How to Publish an ebook with Smashwords

Here are the introductory basics about publishing with Smashwords:

1. Before you publish with Smashwords, sign up for a free account at Smashwords.com

2. The service is free, and you maintain ownership and rights for your book. Smashwords earns a small commission on all sales.

3. You must be the original author of your book, or the exclusive digital publisher.

4. Your book must be complete, and it must be edited and proofed. You cannot publish "works in progress" or partial books at Smashwords.

5. Smashwords publishes books in all subject categories and genres. However, Smashwords does not publish public domain (out of copyright) works, or works that appear elsewhere on the Internet under other authors' names.

6. The book must be formatted as a Microsoft Word .doc file. Smashwords has a free ebook called the Smashwords Style Guide which shows you how to format the book to Smashwords standards. Don't try to publish at Smashwords until you've studied and implemented the Style Guide.

7. After you format you book to the Style Guide, you should create an ebook cover image. If you don't already have an ebook cover image, Smashwords can refer you to a low cost cover designer who can create an image for you for between $35 and $50.00.

8. Once your book is formatted and you have an ebook cover image, you sign into your Smashwords account and click "Publish."

9. After you upload the book to Smashwords, Smashwords automatically converts the book into nine ebook formats, making it readable on any e-reading device.

10. The Smashwords team will evaluate your book for inclusion in the Smashwords Premium Catalog. The Smashwords Premium Catalog is what Smashwords distributes to large ebook retailers such as the Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and other leading ebook retailers. You want your book accepted into the Premium Catalog! The service is free.

11. Smashwords pays royalties on a quarterly basis.

Registration is fast and free, and required if you want to publish and distribute using the Smashwords service.

To signup for Smashwords, visit www.smashwords.com and click the link for "join," which will take you to the page at right. Fill out the form carefully.

Here are step by step instructions:

Email Address: Enter your permanent email address here. We honor a strict privacy policy. We will NEVER share, sell or rent your email address to anyone. After you complete this form, we will email you an acccount activation email to confirm your signup request. Click the hyperlink in that email to activate your account. Be sure to place "smashwords.com" on your email system's "safe list" because if our emails to you go to your spam filter, you won't be notified of your book sales or book reviews, and you'll miss other important service details.

Choose a screen name to generate your personal Smashwords web address: Choose a one word screen name. This screen name should match or approximate your pen name or publisher name. For example, my author name is Mark Coker, so I chose the screen name of 'mc,' which generated the following author page for me
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/mc <-- Note how my chosen screen name becomes part of my personal author page. This author page is where you direct your fans and customers to browse, sample and purchase your book.

Password: Choose a memorable password.
Password Confirmation: Enter the password again to confirm

First Name: This should match your pen name. Most authors publish in their real name, but if you publish with a pseudonym (a.k.a. a pen name), then enter your first name here.

Last Name: Your last name goes here.

Location: This is optional. Select your country so fans know where you're from. Smashwords authors come from every corner of the globe.

How did you hear about Smashwords?: This is optional. Tell us how you learned about Smashwords? Did you learn about it on this Squidoo lens? If so, tell us!

Smashwords has created a detailed formatting guide called The Smashwords Style Guide. Download it for free at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52 or click on the cover image at right.

Do not attempt to upload your book to Smashwords until you have formatted it to the Style Guide. By following the Style Guide, your book will be fast-tracked for acceptance into the Smashwords Premium Catalog, and will thus receive faster distribution to the major ebook retailers.

If you do not have the time, patience or ability to format your book to the Style Guide's requirements, click the "questions/comments..." link at the top of any Smashwords page and request "Mark's List," which is a list of low cost independent Smashwords ebook formatters and cover designers. Though before you consider hiring anyone, read the Style Guide. If you're relatively proficient with Microsoft Word, it'll show you how to format your book yourself so you don't need to hire anyone.

After you have formatted your book to the Style Guide and created an ebook cover image, you're ready to upload it to Smashwords.

Sign in to your account. Click "Publish" and up will appear the screen at right.

This page will prompt you with all the information we need to publish your book.

Here are some simple notes to accompany each step:

STEP 1: TITLE AND SYNOPSIS

Title: Enter your book title as you want it to appear. Your title should be in Initial Caps, not lower caps or ALL CAPS

Good: My Wonderful Memoir
Bad: MY WONDERFUL MEMOIR
Bad: my wonderful memoir

Synopsis: Enter your book description in under 400 characters. Yes, keep it brief. Tell the reader why they might enjoy sampling or purchasing your book.

Language: Enter the language in which your book was written

Adult content: If your book is not suitable for children under the age of 18, then label it appropriately.

STEP 2: PRICING AND SAMPLING

Choose a price for your book. You can make your book free, let readers choose the price (a feature unique to Smashwords), or select a particular price at or above $.99. It's best to end all prices with $.99. When you enter a price, a handy pie chart will appear to show you how your book's proceeds will be split between you, the retailer and Smashwords.

