Smashwords today added an adult filter to the Smashwords.com website.The filter prevents first time visitors and others from viewing content rated adult by the author/publisher unless the visitor specifically asks to see such content. It filters out such content from the home page, search results, category listings and tag queries.The adult filter was inspired by Google's "Moderate Safe Search" option, which is the default option for all users of the Google search engine.A clearly visible "ON/OFF" toggle link appears in the upper right portion of the visitor's home page screen so they can easily set their preference. Click the ON or OFF...

Backlist eBooks, a coalition of previously print-published authors, has orchestrated a sale this week at Smashwords that starts today and runs through May 22nd. Below you'll find a complete list of participating titles and coupon codes provided by the authors. The Backlist eBooks Merry May Sale features more than 51 working authors and nearly 200 books. The books were previously published by all the major publishers. It includes a half a dozen NY Times bestsellers and about the same number of USA Today bestsellers. As you might expect, some of the titles have earned major literary awards, including the Hugo, Nebula, RITA,...

Have you ever wondered where the most voracious ebook readers live? Probably not. It's a fun question, though, and for the the first time ever I present the data to you. I set out to determine which states ebook buyers live in, and then I wanted to know how the states stack up against one another. The numbers are surprising, especially when you look at per capita consumption. Here's how I pulled together the numbers below. Smashwords distributes over 20,000 ebooks to Barnes & Noble. They report to us a breakdown of sales by state. ...

Artist Nina Paley has created a cool collection of images for those ready to rail against DRM. She created versions for Readers Against DRM, Authors Against DRM, and Librarians Against DRM. If you share these sentiments, go to the ReadersBillofRights.info site, download the images and sprinkle them on your blog or web site. The images can be freely distributed, though please cite http://readersbillofrights.info as the source of the images. DRM stands for "Digital Rights Management." It's a copy protection scheme designed to prevent piracy. While few would disagree that authors deserve compensation for their hard work, the problem with DRM...

In the dark alleyways of publishing, an author uprising is brewing against Big Publishing. I’ve been thinking a lot about revolution lately thanks to the events unfolding in North Africa. My wife, Lesleyann, has friends in Egypt, and they’ve kept us up to date via email. Their dispatches alternate between fear, uncertainty, optimism and celebration. Revolutions are an awkward and messy business. They represent the end of one paradigm and the beginning of the next. While the root causes can trace back decades, when the uprising arrives it can occur with alarming rapidity. The events ...

Welcome to my annual Smashwords year in review where I report our progress and plans for the new year. 2010 was a breakout year for us. It was also a breakout year for our indie ebook authors and publishers. Exactly two years ago we were publishing 140 books from 90 authors. We thought that was fantastic for our first year in business. Last year at this time we hit 6,000 books from 2,600 authors and publishers. We were thrilled. Today we're listing 28,800 books from over 12,000 authors and publishers. We released 3,200 new ebooks in...

It's annual prognostication time when folks like me stick out their necks and try to predict the future. I invite you to join in the fun. Brush up your crystal ball and share your publishing predictions for 2011 in the comments field below. Earlier today, Jeff Rivera over at MediaBistro interviewed me for my ten book publishing predictions for 2011. I'll list five below, and then I encourage you to click over to Mediabistro for the full ten in his interview, Publishing Predictions for 2011 from Smashwords. If 2010 was the year ebooks went mainstream in the U.S., 2011 will be the year indie...

At first glance, Brian S. Pratt of Boswell, Oklahoma doesn't fit the stereotypical profile of a best-selling author. Yet he, and others Smashwords authors like him, represent the future of publishing. Pratt began publishing with Smashwords in early 2009. His first quarterly royalty payment was $7.82. While most authors would find that number discouraging, Pratt was encouraged. It was a start. In the quarters since, Pratt's earnings have grown, and in recent quarters he's become a veritable breakout success. Last quarter, he earned over $18,000 from sales across...

This is great news for Smashwords authors and publishers, who now gain access to the fast-growing Australian ebook market. In addition to Australia, Smashwords is an authorized Apple aggregator supplying Apple iBookstores in Canada, France, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. Just yesterday I returned from a five week speaking tour to Brazil, Australia and New Zealand. Unlike in the U.S., where ebooks now account for nearly 10 percent of the overall trade book market (and a greater percentage of unit volume), ebooks account for probably under percent of the book markets in Brazil, Australia and New Zealand. In other words,...

12 months ago, I outlined a crazy goal called The Billion Word March in which we'd aim to grow the Smashwords catalog from 150 million words published at that time to one billion by the end of 2010. I knew it was stretch, because it meant we'd need to grow the number of books published by 700 percent in 15 months. Yesterday, we surpassed our goal nine weeks early. I know some folks consider word count an odd measure of progress. I admit, it's an unusual metric. If you think about it, though, at an atomic level every word comprises an essential building...

 Smashwords author Charlene Bays Rothenberger yesterday published the 20,000th book at Smashwords at 8:23pm Pacific time.Two months ago we reached 15,000 books and five months ago we hit 10,000.To put the growth in context, we published 140 books in 2008, our first year of operation. By the end of 2009, we reached 6,000. We're on track to surpass 25,000 by the end of the year.Do numbers matter? Yes. Each new author at Smashwords brings more books, and more books bring more readers and more readers bring more authors who bring more...

On October 2 in New York, I'm giving a talk at the Self Publishing Expo Conference titled, "The Seven Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success."While preparing the presentation, I started thinking about how it's possible to succeed as an author yet still fail to achieve your full potential.Every author is the CEO of their own budding publishing empire, full of unrealized potential. Decisions you make today will determine your success in the future.We all make multiple decisions every day, and some of our decisions will inevitably prove incorrect or ill-conceived. The secret...