a secretive ghetto no-one knows how to find, but which most definitely is not via the link provided.

So are Smashwords titles available from OverDrive or not?

In the comments at The Passive Voice Coker was very clear:

“They (OverDrive) just invited 200,000+ Smashwords titles into their catalog. They’re going to merchandise our buylists. We’re going to work together to try to sell a lot of patron-pleasing books and gain our authors and publishers a lot of new readers.”

On the Smashwords blog – http://blog.smashwords.com/2014/05/smashwords-and-overdrive-to-bring.html – a few weeks earlier Coker had been even more specific:

 “This agreement marks a watershed moment for indie authors, libraries and library patrons around the world.

It’s also a big deal for thousands of small independent presses around the globe who now have a convenient onramp into the OverDrive network.
Millions of library patrons will now have access to the amazing diversity and quality of the Smashwords catalog.”

Really?

Further down on this same blog Coker says:

 “The full Smashwords Premium Catalog of non-erotica titles is eligible for the distribution to OverDrive.”

Eligible? “Eligible” does NOT mean “will be distributed to”. In fact, it doesn’t mean much at all when you take into account Raylene B’s reply that Smashwords is sending batches of ebooks to OverDrive. Especially when you look at what Coker has to say about batches on that same Smashwords blog (this, remember, two months ago).

 “To help librarians streamline collection development, in the weeks ahead OverDrive and Smashwords will create curated buy-lists lists libraries can use to purchase the most popular indie authors and titles. Libraries will soon have the option, for example, to purchase the top 100 YA fantasy novels (approximate price: ~$400), or the top 1,000 most popular contemporary romances (~$4,000) or top 200 complete series across multiple categories (~$2,000), or the top 200 thrillers, mysteries, epic fantasies or memoirs.  With most of our bestsellers priced priced at or under $4.00, you can do the math to appreciate how incredibly affordable these collections will be.  We’re going to have fun slicing and dicing.”

Let’s run that last sentence again.

 “We’re going to have fun slicing and dicing.”

This suggests Coker and co. are going to cherry-pick established Smashwords best-sellers on Apple, B&N and Scribd (the main Smashwords outlets) and parcel them out to OverDrive as potentially available to purchase.

So, the lucky few who get “curated” may, possibly, be bought as part of a package, always supposing anyone knows where the indie ghetto is and can be bothered to look there.

The rest of us? Nobody knows. Including, it seems, Mark Coker.

~ ~ ~

 Note for those indies who want to be in the actual OverDrive store, not just the ghetto:

To get to OverDrive direct you need a minimum of ten titles. By all accounts the process is not a walk in the park.

For those who meet their requirements, you can also access OverDrive through Ebook Partnership, IPG or Perseus. If anyone is aware of other roads in, do let us know.

And if any Smashwords authors have actually seen their titles available in the OverDrive catalogue courtesy of Smashwords, we’d be delighted to be proven wrong on this.

 

Ebook Bargains UK

Far more than just an ebook promo newsletter.

Far more than just the UK.

 

 

 

Smashwords Goes From Strength To Strength

Smashwords stepped up their game this week with two major distribution announcements. On Monday Mark Coker kicked off with news that Smashwords are now officially distributing to the Berlin-based ebook retailer ‘txtr.

On Tuesday Coker announced a partnership with OverDrive to get indie titles into digital libraries.

EBUK regulars won’t be surprised by the news, as we’ve reported on both several times over the past months.

At this stage it appears the OverDrive deal is only for library distribution and will not involve OverDrive’s retail partners like Waterstone’s, so there’s still good reason to check out the British aggregator Ebook Partnership, which does get you into Waterstone’s, and also a host of other outlets currently not on Smashwords’ radar. Not least Google Play.

How long before Smashwords adds Google Play to its growing list? Coker’s not saying, but no question Smashwords are, at long last, embracing the opportunities presented by the blossoming global ebook markets.

This will be an interesting year for Smashwords. But Mark Coker, if you’re reading this, what would really impress us would be deals with Google Play, Copia, Gardners and Ingram, and targetting the European markets (esp. Germany and the Tolino stores), Latin America (esp. BajalLibros) and the Far East (esp. Indonesia’s Scoop and Thailand’s Ookbee).

The deal with ‘txtr (no, no capital, no vowels, and the apostrophe is compulsory) is an exciting development that will bring rewards to those indies willing to step outside the Only Amazon Matters mindset and actually try PROMOTING the ‘txtr stores.

Did we say stores, plural? Believe it! ‘Txtr have dedicated ebook stores (local languages and currencies) in, wait for it, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, UK, and USA. Plus an International store selling in euros to the world.

