Smashwords / Nano

Smashwords/NaNoWriMo Promotion

Publish, Share, Track and Promote your NaNoWriMo Work-In-Progress

About NaNoWriMo
NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, takes place every year in November. Writers are challenged to start and complete a 50,000 word novel between November 1 and November 30. This year, over 200,000 writers are expected to participate. Learn more athttp://www.nanowrimo.org/

Smashwords is providing this promotion as a free public service to NaNoWriMo participants and their fans. Smashwords is not an official sponsor of NaNoWriMo, although we are a huge supporter and we encourage all authors to participate and to financially support the great work of NaNoWrimo. To make a tax-deductable donation to NaNoWriMo, visit https://store.lettersandlight.org/

About the Smashwords/NaNoWriMo Promotion
Smashwords is opening up the Smashwords platform to allow all NaNoWriMo participants to publish, share, track and promote their works-in-progress.

All NaNo books will receive promotion via:

1. A special catalog hosted at Smashwords.com
2. A special catalog in the native catalog of Stanza, the #1 most downloaded (2.5 million +) e-reading app on the iPhone and iPod Touch.
3. A special catalog in the native catalog of Aldiko, the #1 most popular e-reading app for Android phones
4. Promotion in the Smashwords blog, on Twitter, and elsewhere!

How to list your book as a NaNoWriMo title at Smashwords:

1. Sign up for free with Smashwords (if you're not already a member) http://www.smashwords.com/signup
   Between November 1 (12:00am PST) and November 30 (11:59pm PST), publish your NaNoWriMo novel:http://www.smashwords.com/upload/nanowrimo
2. You can set the price of your book to FREE (recommended if you want to get the most readership), or you can set a price let readers pick their own price if you want friends, fans and family to financially support your month of writing madness. Free is better! If you do charge people to read your book, we suggest you donate your proceeds during November directly to NaNoWrimo to support their great program.
3. During that same time period, whenever you feel like it, upload a new revision of your novel by going to your Dashboard and clicking "Upload new version" next to the title: http://www.smashwords.com/dashboard
   And yes! readers will always be able to fetch the latest version!
   A dynamic display of a bar graph and other statistics on your book's public info page will help you and your fans follow your progress.
4. Please note: Our word count may not match the official NaNoWriMo one!
   Send your friends, fans and family to Smashwords to read your novel, other NaNoWriMo novels, and to discover thousands of other great ebooks! http://www.smashwords.com/
5. If you write 50,000 or more words by November 30th, you'll see "Goal reached!" (If you finish after November, we'll show your latest progress, but also point out that you eventually did reach the goal.)
   
   
6. REMEMBER: Smashwords is providing a fun way to publish (and sell, if you want) your new novel. You still need to sign up for NaNoWriMo and submit your book there, too, to participate in the offical contest! http://www.nanowrimo.org/user/register

How to Promote your NaNoWriMo title at Smashwords:

1. Use the social media links on your book page to share your book with friends, fans and family
2. Encourage your friends, fans and family to share your work in progress with friends, using the social media links
3. Celebrate your Nano entry by posting links to your Nano book at Smashwords, so fans can download your work-in-progress, readable in multiple DRM-free ebook formats!
4. Review our free ebook, The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide, for additional marketing tips. Smart book marketing begins before you release your finished book, so star now!

The Details

• Since you cannot begin your novel until NaNoWriMo starts, you cannot add your book to Smashwords until then, either. (In other words, your book must have a "published" date at Smashwords within the month of November, or it won't be listed on this page.)
• The book must be within the Fiction category at Smashwords.
• During the month of November, whenever you upload a new revision of your work, its NaNoWriMo word count will be updated automatically.
• Your book's participation in NaNoWriMo will be listed on the book's info page at Smashwords, along with the latest word count we saw during November.
• Even after NaNoWriMo is over, please keep updating your book at Smashwords. And when you finish your novel, remember to uncheck the Work in Progress setting for your book!
• PLEASE NOTE: Smashwords does not send your book or word counts to the official NaNoWriMo site! To officially participate in the contest, be sure to sign up at NaNoWriMo.org and update your book there, too!
  Click here to register at NaNoWriMo.org >

After NaNoWriMo is Over

How to Publish Your Finished Book on Smashwords

When you finish writing your novel, and after you get it properly edited and proof-read (ALL books need many revisions and edits before they're truly ready to publish), and after you have carefully formatted it per the requirements of the Smashwords Style Guide, you can return to your Smashwords Dashboard, upload the finished version, and uncheck the "Work in Progress" setting to make it 'live' on Smashwords and eligible for free, Premium distribution to major online retailers such as Barnes and Noble, Sony, and others to be announced soon. Learn more about how Smashwords can distibute your book on our Distribution Information Page.

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Home| About IBPPG| What is Indie?| Indie Book Awards| Membership

What Is Indie Book Publishing?