STEP 3: CATEGORIES

Select a category tree for your book. Categories increase the discoverability of your book. You can choose two sets of category information (recommended!!).

STEP 4: TAGS

Choose addition keywords, one at a time, to cover other important discovery terms not covered by your category selections. Limit your keywords to no more than ten.

STEP 5: EBOOK FORMATS

If your book is straight narrative (like most novels or narrative non-fiction), then leave all the boxes checked. The more ebook formats you offer, the greater your ability to reach more readers.

If you book has images, but the images are "nice to have" but not "need to have," then keep all boxes selected.

If you have images and the images are critical to the enjoyment of the book, then de-select (turn off) the options for Plain Text and Palm Doc, since they don't support images.

STEP 6: COVER IMAGE

Your book cover image should be a vertical rectangle (the height is greater than the width, just like your average print book), and it should be uploaded as a JPEG image. The image should be at least 600 pixels tall, and it should include your book title and your author name. More tips on how to create covers here: https://www.smashwords.com/about/supportfaq#covers

If you need a referral to a low cost cover designer (usually only $35-$50), click the "Comments/questions.." link at the top of any page and request "Mark's List"

STEP 7: SELECT YOUR BOOK FILE TO PUBLISH

Click the browse button to upload your book file, which should be a Microsoft Word .doc file. If you're using Microsoft Word 2007 or later, Word will try to save your file as a .docx file. Note the "x" at the end. To save your file as a .doc file, as required by Smashwords, within Word click "File: Save As: Word 97-2003". Word files must be under 5 megabytes. See the Style Guide for tips on how to shrink the file size.

STEP 8: PUBLISHING AGREEMENT

Before you upload your book, you should read the Smashwords Terms of Service at https://www.smashwords.com/about/tos This is the contract between you and Smashwords. By uploading your book, you certify that you have the right to upload the book to Smashwords, and that you are the original author or exclusive digital publisher. Violations of the Smashwords Terms of Service can lead to account deletion and forfeiture of any accrued royalties. Remember, Smashwords is a professional publishing service, so carefully read the Terms of Service.

Before you click the PUBLISH button, carefully review the entire page above to make sure everything is properly filled out and selected.

After you click PUBLISH, your browser may pause anywhere from 10 seconds to two minutes as it uploads your book to Smashwords. Next, you'll see the page switch to the conversion page, where you can watch the book convert in real time.

If after clicking PUBLISH your browser is bounced back to the same page, look for error messages. If you have difficult uploading, please review this helpful troubleshooting page: https://www.smashwords.com/about/supportfaq#Uploading

Smashwords distributes books to multiple major ebook retailers. By uploading a single file to Smashwords, your book can get listed in all the most important ebook retailers. Smashwords provides you centralized control over your ebook listing, and consolidated reporting and payments from the retailers.

Smashwords distributes over 40,000 ebooks each to the following retailers (July, 2011):

Apple iBookstore: Smashwords is an authorized global ebook aggregator serving Apple iBookstores in the U.S., Canada, U.K, Australia, France and Germany.

Kobo: Kobo runs not only its own popular ebook store at kobo.com, but also powers the ebook stores of Borders in the US, Borders in Australia, and Whitcouls in New Zealand. Kobo also operates over 100 local regional bookstores in multiple languages on multiple mobile e-reading apps.

Barnes & Noble: Smashwords has been distributing ebooks to Barnes & Noble for over 18 months. One of the largest and most important retailers.

Sony: Sony is an important retailer of ebooks. Smashwords also helps power the Sony Publisher Portal.

The Diesel eBook Store: Diesel is a leading independent ebook retailer. Smashwords powers the Diesel Ebook Publishing Portal.

Stanza: Stanza is one of the most popular ebook apps for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Over four million readers use the free Stanza app to sample and discover ebooks. All Smashwords books are listed in Stanza's native catalog.

Aldiko: Aldiko is the most popular ebook apps for the Android smart phones and devices. Over one million readers use the free Aldiko app to sample and discover ebooks. All Smashwords books are listed in Aldiko's native catalog.

Smashwords is an authorized global aggregator (distributor) to the Apple iBookstore. Apple has special publishing requirements, so Smashwords created an itemized checklist to help authors easily satisfy the requirements.

By clicking the image at right, you can view the checklist items at Smashwords, which covers special iPad requirements such as:

1. Pricing
2. Cover design
3. EPUBCHECK validation
4. ISBNs

Over 50,000 book authors have downloaded the Smashwords Book Marketing Guide. This FREE ebook summarizes the very most important things you can do to market your book. It contains over 30 do-it-yourself marketing ideas, all of which are free and easy to implement. Unlike other get-rich-quick marketing books, this book sets appropriate expectations and advocates only ethical marketing practices. Even if you don't publish an ebook, this free ebook is a must-read for every author.