The list is worth looking at closely. Amazon forces Belgian readers to buy from Amazon France, expects Austrians to buy from Amazon Germany, only lets Swiss readers uy from France or Germany in a foreign currency, gives the Irish the choice to buy from Amazon UK or Amazon US – both in a foreign currency – and expects New Zealanders to buy from Amazon Australia or Amazon US – both in a foreign currency.

‘Txtr understands that the Swiss use Swiss francs, not euros, the Irish spend euros not pounds, New Zealanders like to pay in NZ dollars not AU dollars and South Africans flash the cash in rands, not US dollars.

As for readers in Denmark, Poland, Hungary, Netherlands, etc… Amazon not only expects them to pay in a foreign currency – US dollars – but charges them a $2-$4 surcharge on top of the list price and on top of the currency exchange fees they’ll be hit with. Amazon even imposes the surcharge on your free ebooks. And no, you won’t see a cent of it.

Google Play does serve these countries too – and yes, Google Play too manages a dedicated store and local currencies – but few indies are with Google Play (you can go direct or via Ebook Partnership) so for most authors the Smashwords-‘txtr will be the first serious opportunity to build a non-Apple readership in places like the Netherlands, Denmark and Poland. Don’t waste it!

And for those wondering if anyone there understands enough English to make it worthwhile, there are 15 million English-speakers in Netherlands, 12 million in Poland and 4 million in Denmark.

~

Smashwords authors were told they see their titles appearing in the ‘txtr stores at the end of this week, but in fact some titles are already showing. Many have serious pricing errors like $2.99 titles showing at $6.99. If that’s happening with you, email Mark Coker and give them time. Teething problems are to be expected. We’ve had confirmation from indies in ‘txtr stores via other routes that ‘txtr pricing is usually very reliable.

Spend some time now getting familiar with the ‘txtr stores so when your titles do go live you can hit the ground running and let readers know.

The best place to start is ‘txtr UK, as this gets good Google results and is in English. So are the US, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand sites of course, but the search engines in our experience tend not to pick them up so easily.

Just search for ‘txtr UK, or go to http://gb.txtr.com/ and then tootle down to the right-hand corner where you’ll find a menu for all the ‘txtr stores and can get the country-specific link and price in local currency ready for your promo.

Don’t expect miracles. The ‘txtr US and Canada stores are obviously insignificant, but ’txtr are picking up steam elsewhere. ‘Txtr are a Berlin-based operator so have a good presence in Germany (45 million English-speakers since you ask), Austria and central Europe. ‘Txtr supply epub files which can be read using the free ‘txtr app on any tablet, not just their own ereader – the ‘txtr Beagle.

In addition to their own stores ‘txtr also act as a feeder for other stores like Britain’s prestigious Foyles, and also the Sony Australia, Austria, UK and Germany Reader Stores, though given the said Sony stores are closing shortly that’s academic.

‘Txtr won’t bring you sales in big numbers any time soon, if ever, but for those of you who value reaching readers globally and building a long-term career, over chasing quick-fix sales from one or two big retailers, the Smashwords partnership with ‘txtr is wonderful opportunity.

If you have an author website then take time out to set up a showcase for your international portfolio of ebooks. We’ll be posting in detail on suggestions how to do this shortly, but here suffice to say if you are with Apple, Kobo, Google Play and ‘txtr you will be able to proudly display your titles with links in local currencies to local retailers in around one hundred different countries.

Then instead of spending time promoting one or two stores over and over you can promo your author website and let readers make their own choice about which retailer they will buy from. And of course you can also sell direct to readers, which is another option we’ll be looking at more closely soon.

If you’re Going Global In 2014 then do keep in mind it’s a two-part process.

Being there is of course half the battle. If your titles aren’t available no-one can buy them.

But the other half is letting readers know you’re there.

Tweet a ‘txtr link a day to build a truly global readership.

 

Ebook Bargains UK.

Far more than just an ebook promo newsletter.

Far more than just the UK.

Scribd – What It Is And Why You Should be There

 

The first Scribd results are in for Smashwords, and it’s looking good.

Over at the Smashwords blog Mark Coker reports “It was the largest first-month sales for any new Smashwords retail partner in the last five years.” April figures were even more impressive.

Coker also reports on a Scribd promo dedicated to indie authors. Check out the Smashwords blog for more details.

Not in Scribd? You’re not alone.

Scribd is a fine example of the parallel universes readers and authors inhabit. Many indie authors have never heard of Scribd, and even fewer have given it a second thought a venue to reach readers.

Yet Scribd has over one hundred million registered users globally and gets EIGHTY MILLION unique visitors each month.

No, that’s not typo. Eighty million a month!

No, not all those visitors are looking for ebooks, but many will be and that number will be increasing by the day thanks to the ebook subscription service Scribd offers.