In an article at CNN.com titled "If it's cool, creative, and different, it's indie," journalist Catherine Andrews wrote:
"The term 'indie' traditionally refers to independent art -- music, film, literature or anything that fits under the broad banner of culture -- created outside of the mainstream and without corporate financing."
Although many independent book publishing companies are incorporated, they are independent of the major conglomerates that dominate the book publishing industry. Independent book publishers include small presses, mid-size independent publishers, university presses, e-book publishers, and self-published authors.
Like other independent artists, many indie book publishers face challenges that the industry giants don't experience. We typically have to work a lot harder to get our books into retail stores (or our authors onto Oprah) and ultimately into the hands of readers. As Chris Anderson reports in his bestselling business book The Long Tail:
"More than 99 percent of music albums on the market today are not available in Wal-Mart. ... Same for any other leading retailer and practically any other commodity [including] books... The vast majority of products are not available at a store near you."
Yet independent book publishing is thriving in spite of the challenges.
According to Bowker's Books in Print, their preliminary estimates indicate that the number of books published in 2010 jumped from just over 1.3 milion in 2009 to over 3.1 million in 2010! Of these, 2.776 million were "non-traditionally" published books, including print-on-demand and self-published titles although this number doesn't even take into account any books published without ISBNs or most e-books.

Next Generation Publishing - Article by Imogen Reed

There has never been a better time to be an indie book author.
The number of books published "non-traditionally" has increased exponentially in recent times. Whether you're a non-fiction writer burning to share your expertise on a particular subject, or a novelist keen to beguile readers with your imaginative creations, you have a larger range of options available today to you than ever before. The Next Generation Indie Book Awards celebrates this diversity and vitality by recognising and rewarding the best.
Publishing is changing at a bewildering pace, with new technologies and new players coming into the market and shaking up the book world from top to bottom. For those who find it all a little confusing, here's a brief overview.
Publishing Independently
The larger publishing conglomerates - the Big Six, as their often called, - may find it hard to take a risk on an unknown author or a work without obvious blockbuster potential, especially in these tough economic times. This is where small and medium-sized independent publishing companies come in, as they're often willing to sign authors who might not fit the mold in mainstream publishing. Many indie publishers specialise in particular areas such as genre fiction, poetry, niche non-fiction or academic publishing. They can prepare your work to be read and enjoyed - that is, take on the editing, book design, printing, etc. - and, crucially, get your book to the right readership and make sure they know about it.
Printing on Demand (POD)
Printing a quality product used to be an expensive business necessitating large print runs. All that changed with the advent of digital printing and the development of Print on Demand technology. Suddenly it was possible to produce high quality books at much lower cost, and it's now become economically viable to print off single copies of a title when an order is actually received. This is the ideal system for many smaller publishers - university presses, for example - and many indies have converted from traditional printing systems to POD.
Reading Electronically
If you've travelled on public transport over the last decade, you'll have noticed the dramatic increase in the number of commuters with their noses buried in tablet reading devices - Kindles, iPads, Sony Readers, Kobo eReaders and the like - instead of paper-based books and newspapers. There's more to electronic publishing than e-readers, however: for quite some time now, people have been able to access books on websites or as PDFs on personal computers.
Electronic booksellers such as Amazon, with its Kindle bookstore, and Apple, with its iBooks store, have been luring book buyers into the online environment in ever larger numbers. With the arrival of tablet reading devices, gone is that terrible fear experienced by many booklovers that they could be left without anything to read after the stores are closed. Kindles and iPads have a marvellous inbuilt home delivery network that pings a new book into your device in an instant. No surprise then that e-books are a huge growth area for independent publishers.
The mainstream publishers are also cashing in on the power of online, producing e-versions of their traditionally published books enriched with video, author interviews and other extras. For some bestselling authors, the e-book version of their work accounts for as much as 50% of their overall sales.
Publishing yourself
Some authors choose to publish their work themselves. This means they are responsible for the entire process including book design, formats, price, distribution, marketing & PR. There are many companies offering services to self-publishers who can assist with all or part of this process.
Authors today can make use of the Internet's unique distribution and marketing mechanisms - the search engine; bloggers and website curators who may review your book; the e-bookstore and its suggestion algorithms (recommendations of the "people who bought this also bought..." variety). If a self-published writer is very, very lucky, his or her work may get puffed by a popular blogger or lauded by a high-ranked tweeter. If the book "goes viral" it may even be picked up by a mainstream publisher.
Winning over the readers
There's no guarantee this will happen, however, no matter how good the book is, which is why the Next Generation Indie Book Awards are so important. Firstly, winners in a wide range of categories receive the validation and recognition they deserve from the experts on the judging panel. Secondly, by celebrating and publicising the independent publishing sector, the Awards help put indie books into the hands of a greater number of readers, which is a big win for everyone, authors and booklovers alike.