Studying data can turn up surprising information, but it's important to get the best results in what you do. Smashwords CEO Mark Coker recently released the results from data that was mined during an 11-month period from May 1, 2012 to March 31, 2013. This data studied trends of more than $12 million in sales for 120,000 Smashwords e-books. One of the more interesting findings that came out of the study was that longer works actually sell better. “The top 100 bestselling Smashwords books averaged 115,000 words,” Coker wrote on his blog. “When we examined the word counts of books in other sales rank...

Self-publishing has a lot of advantages and just as many countervailing drawbacks. The biggest advantage is, of course, you get to be your own boss and can publish whatever you want to, without some publisher taking a cut of the money. But the dark side of this freedom is that it can leave you vulnerable if some big company with money and lawyers decides it doesn’t like what you’re doing. And even if their claims are completely outlandish, it will cost you money you don’t have—more money than your book will ever make—to fight them, and you don’t have any guarantee...

If you happen to live in any of the North American East Coast regions that are expected to be clobbered by Hurricane Sandy sometime later tonight, our thoughts are with you, and we hope you and your loved ones are duly prepared with all the necessary emergency supplies. If you're lucky enough to still have electricity, this would be an ideal time to plug in and power up all your electronic gadgets. Your cell phone should be at the very top of that list,  of course, but you might be wise to power up your e-readers, tablets and laptops, too. That way, you'll have at...

"We knew this day was coming," writes Smashwords founder Mark Coker, on his company's blog.  "Self-published ebook authors are landing on the New York Times bestseller list in a big way." As for myself,  I cancelled my subscription to the Sunday Times ages ago (too expensive; impossible to read in one week), so I probably won't get a chance to experience the irony of seeing this on newsprint. But in this Sunday's edition of the Times' E-Book Fiction Best Sellers list, you'll see a total of four titles written by Smashwords authors. That's four, people. Four. Four! That's not a typo. In fact,...

While perusing the ConQuesT dealer room, I stopped to talk to Tyree Campbell, managing editor of small press publisher Sam’s Dot Publishing. He was kind enough to consent to a five-minute interview, in which he discussed how his small press operates: Me: How long has Sam’s Dot Publishing been in operation? Tyree Campbell: As Sam’s Dot it's been operating since 2002. My predecessor was on-line mostly; we're in print. My predecessor was mostly on-line since 1986. So we've been around for a while. Me: So you were formerly an on-line publisher? Tyree Campbell:...

Fast Company has an interview with Mark Coker of Smashwords in which he discusses the recent moves by PayPal to force removal from sale of certain categories of erotica, and how public pressure from writers, readers, the press, and others was able to make the company (and the credit card companies behind it) back down. He also expresses his opinions on the agency pricing anti-trust lawsuits. Perhaps the most interesting thing to me is the remarkable bit of luck Coker had when he was first trying to contact PayPal to find out how to fight the requirements: ...

Until recently, the main formatting tools that self-publishing writers could use to create e-books were expensive desktop-publishing applications that cost a lot of money to buy and a lot of time to learn. (I’m not counting Calibre here because Calibre is a conversion app—you still have to do the actual writing and formatting in something else.) However, the $50 writing and note-keeping app Scrivener has changed that. Scrivener can export e-books in PDF, Kindle, EPUB, and Word (required for Smashwords) formats, among others. On his blog “Writing is Hard Work,” independent author and English teacher Roger Colby...

Perhaps feeling a bit stung by the storm of criticism brought down by its decision to insist e-book sellers pull specific types of erotica, PayPal’s Director of Communications Anuj Nayar posted an explanation on the company’s blog, explaining that unlike a number of other payment services, it does allow its service to be used for erotica in general. Nayar insisted that “PayPal is a strong and consistent supporter of openness on the Internet, freedom of expression, independent publishing and eBook marketplaces.” However, it didn’t want to allow itself to be used for the more extreme sorts of erotica...

Paul forwarded to me an email from Michael O’Neil from the National Coalition Against Censorship, with a press release noting that the NCAC and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) are mobilizing to put pressure on PayPal to reverse its requirement that online bookshops stop carrying certain kinds of erotica. Scribd carries a copy of the open letter the organizations sent to PayPal. The press release says: The ABFFE and NCAC letter notes that PayPal’s policy has the potential to suppress important literary works.  “Incest, rape and bestiality have been depicted in world...

Remember when Amazon started removing various kinds of erotica from its store? It’s happening again, this time with a number of independent e-publishing sites such as All Romance and Smashwords. Today, Nate Hoffelder called attention to an e-mail from Mark Coker of Smashwords to authors who publish through the platform. Coker reported that PayPal had issued Smashwords an ultimatum regarding certain categories of erotica published through the site. If books in these categories were not removed, PayPal would stop doing business with the site. Because Smashwords relies so heavily on PayPal as a payment processor, the site is...

Rumors have been flying about the Apple event announced for later this month. It seems pretty obvious that it’s about time for a new iPad to make the rounds, of course, but Good eReader thinks that Apple is going to announce a new self-publishing platform. “Sources close to the matter have told us that they intend on launching a new digital self-publishing platform to get peoples content into the iBookstore,” writes Michelle Kozlowski. She notes that it’s currently possible for independent authors to get on the iBookstore through Smashwords, but the Apple program will be designed to give authors...

When I started my “Cheap Reads” series, I expected I would be posting a number of entries. I never expected it to be limited to just two for all this time! Fortunately, I’ve found another inexpensive novel that is highly worthy of mention. In recent weeks I became aware of a small-press-published novel that looked very interesting by one of my Facebook friends, Sara M. Harvey. It is called Seven Times a Woman, and is a tempestuous romance set in ancient Japan involving a kitsune woman named Rei-Rei, the god Inari, and a dragon Rei-Rei has to...