~

First, some background. Scribd has been around for a while now. It launched in 2007 as a global document sharing platform, and since as long ago as 2009 – the same year Amazon launched the KDP – Scribd has been selling ebooks.

In January 2013 Scribd soft-launched its ebook subscription service as part of its premium content offerings, with an official launch in October 2013. By the end of 2013 the ebook subscription service was one of the biggest of its kind.

Amazon famously lets you borrow a whole ONE ebook a month for free if you are a paid-up Prime member, and that free ebook comes from the limited selection available in Select, which of course will be free at some stage regardless. And of course it excludes all mainstream-published titles.

Scribd lets you pay $8.99 a month and you get to read as much as you like from an impressive range of titles from big name authors. HarperCollins, for example, has put much of their back-catalogue into Scribd.

Why would anyone want to use Scribd instead of buying from Amazon or B&N or Google Play or whatever their favourite retailer is?

The answer is very simple, and why subscription ebook services like Scribd are the new black.

Here’s the thing. When you buy an ebook from Amazon (or any other retailer – I’m using Amazon as an example because it’s the one most indies are familiar with) you don’t actually buy the ebook.

No, seriously. You may think that when you click on “Buy” and the retailer takes money from your account that means you’ve bought an ebook and it’s yours to keep. The reality is rather different.

Never mind that it’s an intangible you can never hold or touch or put on the shelf. You don’t even own the ebook once you’ve paid for it!

What you buy is the licence to read that ebook on a certain range of devices subject to the whim of the retailer. You don’t own the ebook and you never will. You can’t resell it, or even give it away when you’ve finished.

Let’s spell that out clearly, because this is going to impact on your indie author career whether you like it or not.

An ebook you “buy” from a retailer is licensed to you. It’s not yours any more than a library book is yours. Savvy readers understand this and ask themselves why they would want to pay top whack for an ebook when they might be able to get the same title on their device for a token fee from a library or subscription service.

~

Of course we all know that subscription services and digital libraries are so new – America only invented them last year – that readers don’t even know they exist, so we indies needn’t worry. Just carry on as we are.

But there’s the problem. Readers. The fly in the ointment of all ambitious indie authors. If it wasn’t for pesky readers our lives would be so much simpler. Just load up to KDP and sit back and watch the cash roll in.

The trouble is, readers (who are the ones who actually pay us, remember. Amazon, Nook, Apple et al are just the middlemen in this game) don’t really care about our convenience or well-being. They just want good books at good prices, and they will go to retailers and outlets that suit them, not us.

As more and more subscription services appear, so more and more readers will migrate to them. Scribd saw three million downloads of its Android app in its first month after the official launch in October, and in February this year Scribd lunched a KindleFire app after 100,000 Scribd ebook subscription service users said they wanted to use Scribd on their Amazon device.

Pause briefly to ponder the significance. If you own a KindleFire it’s pretty much a given that you buy your ebooks at Amazon. Not compulsory, but the two tend to go hand in hand. Yet here, in the space of a couple of months, are 100,000 KindleFire owners asking for an app for their device so they can read ebooks from the Scribd subscription service.

Why? Because, as above, you don’t own your ebook from Amazon, so why buy a licence each time you want to read a book if you can pay Scribd $8.99 a month and download as many ebooks as you like?

No, Scribd hasn’t got several million titles to choose from like on Amazon, but the selection is big and growing fast as more and more publishers and authors clamber aboard.

And of course it’s not just Scribd playing havoc with the big retailer’s hopes and aspirations. Oyster currently supplies Apple iTunes and is US only, but will soon have an Android version for all devices and has ambitions on the wider world.

Both Scribd and Oyster are accessible to indies through Smashwords or Bookbaby.

The other subscription services aren’t so indie-friendly right now, but give them time… Entitle face an uphill struggle with some bizarre pricing decisions, but may yet turn their boat around. Epic, the subscription service for children’s ebooks, has recently obtained new funding and will be expanding into Europe later this year. That’s just a few from many US options.

And won’t the Europeans be delighted to finally see some subscription ebook action? That’s the problem being away from the cutting edge of the ebook industry in the US. The rest of the world are just so far behind with this ebook malarkey.

But don’t tell that to 24 Symbols in Spain, Skoobe in Germany, Riidr in Denmark or the many other subscription services around the globe, including in Russia, which many analysts are predicting will be the third biggest ebook market after the US and China before this year is out.

Total Boox in Israel is now sending ebooks to US readers and libraries.

And don’t even mention Nuvem de Livros, an ebook subscription service for Argentina and Brazil that is set to roll out across the rest of Latin America this year. Nuvem de Livros already boasts one million subscribers. If you’re not seeing many sales from Kindle Brazil, Apple Brazil, Google Play Brazil or Kobo’s Brazilian partner store Livraria Cultura in Brazil it may just be that many readers are too busy reading ebooks from Nuvem de Livros or borrowing ebooks from digital libraries instead.

