More good news from Smashwords.
Back in July we ran a post about how, despite promises, indie ebooks being delivered to one of the world’s biggest digital library distributors, OverDrive, were not actually being made available to readers. (LINK)
This in follow-up to a story on The Digital Reader in June explaining how Smashwords titles were being shunted into an “indie ghetto”. (LINK)
As we noted in our July post, this wasn’t an anti-indie policy per se. Indies using other means to get into the OverDrive catalogue were readily available for readers to find on the main OverDrive site.
We are now hearing from Smashwords-delivered indies that SOME of their titles are appearing in the main OverDrive catalogue (LINK).
It’s not clear yet if this is the early stage of a full flood of indie titles and that OverDrive have opened the ghetto gates, or if these are hand-picked titles selected by Smashwords and that the rest of us are still consigned to the can.
At this time a search for Smashwords as publisher (which all Smashwords-delivered ebooks will carry even though Smashwords isn’t our publisher) shows about 4,000 titles in the OverDrive store.
Out of 200,000.
So, either a long way to go as the rest filter through, or this is special treatment for a select few. Time will tell.
Do go check out the OverDrive store and see if yours are available. Do write to Smashwords and ask why not if they aren’t.
NB: As per our last post on Smashwords erotica, if you are an erotica writer your titles weren’t invited to OverDrive in the first place. (LINK)
Thinking digital libraries not worth bothering with? OverDrive saw over 100 million digital downloads in 2013.
Digital libraries, like ebook subscription services, increasingly offer a far better deal for readers than ebook retail stores. The reason being when you buy from Amazon, Nook, Google Play, etc, you only buy a licence to read the book. The ebook is not yours to keep, lend or re-sell. So why pay full price when you can pay a token fee or read free at a digital library or pay a monthly fee and read as much as you like?
The only reasons are convenience and availability.
Savvy readers will be getting the best of both words by using subscription services and libraries and just using retail store for the few titles they can’t get any other way.
Savvy indies authors will be making sure they are available where the readers are.
Mark Williams - The International Indie Author 