A New Feature from Smashwords: Presales

smashwords-logoThis week, Smashwords issued an email announcing a new feature: Presales. It’s a special, patent-pending feature available to authors who have books on pre-order. Here’s what the email had to say:

Introducing Smashwords Presales

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could provide your most loyal readers the ability to purchase and read your next book before the general public?

And wouldn’t it be cool if ebook retailers gave readers the option to sign up for your private newsletter, rather than having your future relationship with the reader mediated by the retailer? Continue reading “A New Feature from Smashwords: Presales”

Smashwords’ 2017 July Summer/Winter Sale

From the Smashwords Blog:

It’s summer in the Northern Hemisphere and winter in the Southern Hemisphere.  This can mean just one thing:

It’s time for the ninth annual Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale!

Enrollment is now open for our annual indie ebook extravaganza.  The sale kicks off July 1 and ends at 11:59pm Pacific on July 31.

The sale represents a massive collaborative marketing event for Smashwords authors and publishers.   Each author and publisher – simply by promoting their own books – helps expose those same readers to the thousands of other participating books.

For one month only, readers can discover tens of thousands of special deals 25%-off, 50%-off, 75%-off and 100%-off (FREE!).  So whether readers are looking for a great beach read or something to keep them cozy on a cold winter’s night in front the fireplace, they’ll find it here.

When the sale goes live, the catalogue will appear linked on the Smashwords home page. All participating books will have their participation noted on their individual book pages.

Go to https://www.smashwords.com/dashboard/sitewidePromos to enroll your books.

Smashwords Hooks Gardners, Expands Distribution in UK

smashwords-logoStarting today, titles you have listed through Smashwords will be shipping to a new distributor: Gardners, the largest book wholesaler in the UK.

Smashwords CEO Mark Coker announced the deal on his blog last week. Erotica titles are not included.

Gardners may not be a household name – even to readers in the UK – but it’s the force behind a host of eBook sales sites, including hive.co.uk and books.telegraph.co.uk in the UK; bokus.com in Sweden; saxo.com in Denmark; and takealot.com in South Africa. Continue reading “Smashwords Hooks Gardners, Expands Distribution in UK”

Smashwords Preorders

SWpreordersIt’s been about a year since Smashwords began beta-testing its preorder feature, and it’s been live for everyone for six months, give or take. Mark Coker was excited enough about rolling out the feature to everyone that he even put together a PowerPoint presentation on leveraging it to your best advantage for your new release.

When I saw that PowerPoint, I got all fired up about using it for the release of Undertow in March. So I did a whole bunch of stuff suggested in the presentation: I uploaded the book file a couple of weeks early, set the introductory price low (99 cents), mentioned the availability of preorders prominently on my blog and Facebook page, stuck the info in a newsletter, and sat back and waited to hit the big-time on release day. Continue reading “Smashwords Preorders”