Digital libraries? The other elephant in the room for indies who want to believe a certain well-known US store is the be all and end all of their existence. Because for the same reason that subscription ebook services are taking off – that you will never own the ebook you “buy” – so savvy readers are turning to digital libraries to sate their hunger for ebooks.

Last year North America’s leading supplier of ebooks to libraries in the USA and Canada, OverDrive, saw one hundred million digital downloads. The numbers this year are expected to dwarf that figure. And OverDrive is just one of many options to get your ebooks into digital libraries, not just in the US and Canada but around the world.

Oh, and as an aside Overdrive doesn’t just supply libraries. It will also get your ebooks into key retailers like Books A Million in North America, Kalahari and Exclus1ves in South Africa, Waterstone’s in the UK, and a host of other outlets globally. OverDrive has just this week signed up a deal to take content to and bring content from Japan.

And news just in – Baker & Taylor now supply ebooks to Canadian libraries. Those of you with Smashwords or Bookbaby should see some benefits.

But back to Scribd.

One of the downsides to Scribd is concerns about piracy. Scribd operate a two-tier service and the free file-sharing platform does seem open to abuse, as pretty much anyone can upload anything. The premium platforms – including the ebook subscription service – appear to have resolved this problem. The fact that a major publisher like HarperCollins has signed up with them should reassure those with concerns. Bottom line is, piracy happens. It happens on Amazon, on Kobo, etc. It’s something we have to live with.

But Scribd isn’t sitting back and hoping for the best. They have a new system in place – Book ID – to help keep Scribd a healthy place for authors. Check out the details on Book ID here.

How to get into Scribd? You can go direct, but both Smashwords and Bookbaby now offer you an easy route in. Which is best? Hard to say at this stage as Smashwords titles have just started to get results and Bookbaby is a little behind them.

If you are with Smashwords for the other subscription service Oyster then I would recommend you go to Bookbaby for Scribd. Why?

First, it’s always good to spread the load. Putting all your eggs in one basket is asking for trouble.

Second, Bookbaby has a reputation for quality which Smashwords sadly lacks. Bookbaby requires validated epubs and ISBNs, which means only the more serious indie authors go there, and there are controls over what gets through. Smashwords is a free-for-all load-what-you-like option.

Third, Smashwords also has a reputation as a Triple X porn site, which Bookbaby most definitely has not. As above, Smashwords is a free-for-all load-what-you-like option.

But let’s end on a positive note. Scribd and the other ebook subscription services, along with digital libraries, are going to be major players in the coming years as more and more readers reject the idea of paying for a licence for every ebook they read and pay a token fee to a library or a monthly fee to a subscription service and read all they want.

Whether it’s Scribd, Oyster or some other subscription option, getting your ebooks into the subscription model and the digital library distributors should be your priority.

The readers are already there. Are you?

 

 Ebook Bargains UK

Far more than just an ebook promo newsletter.

Far more than just the UK.

Does Amazon Take Its Customers For Granted?

No, we’re not saying it does, but this is a suggestion by a respected economist over at Forbes this week, with the attention-grabbing headline Is Amazon Making A Big Strategic Mistake?

Economics reporter Panos Mourdoukoutas opens with this observation:

Of all big strategic mistakes leaders of fast-growing corporations make, one stands out: Taking the customer for granted. Blinded by growth, these leaders assume that their products and services are unique and indispensable, so customers will always be there to buy them at any price.

Mourdoukatos was talking about Amazon’s wider customer base, not indie authors, but he could just as well have been.

As we noted in a recent post, Amazon has just 65% of the US ebook market. As noted in other posts Amazon has seen market share plummet in Germany (estimates vary from 60% to 65%), has seen market share on a downward slope in Australia (the new Kindle AU store was a desperate measure to stem the decline – down to 65%) and Kindle UK saw the supermarket ebook store Sainsbury challenge the mighty Zon head-on in 2013. With Tesco’s Blinkbox Books to launch this spring we fully expect Amazon’s UK ebook market share to be savaged in 2014.

And this is just the ebook retail markets. This takes no account of the wider ebook market share being grabbed by subscription services like Oyster and Scribd and by digital libraries supplied by wholesalers like OverDrive (one hundred million digital downloads in 2013) and other distributors.

No, you won’t see this reported on many of the Amazon-centred indie blogs, but here at EBUK we are not (and will never be) an affiliate site, which means we are totally independent. We don’t make extra money on click-throughs on ebooks to selected retailers so we have no reason to favour one retailer over another, either in listings in our daily promo newsletters or when reporting on the global ebook market scene.

That said, don’t misconstrue anything here as anti-Amazon. Amazon is still the most important retailer for most indies, and even if Amazon drops below 50% of the ebook market that still makes it one helluva player.

