Making Simple eBooks and Making eBooks Simple

San Francisco, November 2, 2011

Mark Coker Founder, Smashwords

@markcoker

Our Simple Mission

Make ebook publishing & distribution

Fast

Free

Simple and…

… and profitable for our authors, publishers, agents and retail partners

Simple is Good

• Simple is faster, smarter, cheaper

• ~80%* or more of ebook units sold are “simple”

• Simple = well-formatted straight narrative, or narrative + images

• Complexity bad

• Added cost & risk for publisher

• Added cost to consumer

*BISG estimates 51% of ebook units sold are fiction. Fiction is narrative. My assumption: 60%+ of remaining 49% is narrative, or narrative + images

What Matters to Readers?

“Foo foo” is the frilly stuff most readers won’t miss if it’s not there, like drop caps. Kind of like lint in the belly button. Readers want well-formatted,

accessible and quality books with great words. This is what I think. You’re welcome to think different.

How are simple books working for us?

31,000+Number of authors, publishers, agents served by Smashwords

7,000+ebooks released at Smashwords last 30 days

82,000+ebooks published at Smashwords

0100002000030000400005000060000700008000090000

2008 2009 2010 2011

Indie ebooks published at Smashwords

140

6,000

28,800

82,000 (11/2/11)

How did we do it?

Bags of VC Money?

No. We haven’t accepted a penny of venture capital money, nor do we want it. We’ve been profitable for 13 months.

Army of super-hero ninja squirrels ?

No. We’re 11 people (up from 3 one year ago).

Did we shake down authors?

It’s against our DNA to charge fees. We earn a commission if we sell something, and earn nothing if we don’t.

No bags of money, squirrels or shakedowns.

We provide FREE publishing and distribution tools

We never stop making our tools faster, simpler, better

Here’s how we make books

Step 1: BYO Word Processor & Manuscript

MicrosoftWord

Open OfficeWriter

Step 2 – Implement our Formatting Tips(over 130,000 copies downloaded!)

Step 3 – Instant, FREE ConversionSmashwords Meatgrinder

High-quality multi-format conversions for narrative & narrative + images, fast/free updating

Meatgrinder creates quality books that make readers happy …

Reflowable

Custom styling

Hyperlinks

NCX navigation

Automated formatting error detection and correction

EPUBCHECK compliance

Instant updates/revisions

Meatgrinder limitations

• Although we think Meatgrinder is cool, it’s not without limitations, so here’s where we think we need improvement

• Doesn’t support direct .epub/.mobi/.pdf/ etc uploads of pre-formatted files

• Drop caps weak

• Support for bullets and numbered lists needs improvement

• Hand-coded books (as opposed to automated conversions) will always provide more precise control (but do readers really care about foo foo for simple books??)

Step 4 - Distribution to Apple, B&N, Kobo, Sony, Diesel, others

Final Thoughts

• Simple works great for vast majority of books readers want to buy

• fiction

• narrative non-fiction

• Simple is good for books, good for authors/publishers/agents/retailers

• simple books can also = high-quality books

• cuts production costs/risks

• faster time to market

• enables lower prices for consumers

Thanks for listening!

Connect with Mark Coker:

Web: www.smashwords.com

Blog: blog.smashwords.com

Twitter: @markcoker