Adding Your E-Book to Smashwords

Before you publish your e-book at Smashwords, you’ll likely need to make changes to your Word manuscript. Smashwords works by running your manuscript through its proprietary (and unpleasant-sounding) Meatgrinder feature. It creates published versions of your e-book in multiple formats, to give readers as much choice as possible — without creating extra work for you.

The following sections explain how to fine-tune your manuscript formatting and then upload the final version to Smashwords.

Following the Smashwords guidelines

You can download the Smashwords Style Guide for free at www.smashwords.com/books/view/52 .

The Smashwords Style Guide has quite a bit of information to review, but Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords, wrote the guide in a beginner-friendly way — you definitely don’t need to be a technical expert to use it. Read the guide before starting to format your e-book.

If you follow the instructions in Chapter 4 for formatting a Word manuscript, you shouldn’t have much work to do. Follow this crucial advice:

The manuscript must contain no more than four consecutive line breaks anywhere. If you insert lots of line breaks in the front matter of your e-book or between sections or to end chapters, for example, you have to take them out.

Your e-book must have a copyright page. It likely already has one, but at Smashwords, the page must include Smashwords edition (or similar) wording.

Do not use fonts larger than 18 points. Don’t even use them on the cover page or in the front matter.

The simpler the formatting of your manuscript, the more likely Smashwords is to accept it — and the more likely it is to reproduce well in various forms.

If you have trouble formatting your manuscript correctly, you can pay someone to do it for you, starting around $35. Smashwords will supply a list of people to contact for this task — e-mail [email protected] to receive an instant, automated response.

Creating or amending your copyright page

Although most manuscript errors don’t completely prevent the publication of your e-book by Smashwords, a copyright page that’s missing or incorrect does. The copyright page in your e-book must include these elements:

The title of the e-book

Your name

The word Copyright followed by your name and the year of publication

The phrase Smashwords Edition or Published at Smashwords (or, if you prefer, Published by XYZ Publishing at Smashwords)

Of course, you can also include other details on the copyright page, this list shows only the minimum required elements. You can view examples of acceptable copyright pages at www.smashwords.com/about/supportfaq#copyright .

After your e-book manuscript is ready, you can add it to Smashwords, as described in the next section, “Filling out the details of your e-book and uploading your manuscript.”

Don’t worry if your manuscript isn’t in perfect condition. Smashwords displays AutoVettor errors if it discovers potential formatting problems. Immediately after uploading your file, you see a message about these errors and a link to review recommended modifications. You can view recommended modifications from the dashboard. (Click the Dashboard tab at the top of any Smashwords page.) The Premium Status column displays the words Needs Modification and provides a Details link for you to view recommended changes.

Filling out the details of your e-book and uploading your manuscript

To add your e-book’s details and upload your manuscript to Smashwords, follow these steps:

1. Log in to Smashwords, and click the Publish tab.

You should see the publishing form, shown in Figure 14-2.

2. Complete these areas on the form:

• Title: Supply the full title (and subtitle, if you want) of your e-book.

• Short Description: Add as many as 400 characters (about 80 words) to describe your e-book briefly. Readers see this description while browsing Smashwords and viewing your e-book or a list of search results. Some retailers also use it.

• Long Description: Write as many as 4,000 characters (about 800 words) to add detail about your e-book. This description appears on your e-book’s page at Amazon, and most retailers use it, too.

• Language of Book: Select from the drop-down list the main language that your e-book is written in.

• Adult Content: If your e-book is unsuitable for readers under 18, select My Book Contains Adult Content.

• Price: You have three options: Offer your e-book for free, let readers choose how much to pay for it, or charge a specific amount. If your e-book is available on Amazon, you must charge at least as much as its price at Amazon. If you don’t, Amazon discounts your e-book.

• Sampling: Make at least 15 percent of your e-book available for free so that readers have a chance to get hooked. A free sample is also required for some mobile app catalogs. If you prefer not to make a portion of your e-book available, deselect the Enable Sampling check box.

• Primary Category: Start by selecting a broad area that fits your e-book, such as fiction or nonfiction. A second box appears, with a list of subcategories — select the best fit. In many cases, a third box appears, and you select another subcategory. Categorizing is necessary because it helps readers find your e-book. Avoid choosing an ill-fitting category simply because you believe that it might be popular — you’ll run the risk of having to endure negative reviews from disappointed readers who expected something different from your e-book.

• Secondary Category: If you want, you can give your e-book a second category. Again, make sure it’s relevant.

• Tags: Tags help readers find your e-book by topic, theme, or type. For example, if you’re written a collection of humorous short stories about cats, you might choose the tags cats, kittens, humor, and short stories. After you start typing tags, Smashwords automatically offers a list of suggestions based on tags that other authors and readers have used.

• E-Book Formats: By default, all formats are made available. If your e-book has lots of images, disable the Plain Text option. You should have no reason to disable any other formats — the more you allow, the more readers you can cater to.

• Cover Image: Click Choose File and select a cover image. Your e-book can’t appear in the Premium Catalog (for distribution to e-book retailers) if it has no cover image. The cover file can be in GIF, JPG, or PNG format.

• Select File of Book to Publish: Click Choose File, and select the .doc file that contains the Smashwords version of your manuscript. Note that the file must be a .doc file — you can’t upload a .txt (plain text) or .rtf (rich text) file here. If you don’t own Microsoft Office, you can download the free Open Office word processor and create the file in that program.

3. Read the publishing agreement and then click Publish to start the publishing process.

You should see the screen shown in Figure 14-3 — the number of books in the queue in front of yours depends on the time and day.

An e-book normally takes just a few minutes to be published; the site e-mails you when the e-book is ready. The e-mail also notifies you about any potential problems that the AutoVetter has found in your manuscript.

Previewing your EPUB file

After your e-book is published, you should ensure that the major formats are displayed correctly. Smashwords lets you download all versions of your own e-book for free by following these steps:

1. Click the Dashboard tab near the top of the page.

Your dashboard opens.

2. Click the title of your e-book to see its page on the Smashwords site.

3. Scroll down to the Available E-Book Reading Formats option to download your book.

The EPUB version of your e-book is the one that will be distributed to major retailers, so download it and view it in an e-reading app on your computer or on your e-reader (unless you have a Kindle, which doesn’t read EPUB files). You can use Calibre to view EPUB files and for file conversion (See Chapter 8 for more information about Calibre.) If you have an iPad, you can use the iBooks app to view EPUB files.

If you notice any glaring errors (such as incorrect characters, a lack of paragraph indents or spacing, or sudden font changes), return to the original manuscript to correct the problem. You can upload the manuscript again from the dashboard by clicking the Upload New Version link in the Operations section.