But indies need to be aware of the wider debates about the future of their favourite ebook store, and of the ebook markets in general. It’s not 2009 anymore, Amazon isn’t the only show in town, isn’t the biggest retailer in many countries now, and may not always be the biggest where it is now the dominant player.

The savvy indie author plans for the next five years, not the next five weeks, and to do that they need to keep an eye on where things are going, not just where they are now, and certainly not to make plans on how things were yesterday.

Bricks & clicks vs bricks & lockers

Amazon is the online giant of the world. The world’s biggest online retailer. But one that struggles year-in, year-out to make a profit. As the Forbes report notes, Amazon in 2013 “amassed close to $75 billion in revenues at razor thin margins.”

Now $75 billion in revenue is not to be sneezed at. By any reckoning that’s serious money. But Amazon brought in that money with a profit margin of just 0.37%,  and while Amazon shares are still remarkably high there’s no question the shareholders are getting restless.

To put things in context Wal-Mart is the biggest retailer in the world. Period. While Amazon brought in revenues of an impressive $75 billion, Wal-Mart brought in a rather more impressive $475 billion. While Amazon managed a profit margin of just 0.37% Wal-Mart managed a far more substantial 3.6%.

 Gunfight at the UK Corral

 Wal-Mart doesn’t have an ebook store. Yet. But it’s coming.

One possibility is for Wal-Mart to buy the (supposedly) ailing Nook, as we’ve predicted several times, or even B&N itself.

Wal-Mart has been watching the rise and rise of Sainsbury in the UK and will not miss a trick as Tesco’s Blinkbox joins Sainsbury in a pincer attack on Kindle UK that will see the mother of all price wars in Britain this summer.

Indie authors – already banned from W H Smith, and blocked from Sainsbury and Tesco (so much for Barry Eisler’s assertion that indie authors have the same distribution capacity as trad-pub  authors) – don’t stand a chance as Kindle UK desperately price-matches Sainsbury and Tesco to hold its ground.

If you’re quietly smirking at the thought of a couple of backwater British grocery stores snapping at the ankles of the mighty Zon, think again. Tesco is constantly in the top five largest and most profitable retailers in the world, just behind Wal-Mart. It has pockets more than deep enough to match anything Amazon can do, and like Wal-Mart is it past fed-up with Amazon’s constant encroaching into supermarket territory.

While the online giant Amazon talks about developing a bricks & mortar presence but never seems to get past warehouses, retail lockers and vending machines, the big bricks & mortar retailers have been very actively laying the foundation for their bricks & clicks future.

And ebooks are going to play a very big part in that. Both Sainsbury and Tesco in the UK are working very closely with the Big 5 to make sure Amazon UK’s stranglehold on the British ebook market is broken this summer.

Earlier this month is a post entitled “What do we do if Amazon stops growing?” Futurebook’s Philip Jones noted that UK publishers were “unfeasibly excited” by the prospect of the Tesco Blinkox Books launch.

In the US it’s no coincidence that Wal-Mart recently grabbed Nook’s top man with the connections with the Big 5 in America.

Indies complacently putting all their eggs in the Amazon basket need to see the way things are trending, not the way things were. Change happens, with or without us.

Prime reasons for diversifying your marketing strategy

As we reported yesterday, while Amazon had nothing to say about ebook sales growth in its report for 2013 it was a very different story for Kobo, reporting over 40% growth.

Indies who choose to go exclusive with Amazon rely on the co-called “free bounce” (the sales boost that comes after a free run using KDP Select) and Prime loans (Select ebook titles are available for Prime members to borrow free) to counterbalance the lost revenues on other platforms.

But a glance at any indie forum will show most authors are seeing ever-dwindling returns with the free bounce. Prime borrows were a novelty a year or so back but with ebook subscription services like Oyster and Scribd (among many) offering all you can read for  $10 a month, and digital libraries offering more and more, the ability to borrow one book a month free with Prime from a very limited selection of Select titles is ever-less exciting.

In a report entitled “Amazon Prime memberships poised to tumble with price hike” last week Investor’s Business Daily noted,

After posting disappointing fourth-quarter results on Jan. 30, Amazon said it’s considering raising the price (of Prime membership).

Of course a rise in the price of Prime will be just one of many price hikes across the Amazon spectrum. We’ve already seen Amazon cut back on free delivery in both the US and UK, and other cost-cutting exercises are expected, along with price rises, as shareholders get ever more restless that the world’s largest online company can’t make a profit.

Yes, it’s been investing heavily, but so have Wal-Mart and Tesco, and they seem to manage just fine. In the Forbes report we opened this post with, Panos Mourdoukoutas, talking about over-capacity and weakening demand, concludes,

But with customers resisting a price hike, Amazon may find itself with too much capacity in the face of slowing demand, extinguishing already thin profit margins.

