Kindle v Smashwords
Discussion – do people have any plus or minus points in either direction? Do authors have to prepare everything twice to submit to different bodies? If time is too tight, how do we choose the best forum?
My short 64(ish) page cat books are always illustrated and I am reasonably competent using MS Publisher (2007) for graphic design, which easily leads on to creating a .pdf which my Printers are happy with. Uploading to Amazon Kindle has so far caused only a few problems mainly around the occasional loss of pictures. Admittedly I need to find time to spruce up the formatting for Kindle and resubmit a special version, subtly different from the Print one. An early readers picture book with very few words and many illustrations refused to upload correctly and lost most of the drawings – Kindle's expert response was to abandon .pdf and reformat as a Word doc.
Looking again at Smashwords – they need MS Word (2003 version) and formatted to their Style criteria, seems best for words, with images allowed as an afterthought. Their 10mb file limit restricts to only limited image inclusion.
As a UK based optimist, I see that should any revenue be gained by sales, both Amazon and Smashwords have agreements with US Inland Revenue which means they auto-deduct 30% tax that can be claimed back after applying. The procedure for registering appears laborious, although that is more the tax people's imposition.
My children's illustrated cat books, Louisa's Ginger Nuts Series, sell very poorly in print from my ebay shop, which is mainly for Moorcroft pottery and Beatrix Potter ceramics. On Amazon Kindle I am seeing quite a good take-up via the 5 free days special promotion in each 3 month KDP period, followed by buyers paying for other downloads. I have recently found that I can offer the printed books via normal Amazon and just needed to increase my normal retail price to cover their fees!
Signing up under KDP means sole rights, so the same title cannot be shown under Smashwords.
I like the fact that a book can be free for any length of time on Smashwords (not so on Kindle) and where normal pricing is used, that you can generate coupons (again not from Kindle) to offer as promotional gambits.
My next books in the same series are well underway, the best bits being the writing and illustrating, (and possibly graphic design), so when it is time for the boring, difficult bits (formatting and marketing), I wish to avoid repetitious work down the wrong avenue.
Thank you for your useful replies.
Mark, I believe all your points to be correct, based upon knowledge obtained through Facebook groups devoted to authors and self publishing. Although I am yet to find a clear objective analysis of the pros and cons anywhere. The extra bit I would add is that you can publish your book on Kindle very quickly and the exclusiveness only applies if you also sign up for KDP. Some people may be tempted to use subtly different titles on the different regimes, since that is probably the way their computers cross-check.
There are so many offerings from self published authors; if I examine for example, the Amazon category I go under, namely, children/illustrated/animals/cats/humour, I can see that my humble offerings drown in a sea of mediocrity!
There is a point here which many people must have come across. I published via Smashwords and like their service, but it was only after publishing that I realised they distribute to all publishers automatically... apart from Kindle where they only send a small percentage and you can apply again after £2000 of sales. While my book was free, it seemed to be doing okay for downloads, but now, even though only priced at $1.99, the lure of other free books has completely stopped any smashwords sales. I am awaiting figures from Kobo, ibook etc as they can take a month plus to come through apparently.
So I have applied to Kindle (which takes at least 6 weeks) via KDP but was not aware it has to be an exclusive deal, therefore forcing me to discard a huge alternative choice market if I want to go down that path!
Does anyone have any clear information on this subject. Also having to look into lulu and creatspace now, so very busy and certainly no time to start my next book
My experience and thoughts on them both are these:
(i) Yes, you have to format differently for each. The Smashwords guide is pretty comprehensive and seemed to work well. Amazon is a bit more difficult and can produce inconsistent results. I'm afraid I've no idea how they work with illustrations.
(ii)Sales on Smashwords are negligible compared to those on Amazon, but since they distribute to a large number of big retailers, you should be in their catalogue as well. Just in case.
Best of luck!