Is Wall Street ready for this prospect?

Never mind Wall Street. Are indies?

Retailer Round-Up

Amazon – all Amazon sites are accessible direct through KDP or through pretty much all aggregators.

Kobo – direct through Kobo Writing Life or through most aggregators.

OverDrive – direct or through Ebook Partnership.

Scribd – direct or through Smashwords or Bookbaby.

Update: we are advised Bookbaby’s feed to Scribd is purely for the Scribd store, not for the subscription service. For that you need to be with Smashwords. Thanks to Jim for the tip.

Oyster – through Smashwords.

W H Smith – not a chance.

Sainsbury – not a snowball’s chance in hell.

Tesco Blinkbox Books – not a fire-proofed snowball’s chance in hell even if you say please.

Update: There may be a back door into Tesco Blinkbox Books after all, See comments, and thanks to Jen for the tip.

Ebook Bargains UK

Far more than just an ebook promo newsletter

Far more than just the UK

Leading The Way – It’s The USA. Or Is It?

As we all know the USA leads the way with ebook innovation. Except when it doesn’t.

While America is busily congratulating itself on inventing ebook subscription services that have already been around in the rest of the world for years (in Latin America Nuvem de Libros already has one million subscribers in Argentina and Brazil, and is set to roll out across more of the continent in 2014), Europe continues to innovate in ways to reach readers.

As long ago as 2012 Random House Mondadori were putting ebooks on trains in Spain. Settle in your seat, scan a code with your smartphone or tablet and get to start reading for free. The hope being the traveller will want to continue reading after the journey and buy the book.

That’s the same Spain that has actually had an ebook subscription service – 24 Symbols  –    up and running for several years now.

And if you’re thinking Random House sounds familiar, yes, Random House Mondadori is the Spanish arm of one of the Big 5 publishers we’re always being told don’t know what ebooks are.

For the record Random House Mondadori are now called Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial and Mondadori is now called Literatura Random House. Which at least avoids confusion with the Italian publisher and ebook retailer Mondadori, who are very indie friendly and have a great English-language section.

In Germany, meanwhile, its books on buses. In a new initiative called Time4Books the German publisher Piper Verlag lets bus travellers download excerpts from a rolling range of Piper Verlag’s own ebook titles.

And yes, that’s the same Germany that has had ebook subscription services through Skoobe for the past two years.

We’ll be returning to the exciting opportunities offered by subscription ebook services in the near future.

Poles Apart

In Poland publishers are making the most of Amazon’s myopic attitude towards central and eastern Europe (which is to either surcharge readers or block downloads completely). Despite there being no Kindle Poland store, and very limited availability of Kindle devices in the country, there are a large number of Kindles flooding in from the many Poles who have been living / working in western Europe and who return with Kindle devices and Kindle accounts, but no Polish Kindle content.

Innovative Polish publishers are busily producing local language ebooks in multiple formats including mobi, so Kindle users can read them on their Amazon devices without having to shop at Amazon and pay the surcharge.

As well as Apple, Google Play and ‘txtr, all of which somehow manage to have dedicated Poland ebook stores without the need to surcharge (Jeff Bezos, are you listening?) there are a ton of smaller domestic ebook outlets catering for the growing number of readers going digital in Poland.

Ad of course Poles can also buy from Smashwords, Diesel and other US stores with international payment options and no territorial restrictions.

There are at least ten million English-speakers in Poland who might want to read English-language ebooks, buy English language print books or listen to English language audio books.

How widely are your titles available?

Sugar-Frosted Ebooks. They’re Gr-r-r-reat!

As reported previously, in Britain kids can now read ebooks while they eat their breakfast, thanks to the innovative supermarket ebook store Sainsbury, who advertise children’s ebooks on the back of their own-brand cereal packets, complete with a QR code you just scan with your tablet or smartphone.

That’s the same Sainsbury ebook store that late last year ran a competition to win tea at Downton Abbey, had Amazon desperately playing catch-up price-matching one-day 99p sales of big name authors, and this week is offering double Nectar points on in-store supermarket shopping every time you spend £5 on ebooks in the Sainsbury ebook store online.

Expect more innovative moves from Sainsbury this year, along with fellow supermarket Tesco, which will be launching the long-awaited Blinkbox Books in the very near future.

Bricks & Clicks vs Clicks  & Lockers

Selling well on Amazon UK? Enjoy it while it lasts. It won’t last long.

There’s going to be an indie bloodbath this summer as two tribes go to war. Sainsbury and Tesco are both off limits to indies right now, but will be discounting big trad-pubbed names to ridiculously low prices.

Grab yourself a ringside seat for the battle of the decade. Never mind the Rumble in the Jungle. It’s going to be Bricks & Clicks vs Clicks & Lockers as Tesco and Sainsbury go head to head with Amazon UK. They’ll be taking no prisoners and indie authors will be the casualties as Amazon fights to hold its ground against the biggest threat Amazon UK has yet faced.

And for those of you across the pond shaking heads and telling each other it will never happen here, don’t be too complacent. Walmart will be watching every move here in the UK.

* * *

Retailer Round-Up

We’re regularly asked, in comments threads and directly, how an indie author actually gets into all these ebook stores we mention, so hereon we’ll be ending each post with a brief retailer round-up covering each outlet we reference in the main post.

If anyone has any additional information, or corrections, do let us know. And if you’re reading this long after the publication date, do check more recent posts for updated information.

Nuvem de Libros – off limits to indies right now, and Spanish-language only.

24 Symbols – No direct access for indie authors, but we are exploring ways of getting in through third parties. More on that soon.

 Mondadori – Italy’s biggest ebook store is thoughtfully supplied by Kobo. If you are in Kobo there’s a fifty-fifty chance you’ll be in the Mondadori book store. Sadly Kobo’s distribution right now is such a mess we can’t be more optimistic than that.

Skoobe – No obvious way into Skoobe for English-language indies at this stage, but Skoobe have plans for an English-language version targeting the US and UK. You can sign up for advance notification here.

Time4Books – no indie access in the Time4Books initiative as its Piper Verlag’s exclusive project, but our guess is wholesalers like OverDrive will be launching similar initiatives soon that indies may be able to take advantage of. .

Google Play Poland, Apple Poland and ‘txtr Poland – Getting into one Google Play store gets you into all, and the same goes for Apple and ‘txtr.

Google Play can be accessed direct if you are in a Google Play country, although the portal is not that user-friendly. Alternatively, try the aggregator Ebook Partnership. Google Play have 44 stores globally and an ambitious roll-out programme this year.

Apple can be accessed direct if you have the right Apple equipment, or through most aggregators, including Smashwords, D2D, Xin-Xii, Bookbaby and Ebook Partnership. Apple have 51 ebook stores globally.

‘Txtr can be accessed through the Gardners wholesale catalogues or through Ebook Partnership. There is a pending distribution deal between ‘txtr and Smashwords, but that’s not official yet. ‘Txtr have eighteen ebook stores globally and an ambitious but slow-to-progress expansion programme.

We’ll be running a guest feature shortly on how to get into Gardner’s direct.

 Amazon Poland – Just kidding. The chances of a Kindle Poland store are about as high as a Kindle Papua New Guinea store. That said, we’d love to be proved wrong. On both counts!

 Smashwords – direct access through the Smashwords site. Not the smoothest of rides but a great little platform to be on for global reach even if you are not using their partner stores.

Diesel – although a California-based indie store Diesel is also accessible globally and can send out your ebooks wherever a buyer desires. Accessible through Smashwords.

Sainsbury – sadly while Sainsbury is probably (no official stats yet – it only went live last year) the second biggest player in the UK it is completely off limits to indies, and likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future.

Tesco Blinkbox – launching this spring, and no chance of any indies getting in here either. That may change, but not soon.

Ebook Bargains UK

Far more than just a promotional newsletter.

Far more than just the UK.

Digital Libraries, Subscription Services and Post-it Notes

You may think Post-it Notes – those delightful little yellow squares of paper that stick just where you need them but never where you don’t – have little to do with ebooks. But the ebook world is always stranger than you think.

We’ve mentioned in previous posts that the wholesaler OverDrive saw over one hundred million digital downloads in 2013, and that five million of those came from just five libraries in the US, and another million from a single library in Canada.

Indie authors largely dismiss libraries as irrelevant to their private little world, where readers are expected to pay cash up-front to a big retailer like Amazon that’s easy for the author to upload to, or go to hell.

But libraries have been at the forefront of literacy and book discovery pretty much since books were invented. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the Sahara Desert in West Africa one library in Timbuktu (yes, it’s a real place!) had more books than the prestigious university libraries of Renaissance and Enlightenment England.

In the twenty-first century, in England and America and pretty much everywhere else, libraries, far from becoming redundant as books go digital, are experiencing a whole new lease of life providing digital content to a public with an insatiable appetite for more.

Not just by making books available from established authors and publishers, but by publishing their own books and ebooks, and helping local authors do the same.

One library in Tennessee is leading the way, having partnered with IngramSpark to set up its own library self-publishing platform – both print and digital. The primary aim is to make the new books they create available in the library, with all the revenue coming back to the library. But of course they will also be putting these new titles out for sale on retail platforms, and for borrowing through other libraries.

Early days, but this is one more example of market fragmentation shifting reader focus away from the handful of mega-retailers that most indies are almost exclusively focussed on.

Too many indie authors have their heads in the sand about the way things are developing out there. Wake up and smell the coffee! Subscription ebook reading and library ebook reading are the new black.

Why pay Amazon, or B&N, or Kobo, or Sony for every single ebook you read when you can pay a token fee at the library or a monthly subscription and read as much as you like, with exactly the same ease and convenience as from an online retailer?

That may not be your thinking, but as the OverDrive numbers show – one hundred million digital downloads last year – it is the thinking of a growing number of people. We can expect the OverDrive numbers to at least double this year. More likely they will grow multi-fold.

Here’s the thing. You don’t own the ebook from Amazon or Sony or Google Play, any more than you owned a print book borrowed from the local library. Not convinced? Read the small print in the Kindle user agreement, for example.

Upon your download of Digital Content… the Content Provider grants you a non-exclusive right to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Kindle or a Reading Application… and solely for your personal, non-commercial use. Unless otherwise specified, Digital Content is licensed, not sold, to you by the Content Provider.

An Amazon ebook (or from any other big retailer – their T&Cs are almost identical) is licensed to you. It will never be yours, to lend, sell or otherwise recycle. It’s just an expensive way of borrowing ebooks long term.

The reasons most people progress from libraries to buying print books from bookstores are a) ownership and b) convenience. Digital libraries and ebook subscription services level the playing field.

As more and more readers come to this realization so more and more readers will gravitate to digital library and subscription services.

Don’t let these exciting opportunities to reach readers pass you by! These outlets are not going to cannibalize your beloved Amazon sales. They are going to compliment them.

In the USA it’s Oyster, Scribd and Entitle that are leading the way with ebook subscription services. Yay! Go, Go, USA!

Though actually ebook subscriptions have been around in Europe for several years.

Denmark does them. Germany does them. Even Russia does them. Spain’s 24 Symbols has been going for several years and – you’ll like this – it has an English-language portal and offers English language ebooks!

Like we said at the top, the ebook world is always stranger than you think.

OverDrive and Ingram got a brief mention above. Just two of the big wholesalers that supply ebooks to libraries (and retailers) around the world. There are others.

If you are with Smashwords then you may be getting into some libraries through Baker & Taylor. If you are not with Smashwords, which also gets you into the Oyster and Scribd subscription services, then you really need to take a second look at your distribution pattern. Smashwords is far from perfect, but the above outlets, along with Flipkart, India’s biggest online store, are places you could be gaining new readers for your titles, and Smashwords is an easy route in..

The number of digital libraries is going to expand rapidly over the next few years, at home and abroad, soaking up readers who might otherwise have gone to the big retailers we all know and love. Those OverDrive numbers will go from hundreds of millions to off-the-scale in the coming years.  Will any of them be your ebooks?

It’s not 2009 anymore. You need to be in the wholesaler catalogues and as many distribution channels as possible, if you want to stay ahead of the game. And that means not just the obvious places.

We began this post with a mention of Post-it notes. Post-it notes are made a company you’ve possibly seen the logo for but have never given a second thought to. Take a look at the bottom right hand corner of the Post-it logo above.

Never heard of them? Don’t worry. They’ve never heard of you.

But here’s the thing. 3M don’t just make Post it notes. They are a global production and services operation that have a surprisingly diverse portfolio. Among the many strings to their bow 3M one of the leading suppliers of ebooks to libraries in the US through the 3M Cloud Library eBook Lending System.

If your local library uses the 3M Cloud you can download ebooks from the library direct to your Nook, Kobo, iPad or iPhone, or your Android device. But as their site says, “The 3M Cloud Library is not currently supported by Amazon.” Draw your own conclusions…

This week 3M took their first tentative step abroad with a foray across the border into Canada. Given 3M’s impressive global reach across a diverse range of products we can safely assume 3M has further international expansion in the pipeline.

The ebook world is changing by the day, getting bigger, better, faster. It doesn’t care for geographical boundaries, myopic indie authors unwilling to step outside their comfort zone, or how many of your ebook sales currently come from Retailer A or Retailer B that make you dismiss the rest as irrelevant.

The ebook market is driven by readers, not writers. It’s something a lot of indies seem to have trouble grasping. So let’s spell it out.

We authors only supply the content.

Readers supply the demand.

If your titles are not in the outlets where the readers are getting their ebooks from around the world – be it Uncle Joe’s 24/7 Mini Ebook Store & Car Wash, the latest ebook subscription service, or the digital library at the end of their digital road – they will just read another author’s books instead. It’s your loss, not theirs.

it’s not rocket science. Being available is half the battle.

Go Global In 2014.

Or be left behind.

Ebook Bargains UK

Far More than just an ebook promo newsletter.

Far more than just the UK.